50 things I saw on my hundred-and-umpteenth walk up and down the Olympic Park
Neatly labelled vegetable seedlings, uplifting Post-It, 20 cranes, outstretched cormorant, lady refilling ice cream chiller cabinet, 290 flowering daffodils (up from five a fortnight ago), Gin On The River, two Muslim teenagers in their Friday best, outdoor gymnast, security guard wondering why I'm writing notes on the back of an envelope, greyhound with dangling medallion, drizzle, a dozen new pedestrian crossing push-buttons inside protective cardboard packaging, embracing anoraks, more magpies than the traditional rhyme enumerates, two padding wolfhounds, murky ripples, waterproof mattress surrounded by worldly belongings, jogger on her second circuit, four phallic mushrooms, errant oak seedling, heron swooping low above the Channelsea River, horticultural operative wielding massive leafblower nozzle, translucent satchel containing two table tennis bats, electric truck parked inside cafe, mother and child in matching scarlet woolly hats, greenfly, smoke ventilation specialists on call, dandelion clock, labrador ineptly searching for an orange ball, lycra-clad cyclist riding the mothballed segment of the mountain bike course, two bags of shopping whizzing home aboard an e-scooter, cartwheeling leaves, oxeye daisy, new cafe with plush velour cushions and three entirely unoccupied staff, lame "free coffee in exchange for money" slogan on chalkboard, 3D windfarm model, abandoned Waitrose trolley, new porch to enhance alfresco winter dining, ten foot artificial Christmas tree, steaming Dutch barge, graffitied gabions, Come In For A Chat + Sniff, barber with a pair of wings tattooed behind his ears, half a dozen unsold pastries, chef in apron firing up oil-drum barbecue, row of greenhouses with bells in, Mr Messy mug in narrowboat galley, wastewater facility caretaker, crouching policeman cautioning BMW driver.
Four years ago TfL published a tube map with Morden in the wrong fare zone and had to reprint half a million copies. The error occured when the trams were added to the map, because adding a new mode of transport is always tricky. This week they've added Thameslink to the map... and an eagle-eyed reader reckons there might be another error in southwest London. Has Tim spotted a serious blunder? See what you think.
All the new Thameslink stations are in their correct zones, so it's not that. But the problem is zone-related and affects Hackbridge, isolated on its little Zone 4 island. The map includes a white stripe immediately to the north of Hackbridge, labelled clearly at both ends as being in Zone 5. This suggests that travelling one stop from Hackbridge to Mitcham Junction involves passing through Zone 5. But in fact both stations are in Zone 4, so that's incorrect.
There's more. Follow Zone 5 to the left, past West Sutton and Morden, and the white channel magically morphs from Zone 5 to Zone 3. Ditto the thin white channel above the tram zone, which is definitely Zone 3 at one end but turns into Zone 5 at the other. Topologically speaking this is very wrong - the two zones shouldn't touch.
The underlying problem is the 'London Trams fare zone' which is grey. Grey zones are not allowed to touch each other at any point, otherwise their boundaries would become indistinguishable. This means the tram zone can only touch Zones 3 and 5, not Zone 4. Unfortunately Hackbridge and Mitcham Junction are both in Zone 4, which is grey, and Mitcham Junction has a tram stop which is grey too. TfL's map designers have therefore had to add a thin white dividing line either side of the tram zone, and they've made the gap above Hackbridge so wide it sends totally the wrong message.
Not wrong, but certainly peculiar, is the triangular Zone 5 island surrounding Sutton. Its presence means that Zone 4 gets to bend underneath Zone 5 whereas in real life it crosses to the north. Again the underlying issue is that Zone 4 and the tram zone are the same colour. The trouble with inflexible rules, however good the intention, is that they sometimes force you to find impractically contorted solutions.
Including zones on the tube map introduces all sorts of awkward constraints. Lines have to bend awkwardly and stations have to be irregularly spaced to fit them in. Removing zones would neutralise various issues. But zones are also important as a check on how much your journey is likely to cost, which may not be an issue you have but I'm one of those who find them invaluable.
To remove the white trenches and solve the Hackbridge issue requires the breaking of a rule.
I'm going to suggest shading the tram zone green rather than grey. A very light green, so as not to be too intrusive.
The green colour permits Zone 4 to nudge up against the tram zone, problem solved. It also allows me to kill off Triangular Sutton Island by placing Zone 5 underneath Zone 4 which is where it ought to be. I think it's hugely clearer, but remember I have broken a rule so it's probably not allowed.
In the meantime TfL have published a tube map which suggests journeys between Hackbridge and Mitcham cost more than they actually do. It is perhaps fortunate that the printed version isn't being released until next month.
Once upon a time the tube map only showed the tube, but inexorably it's become a TfL map instead. The DLR appeared in 1987, the Overground in 2007, TfL Rail in 2015 and, more questionably, the cablecar in 2012, the trams in 2016 and river piers in 2019. But TfL have now gone one step further and added a service they neither fund nor operate, plus 49 additional stations, as Thameslink squeezes in. » press release/jpg/pdf/video
It's not as intrusive as it could be because the designers picked a weak purply-pink colour and used a dashed line. Also most of the new stations are south of the river where the map's always had more space. But it is still quite intrusive... and depending on your point of view also quite welcome.
The core section of Thameslink originally appeared on the tube map between 1987 and 1999 as a freshly-hatched connection across the heart of zone 1. Since then it's been absent but TfL finally have bowed to pressure for Thameslink's return, in its entirety, for reasons of pandemic safety. The official reason is to "illustrate more through London travel options while customers need to maintain social distancing", i.e. a diagrammatic reminder that this high-frequency service exists. It's ironic that the new map was launched on the same day London entered tier 3 and TfL had to advise passengers not to travel.
At present this is only a temporary addition, the plan being to review the situation at the end of 2021 and then decide whether Thameslink stays or goes. No paper maps will be released until next month, either in poster or pocket form. Even the digital version wasn't readily available yesterday, with the TfL website still linking to the old one and the press release being text only.
Thameslink's core section is likely to be the most useful addition. This starts at King's Cross St Pancras... or King's Cross & St Pancras International as it's suddenly been rebranded. The station already had six lines and three blobs, now it has seven and four. Thameslink then has to curve around the three tube blobs to reach Farringdon. A simpler right-hand alignment could have been used if Farringdon's blobs all were the same colour, but they're not so it can't.
City Thameslink is the only extra station in Zone 1 and is shown with a walking connection to St Paul's. Pick the right exit and they're about 500m apart. At Blackfriars the Thameslink station spans the Thames so someone's decided its blob should be on the southern bank, which perhaps makes interchange with the tube look longer than it really is. The line then promptly splits, aiming for either Elephant & Castle or London Bridge. The London Bridge connection will be especially useful when most of the Bank branch of the Northern line shuts for several months next year as part of a capacity upgrade, and this closure may also have encouraged Thameslink's inclusion on the 2021 map.
But the real gamechanger is that TfL haven't just stuck to portraying the core, they've included every Thameslink station in zones 1 to 6. This means two branches head north from King's Cross, one heading for (but not reaching) St Albans, the other aiming for Welwyn Garden City. The St Albans branch weaves untidily across five existing lines because it had to somehow link Kentish Town to West Hampstead. All three West Hampstead stations are now shown separately on the map, adding to the clutter. The line extends as far as Elstree & Borehamwood, which is in Zone 6 but not in London. Meanwhile the Welwyn branch almost slips into the gap between the Northern and Piccadilly lines, but the Finsbury Park connection adds considerable kink.
South of the river the twistiness is even more extreme, mitigated (as previously mentioned) by the paucity of existing stations. The express connection between central London and East Croydon appears on the map for the first time, which is dead useful, but the existing tram loop gets in the way somewhat and the continuation through Purley and Coulsdon runs perpendicular to reality. Also dead useful is the connection between London Bridge and Greenwich, which'll hopefully encourage future tourists to go the quick way rather than take the DLR. This particular branch continues through the existing DLR blob at Woolwich and the future Crossrail terminus at Abbey Wood as far as Dartford, bringing the borough of Bexley and the county of Kent onto the tube map for the very first time.
The other southeastern branch cuts across Lewisham towards Bromley South and again reaches Kent. It's unclear why Swanley and Dartford, both in zone 8, have been included on the map, but residents won't be complaining. Some of the stations on this line are really quiet by TfL standards, for example Ravensbourne and Beckenham Hill both have fewer passengers than Roding Valley. But the new map's three least used stations are all on the Sutton Loop, namely Morden South, South Merton and St Helier. This quiet circuit usually merits only two services an hour, way below the sixteen through the core, but its appearance does mark the tube map debut of trains in Sutton.
49 extra stations out of 509 in total means that 10% of the new tube map isn't run by TfL. They've even gone to the effort of pointing this out in the key, reminding anyone seeking mobility assistance to contact Thameslink instead. The key also mentions that Heathrow Terminal 4 is closed until further notice, as is the Waterloo & City line, and that there's currently no Night Tube or Night Overground service, Truly these are extraordinary times.
Now I have some queries.
Thameslink also operate a service on the East Grinstead line, but only at peak times, which may be why Sanderstead, Riddlesdown and Upper Warlingham haven't been included. But the map's designers have included New Barnet, Oakleigh Park and New Southgate on the map despite the fact they don't currently have any Thameslink trains at all. Plans exist to introduce a peak stopping service from Sevenoaks to Welwyn Garden City but this hasn't yet been introduced, nor is there a date to do so because the usual December timetable changeover has been indefinitely postponed. Why are these three stations on the map when the other three aren't?
Also the interchange circles at New Barnet and New Southgate are niggling me. Individual interchange blobs are an endangered species on the existing tube map as wheelchair blobs supersede them, but several linger on, for example at Amersham, Bushey and West Ruislip. Usually they mark a connection to an unseen service, or appear at the end of a line where an unseen service continues. I can see why Catford, Nunhead, Shortlands and Bickley might have been given interchange blobs in southeast London but I don't understand the rationale for New Barnet and New Southgate. Thameslink trains continue off the edge of the map, no lines diverge and I can see no practical interchanges to make. This is overkill, and the Welwyn branch would look much less intrusive were it blobless.
Which brings me to the little red National Rail symbols. Previously these indicated connections to National Rail services, which was pretty unambiguous. But Thameslink is a National Rail service, so what are they indicating here? On TfL Rail, which set a precedent, red symbols appeared at all the stations which shared services with other operators. But that's not the logic which has been applied to the Thameslink addition. If New Barnet and New Southgate have red symbols then Oakleigh Park should have one too. How can Charlton have one and Bromley South not? Why is Purley with and Coulsdon South without? Most mysteriously why did Woolwich Arsenal have a red symbol on the previous map but no longer does? Tube map rules applied inconsistently to a new rail line merely add clutter, and there's quite enough of that on the map already.
And where do you stop? If the rationale is to include National Rail services charging TfL fares then the line out of Fenchurch Street should be included, not to mention Stratford to Meridian Water and the Greenford branch. Or if it's really about frequency and capacity then Great Northern services out of Moorgate should make an appearance - they've been on the map before - along with the key connection from Victoria to Clapham Junction and beyond. It's no use arguing there isn't room, the tube map's already managed to leap from 200-and-something stations to 500-and-something without TfL's designers deciding enough is enough. Until Chessington South, Clock House and Crews Hill appear, is it even a proper tube map... whatever that used to be?
I should add, not knowingly. I haven't murdered anyone, nor been the cause of anything a court would define as manslaughter. But it is entirely possible, indeed likely, that at some point in my life my actions have ultimately led to someone else meeting a premature end.
We all interact with thousands of people every year, possibly more, or at least in a normal year we do. Some people we merely walk past, others we sit beside, buy from, talk to, work with, live with, even grow old alongside. Our actions are more likely to have an impact on friends and family, but everything we do has ramifications which affect the behaviour of others, and a tiny but finite number of those interactions will end badly for the other person.
I'm mostly thinking accidents. The majority of the population die from chronic disease, so it's unlikely I've contributed to that, but accidents require a particular chain of events to occur before their unfortunate conclusion. Take crossing a road, for example. Perhaps I pressed the button at a set of lights which delayed the traffic and caused one particular vehicle to cross the path of a lorry several minutes later. Or maybe I chose not to press the button which allowed one driver to proceed thirty seconds earlier than they might have done, spreading ripples throughout the rest of their journey which eventually led to an entirely different vehicle running someone over.
The chance of such an event occurring is infinitesimally small, of course, but I have crossed an awful lot of roads during my life. I'm over 20,000 days old so it's perfectly possible that at least one of my button-pushing decisions led to a bad outcome, perhaps in 1984 or 2006 or whenever, I'd never know.
Or perhaps the fatal decision was that time I hopped inside a tube carriage and prevented someone else from boarding, or a day I queued for a burger delaying the person behind me for a minute, or the homeless person I walked past without donating a quid, or the bench I didn't occupy in a park allowing someone else to sit down, or a myriad of otherwise trivial actions. Again I know that virtually all of these had no fatal repercussions whatsoever, but over the course of a half a century at least one of them might have resulted in a premature death.
Just by being on the planet my life has had enormous repercussions. My presence will have affected my own family most of all, which means all of their actions since 1965 have been subtly different too. Then there's everyone I went to school with, for example all the classes which would have proceeded differently if I hadn't been there. My place at university came at the expense of someone I probably never met, potentially affecting life chances and future careers. And as for jobs, well, just imagine how many lives your career has directly and indirectly affected over the years. One or more may well have ended badly.
As a blogger I have an additional source of potential regret, which is that I've inspired all sorts of people to do all sorts of things over the last 18 years. Hopefully almost all of that has been good, but I've often wondered if inspiring someone to go somewhere ever led to their final journey, or indirectly led to someone else's. My unsuspecting manslaughter tally after 8500 posts could conceivably be non-zero.
But this also works in reverse. I might instead have saved a life along the way.
I reckon the most likely candidate here is me selling my car in 1999 and switching to public transport. I was never the world's best driver so was relieved when a change of job allowed me to stop doing it. It's perfectly plausible that this decision has saved more than one life over the last two decades, including my own.
Or it could have been something more mundane. Perhaps that lorry approaching the traffic lights had been heading for an accident but my button push prevented it. Perhaps my tube carriage squeeze caused the unsuccessful passenger to meet someone unexpected two hours later and ultimately start a family. Perhaps one of my schoolmates ended up in a medical career because I decided against doing Biology A Level so left a place for them. Perhaps that post I wrote enticed you out of the house on the day you'd otherwise have had a nasty encounter with a stepladder. These events may sound ridiculously unlikely, but multiply them up and the probability of at least one life being saved is definitely finite.
Yes, I know I shouldn't really worry about any of this. Life is an unrelenting succession of decisions and choices, so any minor ripples I set off aren't ultimately my fault. The sheer interconnectedness of our lives means that millions have influenced the path taken, not just me.
If I did trigger a fatal car accident by pressing a button, that death was directly caused by someone else. It's free will which moves people to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, I'm not responsible. And even if I have indirectly shortened someone's life, indirect shortening isn't a crime. My conscience should be clear.
And yet...
We live at a time when an invisible virus is stalking the land killing tens of thousands. Most of us haven't got it, thankfully, but it's all too easy to assume and some of us are assuming incorrectly.
The virus is mostly spread by people who don't think they've got it but are wrong. Indeed one of the reasons this pandemic is so deadly is that the asymptomatic continue with behaviours that unknowingly favour transmission, simply on the basis that improbable is not the same as impossible. If 100 people are mixing in a public place then one of them is likely to be infected and who's to say it isn't you?
One misplaced cough or a prolonged social encounter could be the trigger for a new infection, and hence a chain of several more. A trip to the pub could kill nobody or hundreds, ultimately, should a single encounter ricochet for weeks through the local population. This message was high in our minds at the start of the pandemic when everyone was busy explaining what the R number was and creating graphics to explain exponential growth. But many people have dropped their guard somewhat since, forgetting that even a small number of individual actions may collectively have very serious consequences.
As Tier 3 descends and Christmas approaches, it probably won't be us that kills people but it might be. Conversely someone's going to end up dying prematurely and it might be directly our fault. What's more we may never realise what we've done, preferring to believe that if we don't see the end result then it didn't happen.
I sometimes wonder how many people I've indirectly killed. Whatever the number, I'm keen to keep it as low as possible.
Last month I posted a complete list of London's libraries and blogged about how the number has changed over the last 10 years. You helped me check it so I'm hopeful it's correct. The map below should therefore show the current number of libraries in each London borough. Red is proper council libraries and green is spun-off community libraries.
Hillingdon is London's library champion with 17 libraries, followed by Croydon and Bromley with 14 apiece. Meanwhile Harrow, Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea only have six. Enfield does really well if you include community libraries and really badly if you don't.
But there's more to it than just numbers. One reason Hillingdon's number is high is that it's one of the largest boroughs, whereas Kensington & Chelsea has a much smaller area so needs fewer. If you bash the figures Kensington & Chelsea is actually one of the five most generous boroughs by area and Hillingdon's in the bottom five. Bromley and Havering turn out to be the least generous by area with an average of four square miles per library (but of course a lot of their land is undeveloped Green Belt).
Or you could look at population. The City of London comes out on top with one library per 2200 residents, but that's because it has bottomless pockets. Three other boroughs provide one library for fewer than 20,000 people, on average, namely Hillingdon, Richmond and Westminster. Meanwhile the two boroughs with the weakest provision are Tower Hamlets and Harrow, each with more than 40,000 residents per library. Enfield is again either in the best category or the worst depending on whether satellite community libraries count.
Then there's opening hours. South Hornchurch opens two days a week, Cranford four, Palmers Green five, Ickenham six and Pimlico seven. And then there's staffing, and range of books, and IT provision, and learning opportunities, and whether it's a proper library or just a couple of self-service shelves in the corner of a leisure centre. Modern library provision is a multi-faceted thing.
But it's also very much subject to change. Even as the pandemic rages several boroughs are planning to downsize their library services long term. Bexley are in the process of consulting on shutting their libraries for an extra day a week and/or reducing staffed hours. Croydon's councillors are in dire financial straits so have made it known that Broad Green, Bradmore Green, Sanderstead, Shirley and South Norwood libraries may never reopen. And yesterday Tower Hamlets launched a consultation asking residents how many libraries they'd prefer to close.
Sorry, I have this habit of blogging a lot of background information before I finally get round to presenting the actual news at the nugget of my post. Six paragraphs and a map may be a record.
Tower Hamlets' consultation includes a tranche of data revealing how its current seven libraries have been used.
Visits
Loans
Staff
Space
Whitechapel
472,000
105,000
26
3500m²
Chrisp Street
350,000
123,000
14
1100m²
Bow
287,000
106,000
12
1100m²
Canary Wharf
250,000
145,000
11
940m²
Watney Market
290,000
94,000
12
1200m²
Bethnal Green
110,000
56,000
5
400m²
Cubitt Town
45,000
45,000
4
300m²
The first five rows in the table are Idea Stores, Tower Hamlets' pioneering integrated rebrand from the turn of the century, and the last two are your more tradional library. Whitechapel is the flagship, hence the largest number of staff. Numbers of visits and loans are annual totals. You might be able to guess which library is in trouble.
Sorry, I still haven't got round to presenting yesterday's shock news, this is still all background. I'll never make a journalist.
In common with councils across Britain, Tower Hamlets has to make even more cuts to its services over the next few years. The £4.4m which funds the library service annually is therefore in the firing line, with a need to cut the budget by more than a third. Around £600,000 of this is coming from digital innovations, which leaves £1m of physical cuts to be found. The consultation proposes two options.
Finally.
Option 1
• close Cubitt Town library
• reduce opening hours at Bethnal Green from 50 to 15 a week
• reduce opening hours at Watney Market from 65 to 30 a week (and close one floor)
• reduce Sunday opening hours and evening staffing levels at the remaining four sites
Option 2
• close Cubitt Town library
• close Bethnal Green library
• close Watney Market library
• maintain service levels at the remaining four sites
The fundamental choice is whether to close one library or close three libraries. When you only have seven in the first place that's a major cut. Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs closes either way. Bethnal Green and Watney Market either close or significantly downsize. It's very much a case of picking the least worst option.
That said Tower Hamlets would still have a seven-day-a-week library sevice, which is more than most London boroughs can muster, and the vast majority of the population would be within a mile of a library. Indeed you can see from the maps in the consultation that geographical location is very much behind the intended slimming down.
The consultation mentions that the council has a five year plan to focus on 'four well-placed Idea Stores', which would essentially be the second map with the Docklands location nudged a bit further south to cover more space. It also says that Bethnal Green and Watney Market will be run as satellite sites for Bow and Whitechapel respectively with a reduced service on offer. In other words the council is strategically keen on option 1, long term, and is merely waving option 2 around as scary justification.
This looks and feels like a consultation as window dressing rather than a genuine choice. But if the future really is just four libraries for 325,000 residents, the scythe of austerity really will have struck.
Tower Hamlets, the London borough with the worst library provision per head of population, is considering cutting its libraries to the fewest in any of the 32 boroughs.
That would have been a really strong opener. Put that first next time.
Following on from my hypothetical increasing road journey last week, I wondered about trying it with the names of the roads rather than the numbers.
How far can I get from home by following roads in alphabetical order?
I live on Bow Road, which is a very good start. If I lived on Violet Road or Wick Lane I'd not get far.
On leaving home I can either head towards the Bow Roundabout or head towards Mile End.
If I head towards the Bow Roundabout I can't join the Blackwall Tunnel Approach Road because that breaks the alphabetical order rule. Instead I have to continue across to Stratford High Street, which is officially called 'High Street' so that's an H. But I can't get as far as the Stratford inner ring road because the two roads there start with B and G so I need to turn off early. Options are limited but the best option is up Marshgate Lane into the Olympic Park. From here Sidings Street would take me to Westfield Avenue and the big shopping mall, just over a mile from home. In a few weeks time Marshgate Lane is going to be extended via Marshgate Terrace to Waterden Road, and that could get me 1½ miles to the northern edge of the park. But none of these are my best option, which means I won't be heading for the Bow Roundabout and this entire paragraph has been an exemplary diversion.
Best head towards Mile End.
Bow Road is hemmed in somewhat between two railways so there are few good means of escape. Campbell Road looks promising to the south, especially as it leads to Devons Road, but alas the best two roads across the canal both start with B. Meanwhile both Fairfield Road and Coborn Road lead north to Tredegar Road which leads to Wick Lane and this'd get me to the edge of Victoria Park, but that's not even a mile.
The odd thing about Bow Road is that it stops being called Bow Road well before the big crossroads where you'd expect a name change. The actual switch is at the end of Coborn Road, today a relatively insignificant street but originally the dividing line between the boroughs of Poplar and Stepney.
From here the main road becomes Mile End Road so I need to follow this west, and that's a fair chunk of alphabet used up already.
Grove Road and Burdett Road are now out of bounds, which is a shame because the latter leads to Commercial Road and from there I could have reached the North Circular.
Mile End Road continues for over a mile and eventually morphs into Whitechapel Road. I could go that far, and would were I trying to keep things simple, but instead I've chosen to divert off onto a historic (and lesser blogged) road.
Stepney Green looks unexpectedly characterful as you enter, curving between two Georgian terraces, one of which includes a painted advert for Daren bread above a former bakery. It gets even better around the bend as a thin strip of garden divides the street, resplendent with plane trees and chopped up by railings into four separate dogwalking segments. Down one side the road is narrow with bluish-tinged cobbles and an almost Dickensian feel, while the other is where folk park their cars and is overlooked by mid 20th-century flats. The finer mansion blocks predate the war, but the majority merely fill the gaps the Germans left.
The little clock tower by the park was moved here from Burdett Road in 1934 and has a door in one side for the benefit of whoever services the innards. Beyond is an older water fountain installed by a temperance supporter and inscribed with a poem which begins "Clear brain and sympathetic heart". The clock works better than the fountain. One end of a ruined chapel lingers at the top of Garden Street, secure behind railings erected by Crossrail project team C360. They've been building a shaft beside the City Farm for several years, marking the junction where the two eastern branches converge, and may soon finally be packing away their portakabins and returning the park to the people.
My next road, by an alphabetical whisker, is Stepney High Street. Conveniently I blogged about it earlier in the year as an example of a now-insignificant high street, so won't redescribe its few stunted metres, save to say it passes East London's oldest church and some goats.
My route is becoming more and more forced as my progress through the alphabet continues. But I have been very fortunate in the order these three consecutive Stepney streets appear.
Time to head back west along Stepney Way, one of London's many despoiled former country lanes. Architecturally it can't hold a candle to the delights of Stepney Green, having had all the character redeveloped out of it over the years. It's flats flats flats almost all the way, which is most of a mile, from low municipal fortresses to pre-war blocks with linear balconies. Interruptions come from a former Trumans pub (now a Halal Grill House), the Redcoat Centre (hosting what Tower Hamlets euphemistically call 'Day Opportunities') and an abandoned open-top Saab (outside what used to be The Artichoke).
At this point the 21st century massively intrudes, as Stepney Way ducks underneath the twin towers of the rebuilt Royal London Hospital. On one side of the tunnel is where the paramedics park up and the ambulances pull in, while on the other is the Urgent Treatment Centre's starkly-lit waiting area set out with widely-spaced yellow plastic chairs. Adverts on vehicles and windows urge you to donate to London's Air Ambulance, which could just be taking off from its rooftop helipad 18 floors above your head.
Turner Street is my only alphabetical way out, a road previously consumed by the hospital. Its northern section is where ambulances used to pull in to deliver patients to the previous A&E department - I remember it well. But these days it's much quieter, a service road for authorised vehicles only and a cut-through for medical staff on foot. And very conveniently it leads back to the A11, which I unnecessarily deserted several paragraphs back.
Mile End Road has now become Whitechapel Road, the changeover occurring back at the crossroads by the Blind Beggar pub. I've rejoined just after the market and just before the road narrows down on its approach to the City. The biggest building on this stretch is the East London Mosque, around which has grown up a cluster of shops selling prayer mats, abayas and 'modestwear'. The much-beleaguered Whitechapel Bell Foundry follows, the fight still on to prevent it evolving into some hideous luxury hotel with heritage cafe space. Altab Ali Park is the site of long-levelled St Mary's church, the original White Chapel, and much beloved by pigeons. And just beyond this Whitechapel Road becomes Whitechapel High Street, and I'm very much not allowed to go there.
I have one last throw of the dice, which is White Church Lane. This 100m one-way backstreet kicks off with a stone fountain and a graffitied red phone box, then narrows to a minor artery where the rag trade still pays. Drapers wait behind counters inside bazaars stuffed with fabrics, hats and jackets, or nip out to collect another delivery of baseball caps emblazoned with cannabis leaves in Jamaican colours. Annoyingly White Church Lane no longer has any streetsigns for me to photograph because the buildings they would have been attached to have been demolished. One's still flattened land and the other's now a luxury aparthotel without need of additional exterior signage.
And White Church Lane is, unsurprisingly, the final road in my chain. I've ended up at the western end of Commercial Road, not far from Aldgate, and 2½ miles from home. That's not a bad distance to have reached alphabetically, especially in inner London where roads are generally only short. I got lucky with my Bow/Mile End/Whitechapel chain, but I could have been luckier, and if you live on a long winding lane in the countryside you might be luckier still. Better still my Stepney diversion meant I walked over 3 miles to get here and passed a fascinating slice of London along the way. Not so much A to Z as B to W.
Bow Road → Mile End Road → Stepney Green → Stepney High Street → Stepney Way → Turner Street → Whitechapel Road → White Church Lane
Animal: AARDVARK Saint: ABADIOS Eurovision winner: A-BA-NI-BI UK station: ABBEY WOOD MP: ABBOTT Best Picture Oscar: A BEAUTIFUL MIND NT property: ABERCONWY HOUSE UK county: ABERDEENSHIRE Capital city: ABIDJAN Football club: ACCRINGTON STANLEY Element: ACTINIUM Tube station: ACTON TOWN Book of the Bible: ACTS OF THE APOSTLES US president: ADAMS Prime Minister: ADDINGTON Pope: ADEODATUS I Armed Forces rank: ADMIRAL FTSE 100: ADMIRAL GROUP English district: ADUR Country: AFGHANISTAN Blue Peter presenter: AKINWOLERE US State: ALABAMA Olympic host city: ALBERTVILLE Oxbridge college: ALL SOULS Shakespeare play: ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL Olympic sport: ALPINE SKIING SI unit: AMPERE Constellation: ANDROMEDA ABBA single: ANGELEYES British monarch: ANNE Month: APRIL Zodiac sign: AQUARIUS Ocean: ARCTIC Poet Laureate: ARMITAGE EU member state: AUSTRIA Shipping forecast area: BAILEY Tube line: BAKERLOO Mr Benn episode: BALLOONIST Angel Delight flavour: BANANA London borough: BARKING & DAGENHAM New town: BASILDON English city: BATH Diocese: BATH AND WELLS Ceremonial county: BEDFORDSHIRE Human bone: CALCANEUS Quality Street: CARAMEL SWIRL Nobel Prize: CHEMISTRY Platonic solid: CUBE Planet: EARTH Whole number: EIGHT
• negotiations paused after intense week
• talks have become "very difficult" (UK)
• chances of trade deal on a knife edge
• EU sources suggest breakthrough on fishing
• no breakthrough on fishing (UK)
• PM has inconclusive phone call with EU president
• "conditions for an agreement are not there" (EU)
• breakthrough on NI/Ireland border checks
• EU demands unacceptable (PM)
• PM flies to Brussels for dinner with EU president
• 'large gaps remain' after talks
• negotiations extended with Sunday deadline
• EU publishes contingency measures for no deal
• "strong possibility of no trade deal" (PM)
• no deal branded 'an Australian-style deal'
• UK urges EU to 'make a big change'
• it's still level playing field v. sovereignty
• EU leaders close ranks
• gunboats on standby to patrol UK waters
• trade talks continue but no deal anticipated
• overcrowded Nottingham Xmas market closes
• vaccine rollout 'a marathon not a sprint'
• Trump's chief lawyer admitted to hospital
• stay-at-home order in California
• cases rising in Wales (not rest of UK)
• record grocery sales in November
• first NHS patient receives vaccine
• world watches Margaret Keenan, 90, get her jab
• Oxford vaccine is safe and effective
• calls for London to enter tier 3
• a few patients allergic to Pfizer vaccine
• record daily death toll in US
• economic rebound slows further
• NHS waiting lists 100× longer than normal
• Canary Isles back on quarantine list
• France introduces curfew after 8pm
• self-isolation reduced from 14 to 10 days
• vaccine not a short-term solution (WHO)
• 5-day Xmas break a mistake, experts say
• highest restrictions eased in Scotland
Worldwide deaths: 1,520,000 → 1,600,000 Worldwide cases: 66,100,000 → 71,300,000 UK deaths: 61,014 → 64,026 UK cases: 1,705,971 → 1,830,956 FTSE: down 0.06% (6550 → 6546)
How does TfL stay financially afloat in the future? If you read the news yesterday you might assume it's byintroducinga£3.50boundarycharge for vehicles entering Greater London, but this is actually a teensy part of a 69-page report by an independent review body looking into TfL's financial sustainability (in which £3.50 is never mentioned).
The future of funding transport in London is potentially bleak. Slashed government grants have made TfL much more reliant on fares, changing travel patterns have meant fare income is in decline and COVID has more than cancelled out all the efficiencies previously introduced. The review body puts the funding gap at £2bn per year, their estimate based on the 'credible and prudent' assumption that passenger revenue falls 20%(!) by 2030.
There are numerous ways to fill that gap, for example TfL could do less, charge more, sell stuff off or demand more in grants and taxes. But not all of these options are large enough, realistic or fair, so tough choices lie ahead.
1) reduce operating costs
The following table shows examples of cuts, not a to-do list.
All the savings are the net result after taking loss of passenger revenue into account.
tube
• significant cuts to off-peak services • removal of Night Tube
save £35m
stations
• reduced staffing at gatelines and on platforms • some tube stations unstaffed • 10 tube stations closed at weekends
• further capacity reduction in central London • 150 lowest revenue routes removed
save £301m
other
• removal of Cycle Hire • closure of Woolwich Ferry • withdrawal of river services
save £48m
Some of these cuts would be really severe, while others have already happened during the pandemic. The Night Tube is already suspended, for example, and a number of stations did close throughout lockdown. But cutting off-peak tube services or closing parts of the Overground would be a different matter, and the Woolwich Ferry could only be suspended via an Act of Parliament. I suspect the cablecar doesn't get a mention because operationally it's peanuts.
But note that four out of five of these packages save less than £50m a year, so the only one that'd make a significant impact would be cuts to the bus network. Culling services in the West End might actually match declining passenger numbers, but the suggested assault on Outer London would be savage. If the 150 bus routes with the fewest passengers were withdrawn, for example, I reckon that approximately half of the routes numbered over 300 would be lost. Every 'R' in Orpington would go too, ditto every 'B' in Bexley and half the 'U's in Uxbridge, forcing thousands back into their cars.
Before you froth and get angry, the review body does not recommend significant service reductions as part of a financial solution because the cuts required would be too deep. But they do say "smaller scale service reductions could be justifiable and provide a contribution to closing the funding gap", so watch this space.
The only cost-cutting measure the review body does recommend is a review of pensions. The TfL pension model is both outdated and generous, they say, and must be modernised. Hardly any gold-plated pension schemes have survived this far into the 21st century, so bringing TfL staff a bit more in line with everyone else could reduce the funding gap by £100m a year.
2) increase funding from transport users
The report notes that in the late 1980s rail fares in London were comparable with Asian and North American comparators, but have risen substantially and are now 50-100% above the international standard. A big hike in fares is thus not recommended, just 'regular fare rises linked to wages' as the economy recovers. But the review body does see the benefit in considering an additional increase for "LU and rail fares for journeys to/through Zone 1", maybe as much as 25%, which could generate up to £500m per year. Any additional burden should rest on more affluent passengers, not bus users or those in the suburbs.
Another way to regain income would be to stop so many people travelling for free.
Concession
revenue lost
60+ Oyster
£131m
U16 Zip
£98m
16+ Zip
£78m
18+ Student
£33m
Bus & tram discount
£29m
Freedom pass (before 9.30am)
£25m
TfL loses the most money by allowing young people to travel for less, or for nothing, but this has "a positive social
impact and should be retained". Meanwhile a significant amount is lost to users of the 60+ Oyster card (that's those between 60 and 66 years of age) who get to travel around the capital for nothing despite probably having the wherewithal to pay. The review body recommends withdrawing it and continuing the suspension of the Freedom Pass in the morning peak, enabling a substantial revenue increase of up to £156 million.
Or road users could pay more. This fits better with a green agenda and would help to cut congestion. An anomaly means hardly any of the Vehicle Excise Duty paid by Londoners ends up funding London's main roads, so the review body says a slice should come to TfL. But that's a government decision, and even though they've suggested maybe handing over £100m nothing has been received so far.
Which leaves some kind of road user charging as the Mayor's best option. The review body provides two financial illustrations. Extending the Congestion Charge area to cover inner London at a reduced £5 a day could raise as much as £500m a year. A similar total could be levied by introducing a charge for crossing the Greater London boundary, "depending on the level of charge and discounts offered". This would be politically neutral for the Mayor because it'd only affect people who don't vote for him, but would throw up all sorts of borderline anomalies and cause a furore across the Home Counties.
3) reduce asset and capital investment
Don't defer investment, says the review body. Medium-term it saves nothing, and long term it only leads to a backlog which has to be tackled later. Also now is not the time for a one-off fire sale of land and assets. Perhaps better to raise council tax, introduce an employment levy, consider a VAT supplement or hike business rates... but this is looking increasingly like blue sky thinking. The best outcome would be if central government simply stumped up more money, but their reticence to do so is what got us into this mess in the first place.
Anyway, this is only a review meant to aid the Mayor in future thinking, not a shopping list of unpopular policies. What's interesting is that the sole nugget the Mayor's focused on in his press release is Vehicle Excise Duty, calling for the government "to allow the capital to keep the £500 million raised annually from vehicle excise duty charged to London-based drivers." And in mitigation all he's raised is the spectre of "a new Greater London Boundary Charge for non-residents which would apply only to vehicles registered outside London which are driven into the capital." Rattling drivers is safer than mentioning he might have to reduce train services or cut most of the buses in Orpington, I guess.
All we know for certain is that there isn't enough money for TfL to do everything they'd like to do in the future, so either we'll have to pay more or they'll have to do less.
70 things I saw on a long walk to a busy high street...
A dog walking a woman, a pigeon atop a memorial cross, flowering cherries, newly-refurbished sash windows, a Lime bike abandoned outside its designated area, a traffic warden with three electronic gizmos attached to the front of his hi-vis, a man pushing an empty pushchair, Santa Stop Here, a Tesco van with tinsel wrapped around the radio antenna, one ripe blackberry.
A new chilli-based takeaway, a woman carrying a roll of wrapping paper and a bag of Butterkist back from the shops, an Openreach van exceeding the speed limit, Ocado delivering canalside, the Gherkin over water, three dogs sniffing each other's backsides in an excitable loop, 13 joggers, a tree with yellowing unfallen leaves, a young couple kissing passionately beside a litter bin, three games of tennis.
A tied headscarf, a gnome on a red scooter, a vigorous outdoor weightlifting session, a frontgardenful of potted plants and fairies, a jeep with a Texan numberplate, a pensioner blaring out Son Of My Father by Chicory Tip while pushing a basket-on-wheels, a huge inflatable Santa, a grubby Gunners pennant, a truck carrying portaloos back to Maidstone, a Tudor house.
A 66 year-old black Citroen, two young men taking an inordinate interest in the architecture of Georgian front doors, an electricity worker up to his shoulders in a deep trench, Fanny Margaret's tomb, streaky pink hair, a man in a bobble-hat-and-shorts combo, municipal leafblowing, a flattened empty packet of Tunnock's tea cakes, a large pebble-filled pothole, a bored potter.
A flashing snowflake, a man coughing repeatedly from inside a snorkel hood, 55 mosaic hounds, a bench graffitied with a profanity insulting our Prime Minister, a comedy beard, two schoolboys using breaktime for a sneaky fag in the park, a ring of pilates, a mother loudly rebuking her toddler for 'fake coughing', a tiny unaccompanied dog, two damp Stella Duffy paperbacks abandoned on a wall.
A newsagent with Evening Standard branding across its shopfront, a chain of street trees bedecked with baubles and bunting, a sporty green Mazda MX-5 with a rainbow stripe, a poster for Now That's What I Call Music 107, lineside tree-felling, a ghost sign for a 50 year-old ironmongers, a closed bus stop, a closed theatre, a burrito counter in a former white goods repository, a sourdough takeaway.
A cafe offering Christmas lunch (including a glass of wine) for £9.50, a bookshop, a Post Office with queues inside and outside, another bookshop, a man collecting money for a mental health charity in a bucket, fresh steamed lobsters, racks of fruit and veg decorated with flashing lights, rolls of heavy duty refuse sacks, three vintage streetsigns on the wall above a Vietnamese cafe, mediocre civic illuminations.
...and 70 things I saw on the walk back
A cafe aimed at middle class children with moneyed mummies, a butchers doubling up as a wine shop, a paint-splattered man carrying two more tins, EstD 1894 Built 1929, a bus emblazoned with advertising encouraging me to visit Korea in 2021, a clock stopped at noon, a phalanx of six pizza delivery mopeds, a Post Office with even longer queues inside and outside, a rocking beggar, a bus map dated 27 March 2010.
Three lions' heads, shrieking children in a rooftop playground under a block of flats, a man marking the pavement around a bollard with an aerosol can of Survey Spray, grass growing in the segments of a manhole cover, a bush with a single yellow rose, a street with a festive name, an abandoned orange-scented cat scratcher, a Christmas tree on the desk in reception, advance warning of new width restrictions from 17th August 2016, a bottle of hand sanitiser dangling from a lanyard.
Christmassy windows, the name Zac Efron traced into concrete before it set, two mounted policewomen observing a squirrel, muddy puddles, a boy riding on the front of a cargo bike in a basket painted with shark's teeth, an empty bag of donuts, an avenue of planes, a woman in a leopard print coat cycling home with a Christmas tree strapped to the back of her bike, a disposable face covering improperly disposed of, a man doing pushups while resting his feet on Lancefield Hewit's memorial bench.
An excess of bollards, 'over 500 different types of light bulbs sold', Christmas Forest 8am-8pm, a bookshop, a dog yapping loudly at the queue for focaccia, today's breakfast special £6.30 (egg, bacon, sausage, chips, beans and two slices of toast), another bookshop, a dazzlingly white space for the purveyance of coffee, a 'Sold' board above an eel shop, Millie Is Still Missing (please check between your trellises).
A steam laundry, the Gherkin through a gasholder, an organic market selling biodynamic wine, a dozen taxis parked in a cobbled street, a pub apologising for not opening on 4th July, a padded front door, a painted crab, an orange Club biscuit wrapper, a mosque acting as a Community Food Kitchen, a single leaf resting on a windscreen wiper.
An abandoned hospital, a tattooed fish fryer smoking in the doorway of his chippy, seven Santas and a jolly snowman on an illuminated lawn, the nonplussed neighbour of the aforementioned display, a council block with an umlaut, a street named after a non-existent river, four solar panels on the roof of a canal boat, a family flouting the Rule of Six, a neighbour having a cheery chat while standing on his front wall, a man cleaning the windows of a former pub until they gleam.
Red tape being wrapped around a damaged brick wall, a parade of six shuttered shops, the gurdwara's wheelie bin, a hearse stopped at the traffic lights, bottles of de-icing fluid on special offer, a scruffy cider drinker chucking away a used roll-up, five bags of Christmas mail being unloaded into the back of an unmarked black van, the remains of a strip of police tape, a woman waiting for a bus in a cycle lane, an unexpected package resting against my front door (alas misaddressed).
I don't know how you're keeping yourself occupied during the pandemic, but I sometimes fill the time by asking pointless hypothetical questions. Like this one.
How far could I drive by following an increasing sequence of road numbers?
I live on the A11, so that would be my first road number. My next road number would have to be greater, for example the A12, which is convenient because these two roads interchange at the Bow Roundabout.
Numbers don't have to be consecutive so I can stay on the A12 all the way to Ipswich and change there for the A14. This takes me to Kettering where I can switch to the A43, then turn left onto the A47 near RAF Wittering, then change in Nuneaton onto the A444 to Burton-on-Trent. But my choices here would be somewhat limited so the best I could do is follow the A511 to its last junction just east of Uttoxeter. The only other road here is the A50, so numerically I'm now stuck, but I did manage to end up 118 hypothetical miles from home.
If I lived on the A1 I could have done a lot better... A1, M1, M6, A7, A8, M9, A9, A836, John O'Groats. But because I live on the A11 none of the single digit trunk roads and motorways are available which cuts out a lot of the most advantageous routes. Also the A7/A8 connection in Edinburgh only works if you accept historical alignments because Princes Street has been declassified, and these are the pedantic minutiae upon which today's challenge turns.
I was sure I could do better than 118 miles so kepttrying until I found a much longer route. I'm totally resigned to the fact that at least one of you is going to pick a hole in it. The road network has many topological imperfections, your local knowledge is much better than mine and there's bound to be a cunningly better route. But here's my best attempt as I hypothetically drive from Bow to the Scottish Lowlands along roads whose numbers only ever increase.
A11 → Bow Roundabout A12 → M25 Junction 28
The only rational start.
M25J28 → J13
That's anti-clockwise via Hertfordshire, because clockwise would require crossing the Dartford Bridge and this is officially the A282. Intersecting roads with two-digit numbers include the A41, M40, A30 and M26. But the A41 fades out in Bicester and the M26 is a numerical dead end, so not those. The M40 joins the M42 in Birmingham, then joins the A50, all of which looked promising but I got a bit stuck in Stoke. The M40 also joins the A40, and this goes all the way to Fishguard in Wales which is 215 miles from home. But by leaping into the forties prematurely I have harmed my ability to move up-country, so it turns out the A30 is the best way to go.
A30 → Yeovil
The A30 goes all the way to Lands End in Cornwall, which is an impressive 268 miles from Bow. But the A30 also crosses a lot of A-thirty-something roads so that's the way I intend to go. The A34 is the king of the north-south trunk roads but has a big gap between Bicester and Solihull so is of no immediate use. The A38 is almost as long but has been swallowed by the M5 for 14 miles just north of Exeter. Technically this is called 'multiplexing', where two designations share the same road, so I could argue it counts as a continuous road. But best take an alternative route with fewer technicalities along the way.
A37 → Bristol A38 → Alfreton
The A37 takes a less contentious route to Bristol where I can finally join the A38. This phenomenal trunk road runs from Cornwall to Nottinghamshire, shadowing the M5 a lot of the way. At Spaghetti Junction it briefly becomes the A38(M), but according to my rules that's OK. I've also decided to be comfortable with any brief stretches of multiplexing along the way. And this brings me to the East Midlands while still somehow in the 30s, which enables me to switch to my next key route.
A61 → Leeds
The A61 runs almost directly due north through Sheffield, Barnsley, Leeds and Ripon, so is ideal for my purposes. I'm going to jump ship in Leeds, where I need to plead for the use of historical alignments through the city centre to enable my next connection.
If you insist on me using the modern road pattern in Leeds, ring roads and all, then I'd be forced to drive on to Thirsk, follow the A167 through Newcastle and take the A189, A1068 and B1340 to Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland which is 291 miles distant. But I'd rather not.
A65 → M6 junction 36
The A65 delivers me across the Pennines to Cumbria, in part following the Settle to Carlisle railway. But I'm not allowed to follow the M6 or the A6 to Carlisle so I need to take the scenic route instead. And for this I finally need to exit double figures.
A590 → A591 → A595→ Carlisle
The A591 is the road through the heart of the Lake Distrtict skirting Windermere and Grasmere, so this part of my hypothetical drive is properly gorgeous. The scenery recedes somewhat after Keswick, and even more so as I approach Carlisle from the west.
A689 → Brampton A6071 → Gretna
The only roads between Carlisle and Scotland are the M6 and the A7, neither of which are permitted, so I need to follow the bypass east to dogleg back through Brampton. Technically the Brampton bypass means the A689 and A6071 no longer meet, but they once did, and they only miss by half a mile of unclassified road today so I'm having that. Time to cross the border.
B7076 → Elvanfoot
Last road. And because numbers are now against me it's only a B road... but what a B road. Thomas Telford built some of it. The B7076 runs alongside the A74(M), the motorway north to Glasgow, and used to be the A74 dual carriageway. In most places one carriageway has been returned to grassland and the B7076 follows the other on a winding course across the moors. It finally draws to a close after 44 miles at Elvanfoot, a small village at the head of the Clyde valley, where the A702 takes over.
I can go no further without using a road with a lower number. But I an now 310 miles from home which is as far as I think I can hypothetically get.
What's more I've driven more than 600 hypothetical miles to get here, on a ridiculously tortuous route via Somerset, Derbyshire and Cumbria. At least I can get the West Coast Main Line home because trains pass this very spot. There may not be a station, but hypothetically I can imagine there is and abandon my hypothetical car on the hard shoulder.
It'd never be worth trying in real life, but a hypothetically increasing road journey is one way to pass a day indoors.
If it's 9th December then it must be time for my annualreminder that Crossrail isn't open yet. The central section was supposed to open two years ago on 9th December 2018 but never did, and still hasn't, and won't be opening next year either.
How did Crossrail's bosses ever persuade us that their project would be opening "in a few months time" when even two years later only one of the central stations is finished and the software for running the trains still hasn't entered the final stages of testing? Either the project's governance back in 2018 was criminally blinkered or TfL and the Mayor were telling us whopping white lies for months. Still, we are where we are.
I live within walking distance of ten Crossrail stations so for this year's non-anniversary I've been to see how not yet finished they are. [9 photos][official update]
Farringdon
Farringdon is the only central London station whose construction is finished, but only just. Crossrail announced as recently as Monday that the station is now "substantially complete" which means that the subcontractors can start demobilising from the site. Hurrah! But it isn't properly finished, this is only the "T-12 landmark", the point at which the station is considered to be 12 weeks away from handover to TfL. That'll be the end of February, and even then there'll still be extensive testing and commissioning of systems to complete because finished isn't the same as ready. [press release with interior photos]
Farringdon's ticket hall has been up and running for nine years as a cavernous space used by Thameslink passengers. The interior is divided by a massive sweep of ticket barriers and beyond that on the right hand side, brightly illuminated, is the diamond-patterned ceiling above the first set of escalators. They're short escalators, which I know because I stood at the bottom of them on the Farringdon Station Open Day 908 days ago. It might be another 500 days before I get to go back.
Crossrail stations generally have two entrances, and if you hike the length of Cowcross Street and skirt the meat market you'll find the other. It too is finished, but secured behind temporary barriers and a ring of City bollards. The glass around the ticket hall is printed with a silvery pattern inspired by Smithfield's ironwork, and a plaque on an external pillar reminds punters that the City of London Corporation helped part-fund all this. Eventually you should be able to reach Barbican station's westbound platform from here, but the sign above the entrance only references Farringdon.
Liverpool Street
It's nearly there, or at least the entrance is. A wedge of glass pokes up into the pedestrianised end of Liverpool Street, the street, no longer surrounded by quite so many hoardings as it was a few months ago. Years of deep excavations have been paved over, a proper purple roundel-on-a-pole has been erected and the former Crossrail offices alongside have been vacated. Meanwhile in the freshly-refurbished Octagon Arcade, connecting to the mainline station, a raft of luxury lifestyle stores is opening ready to siphon excess wealth from passing Crossrail passengers.
This time the bonus entrance is the other side of Finsbury Circus on Moorgate, an entire tube station's distance away. It's a woefully unimpressive entrance at present, hoardinged off and tucked beneath a dreary unfinished office block. An unbarriered passageway into the tube station, revealing nothing of any purple glories beyond, is currently closed until early in 2021. But the state of play is positive, as a notice pinned up for contractors reveals... "The station is transitioning to its permanent state. Temporary lighting and temporary power supplies are being removed." Patience, weary traveller.
Whitechapel
It's almost five years since the main entrance to Whitechapel station was sealed off and a bleak 'temporary' ticket hall was opened round the back. It's somehow still in operation, offering passengers a faceful of construction activity as they go in and out. The plan had been to reopen the much improved front entrance sooner, given that access to the tube and Overground is much nearer to the road than all the Crossrail malarkey but no, the blue hoardings still poke out into Whitechapel Market.
You can tell there's still much work to be done inside the Whitechapel complex because even on a Sunday morning contractors in Crossrail hi-vis can be seen spilling out of the security door to purchase snacks and meaty refreshment. I broke the habit of a lifetime and asked one of them whether the work was nearly done. "I hope so," he said. "It's going to be fantastic, it looks really nice in there." I can't wait to see it, although I know I'm going to have to.
Canary Wharf
This is the station where Crossrail construction began in 2009 so you'd think it'd be the furthest ahead of schedule, but no. It looked ahead of schedule when we all trooped down for Open House in 2017 without the need for hard hats, but no. One of the complicating issues has been fire resistant panels which failed to meet safety requirements, because sometimes it doesn't pay to go early. Over the weekend I spotted a group of workmen getting a safety briefing at the top of the escalators, as well as Do Not Enter signs, big reels of cable and a couple of cages full of scaffolding poles. Access from the rest of the Canary Wharf estate is good, as you'd expect given who's paying for the station, but access from disadvantaged Poplar remains pitiful.
Custom House
Custom House is the only new-build station which is already properly finished, as might be expected given it's the only one entirely in the open. Even then it was only handed over to TfL in May this year, this milestone having previously been pencilled in for the previous October (which just goes to show how tortuous the accreditation process is). Peer in through the hoarding on the DLR footbridge and you can see a brief line of ticket gates as well as two electronic departure screens ticking down the times of the next 10 non-existent passenger services.
Custom House is also the best place to see actual Crossrail rolling stock running actual trial operations. Since 5th November six Class 345 trains have been operating in close headway at line speed to test out the latest version of the signalling system. I watched a few of the trains slow to a stop, open their doors for nobody and then whizz off towards one of the tunnels to either side. It was almost exciting. But this isn't yet the start of Trial Running, the next official stage of operational testing, because the signalling software still has one outstanding unmitigated issue. Empty services'll be running for several months yet.
Stratford Been ready for yonks. Nothing to see here. Maryland The only remaining issues are outside the station where Newham's junction-remodelling contractors still haven't finished relaying the pavement. Forest Gate New lifts and new stairs were completed last year. Feels hugely less futuristic than the stations in the central section, a bit like comparing Neasden to the Jubilee line extension. Manor Park The new pronged footbridge delivers passengers halfway down the platform, so best travel in the centre of the train. I saw an unbothered member of staff in the ticket office here yesterday, which feels increasingly unusual in a TfL station.
Tottenham Court Road I haven't walked this far, sorry. Ian's Open Day post from summer 2018 shows just how finished a station can look and yet still not be ready 29 months later. Bond Street This is still the nightmare station holding things up due to poor construction processes. Earlier this year Crossrail paid £19m to terminate its contract with Costain Skanska and are now focusing on transferring operations to a new set of contractors. Bond Street needs to progress a lot further before Trial Operations can begin in the tunnels next summer, and there's still every chance it won't be passenger-ready when the rest of the line opens four years late. Paddington One of the exits from the mainline station onto Eastbourne Terrace reopened in the summer. But the cloud-topped Crossrail entrance alongside still has about 70 weeks to go, if we're lucky.
(you can of course look forward to another update on 9th December next year, but hopefully not on the 9th December after that)
Yesterday I received an email from Howard Smith, Director of Operations, TfL Rail. It said...
From Sunday 13 December, TfL Rail services to Heathrow will no longer stop at Acton Main Line. Customers travelling to Heathrow from this station should take a train to Hayes & Harlington and change there for a train to Heathrow.
I was surprised to receive it because I haven't been to Acton Main Line station since February, but the TfL targeted email service is a peculiar beast.
But if you consult the new set of TfL Rail timetables you'll see Howard is correct. At present four trains an hour run between Paddington and Heathrow but from Saturday two are being cut back to Hayes & Harlington and these are the only two which stop at Acton Main Line.
It would have been more relevant if Howard had emailed me about the improved off-peak service on TfL Rail's eastern section. Currently only six trains an hour run between Liverpool Street and Shenfield during the day but from next week this goes up to eight. A similar increase will occur on weekday evenings and all day on Saturdays. Even better the Sunday afternoon frequency is shooting up from four trains an hour to eight. It's great to see the service stepping up in advance of Crossrail opening.
Speaking of which, TfL released an FoI request a couple of weeks ago revealing the intended frequencies of Crossrail services. What's more they've issued frequencies for various stages of the project, from disjoint TfL Rail sections to full-on purple nirvana.
Here are the intended numbers of off-peak trains per hour when Crossrail eventually opens.
Pa
LS
6
Sh
Re
2
12
4
6←
→12
He
AW
Core service, twelve trains an hour between Paddington and Abbey Wood. Completely separate out west, two trains an hour from Paddington to Reading and four to Heathrow Terminal 4. Completely separate out east, six trains an hour between Liverpool Street and Shenfield. I find this last number strange because, as we saw earlier, frequencies between Liverpool Street and Shenfield are going up to 8 on Saturday, but let's trust the FoI.
A particularly interesting snippet of information is that on Day One only the central section will be branded the Elizabeth line. The section west of Paddington and the line out to Shenfield will still be "marketed as TfL Rail". It makes sense, it'll stop passengers thinking trains run all the way through and it'll encourage them to change in the right place. But I bet it isn't what people are expecting, and won't it look interesting on the map?
A few months later, when the Shenfield branch is finally connected to the central section, the intended number of off-peak trains per hour increases.
Pa
LS
Re
2
?
Sh
4
6←
→?
16
He
AW
Nothing changes on the disconnected section out west. Elsewhere we're missing an important number because the service frequency between Shenfield and Paddington is still "to be confirmed". But we are told there'll be 16 trains an hour between Abbey Wood and Paddington off-peak, rising to a massive 24 at peak times. I reckon 16 and 24 sound implausibly high, given that the Abbey Wood trains will have to slot inbetween the Shenfield trains, so maybe don't trust the FoI on this completely.
The final stage involves connecting up the entire line through Paddington, probably some time in 2023. Here are the intended number of off-peak trains per hour once the project is complete.
Pa
LS
Re
4
10
Sh
6
10←
→20
10
He
AW
10 trains an hour will leave Shenfield and 10 will leave Abbey Wood, merging to provide 20 trains an hour through central London. One train every 3 minutes is a good off-peak service. Half of those 20 trains will terminate at Paddington and the other 10 will continue west through Ealing Broadway with 6 going to Heathrow and 4 heading for Berkshire. Of the six Heathrow trains, four are for Terminal 4 and two for Terminal 5. Of the four Berkshire trains, two will terminate at Maidenhead and only two will reach Reading. This is Crossrail's final off-peak state.
It'll be even better at peak times.
Pa
LS
4
Re
6
12
Sh
6
12←
→24
12
He
AW
Services on the two eastern branches are increased to one every five minutes, which means 24 trains an hour through central London. Additional trains will also run to/from Maidenhead and Reading, some "in the peak direction only". Finally 4 trains an hour will run overground between Liverpool Street and Gidea Park to improve capacity out east.
The service pattern will be simple at peak times, with all trains from Shenfield terminating at Paddington and all trains from Abbey Wood passing through to destinations out west. But it'll be a lot more complicated at off-peak times (for which read 'more convenient'), with Shenfield and Abbey Wood trains heading to Heathrow and Berkshire.
Remember that all this remains subject to change. Indeed when I last brought you a "here's what the service pattern is going to be" post back in 2016 the plans looked rather different.
But if you're down on the Crossrail platforms at Tottenham Court Road on a Saturday afternoon in 2024, expect the next train indicators to look something like this.
At present this is only a temporary addition, the plan being to review the situation at the end of 2021 and then decide whether Thameslink stays or goes. No paper maps will be released until next month, either in poster or pocket form. Even the digital version wasn't readily available yesterday, with the TfL website still linking to the old one and the press release being text only.
