Traffic…

It amazes me that with all the money spent on designing places like railway and tube stations the designers still manage to make some serious errors.
Travelling through Victoria station in London on a daily basis makes you realise what they get wrong. Throughout the station the flow of people is constantly crossing. Surely a smothered flow of pedestrian traffic would speed things up and make journeys less stressful. After all you don’t have cars travelling in both directions on the same carriage way so why do it people?

Posted by Wordmobi

On Wheels…

Back to a favourite topic of mine. Bags and suitcases on wheels!
Is it me, or are people in London just getting more ignorant?
Three times this week I have had my feet run over by bags on wheels! I am not just talking about the accidental touch of the wheel either. In one case the bag was dragged accross the top of my foot and the owner had to stop the bag from tipping over. Despite that she did not even look back to see who she had run over, let alone apologise!
It just make you want to kick the bloody things over!! After all, an apology costs nothing.
Come on people, be a bit more considerate.

London Is Closed…

Yet again, this weekend it seems that half of the London underground is being shut down!
Now, I know that improvements are necessary and much needed but this is summer, schools are closing for the summer and the kids need entertaining. Surely this is the time when we need to be able to access London at weekends. Why does everything have to be shut down at once, could the different tube lines shut down on different weekends so that London would remain accessible?
While the improvements are welcome I do think the organisation of the implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

Air Conditioning…

Travelling home tonight on quite a modern train. It was all air conditioned and as a result had no opening windows or ventilation. This would have been fine if the air conditioning had actually been working. With outside temperatures in the twenties what I actually travelled home in was something you could cook your sunday roast in. In this weather sealed carriages without air conditioning should be taken out of service!! But then I guess they would just cancel the trains!

Posted by Wordmobi

Cyclists…

There is a lot in the news at the moment about giving more freedom to cyclists around london by letting them run red lights etc. I say that before this is done there is an awful lot of cyclists who should be educated about pedestrians!
A lot, not all, of cyclists seem to think pedestrians don’t exist. They run pellican crossings, treat footpaths as cycle lanes and carry on like they own everything.
I am all for improving things for cyclists, but not at the expense of pedestrian safety.

Posted by Wordmobi

Quiet Zone…

Sitting in the Quiet Zone on the train home. One guy making a very loud phone call and two listening to mp3 players. Just to cap it off there are two guys with their feet on the seats opposite sitting under do not put your feet on the seats signs!
As the rail company have done away with guards on the trains there is no one to enforce the notices.
Why bother putting them up in the first place when they are so blatantly ignored?

Posted by Wordmobi

I Like Strikes…

Contrary to popular belief, strikes are not always a bad thing! Well in my opinion anyway!
For example; today there is a strike on the Victoria Line in London. Usually it is a real battle trying to get out of the station in the mornings. Today it was fantastically easy. Something to do with the significant reduction in people I would assume!

Posted by Wordmobi

Oblivious…

On my way in to work today I started to realise that there are a large number of people out there who walk around completely oblivious to their surroundings!
They wander around talking or texting on phones, reading newspapers or otherwise looking in any direction except for the one they are walking in.
Despite this it is always somebody else’s fault when they walk in to another person!
Come on! Wake up! There’s a whole other world out there! Its called the real world!!

Posted by Wordmobi

Sunday travelling…

Had my daughter home this weekend from Bournemouth. She was only home for the weekend and had to go back on Sunday.

You would expect that getting from home to Waterloo station would be fairly straight forward as there are several alternative routes using different tube lines. No! One line does not operate at weekends and the rest have all been suspended for engineering works!

Now the fact that the engineering works have to take place is fair enough. But why do they have to work on those particular lines all at the same time and so isolate a whole area of the country?

Nothing to do with trains…

Nothing to do with trains this time. This one is cyclists!!!
Cyclists in London seem to think that, even though they use the road, they are allowed to completely disregard traffic lights. On several occasions I have been crossing the road, at a crossing with the green man showing, and have had to take evasive action to ignore a cyclist. This is made worse when they not only run the lights but then go on to go the wrong way up one way streets.
If I behaved like that in a car I would lose my licence!
It is about time some examples were made as a deterrent.