Trauma on the London Underground?

I've been in two minds about whether to report on the recent report by the House of Commons - Overcrowding on Public Transport. Up until now I couldn't be arsed. But thanks to a discussion taking place on Clear Blue Skies I thought I would.

The report says that commuters face "daily trauma" and travel in "intolerable conditions", really, I'd never noticed!

Travellers found their journeys "not simply uncomfortable, but positively frightening". Extreme in my opinion.

To me "trauma" is something you can't live with and literally takes over your every waking hour or at least for more than a couple of hours spent commuting on the tube.

Tube travel is indeed a pain in the arse and the overcrowding is unaccaptable, but it always has been and is unlikely to change. It's not "traumatic" every day or tantamount to a "personal tragedy", that's simply sensationalism.

Amazingly I'm with The Star on this

"Something called the Commons Transport Committee has arrived at the conclusion that trains are overcrowded.....

"And the point to note in indelible ink is one delivered by Gwyneth Dunwoody, the committee's chairman, who says: "Overcrowding is not an act of God."

"So there you are. It is official.

"Sadly, accidents are acts of the divine one, as are over-inflated hikes in ticket prices, the existence of the smarmy work-shy loafers in the peaked cap operating at work-to-rule pace and John Prescott's Jaguars.

"If you don't want to take our word for it, you can ask God yourself, care of Mr T Blair on Platform 10."

All of these news reports are interesting in itself I spose, so I realised that I talked myself into blogging it. Particularly when my journey home on the District Line section was unusually overcrowded. I wasn't traumatised when I got home and by the time I had walked for two minutes I had forgotten about it.

If this report means something will be done about overcrowding great, but there have been reports like this ever since 1884, and the underground is still overcrowded.

The most notable/interesting/funny of all of these reports to me was one in 1936 where W J Kelley, Labour MP for Rochdale, said: �Young girls and men are crowded in such a way that the question of decency even comes up�.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Friday, October 17, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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