Tube boss faces Snow Day questions

TfL boss, Peter Hendy will have some tough questions thrown at him today at London's City Hall. He's part of a London Assembly Meeting about transport. On the agenda is a "response to the extreme weather conditions", when London's buses were taken off the road and the London Underground ran a massively reduced service on Monday 2nd Feb.


Look forward to seeing what comes out of this.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, February 12, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube workers protest over job cuts

If you're at St James's Park London Underground station today, look out for a number of members of the RMT and TSSA who will be handing out leaflets about the redundancies which TfL announced last week.


Although London Underground say that the loss of 1,000 jobs will not make any difference to the service, the unions don't believe this. They're also demanding that their employers "come clean" about the number of job losses.

The "noisy and colourful" protest will start at 8am today. RMT leader Bob Crow said "It is scandalous that loyal Tube workers doing their best to provide a service to the public should have to pay with their jobs for a financial crisis that is none of their making"

"There is no way that job losses on the scale planned by TfL can be implemented without affecting services, and it is sheer nonsense to suggest that there are hoards of superfluous workers that can be weeded out.

"We have made it quite clear that any attempt to impose compulsory redundancies among our members or to undermine their terms and conditions will be met with a ballot for industrial action".

Some Tube staff made comments in my post on the announcement of the redundancies, saying that they wouldn't be prepared to strike because of this and that the losses were only from duplicated jobs as a result of the London Underground & Metronet merger. I wonder if today's protests will make any difference.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, February 11, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Photo of the Week

Another spoof sign spotted on London Underground. This was snapped by the eagle eyed Adrian Fitch on the Victoria Line on Sunday morning.


It'd be difficult to know if this one was actually fooling tourists though. It's a subtle warning of a Penalty Fare if you fail to hide your true emotions fully or make any attempt to engage with passengers. I suppose most tourists would naturally think that we all follow it.

If anything it might make a few groups of loud tourists (usually from across the Pond!) stop reading out all the station names on the line maps in the the Tube and asking everyone how many more stops before Lie-chester Square!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, February 11, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Snow Day U Turn for Tube Workers

Mayor Boris Johnson appears to have made a U turn with his comments about docking the pay of London Underground workers who couldn't get to work last Monday due to the snow.

Boris said he had "absolutely no intention" of penalising tube staff after the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) revealed yesterday that ticket staff and other operational staff working for the Tube had been told they would have to take a day's holiday or lose a day's wages for failing to turn up to work last Monday.


Weirdly today's Metro hasn't caught up with Boris' latest words and seems to under the belief that workers may still get their pay docked.


However, from The Guardian's report a spokesman for the mayor said: "The mayor has absolutely no intention of penalising anyone who failed to get to work due to last week's exceptional weather. More than 95% of London Underground's operational staff made it to work last Monday and the mayor is grateful for their efforts to get as much of the tube running as was possible in the circumstances.

"Around 100 employees were unable to make it to work that day and their managers are simply following normal procedure by making sure that all absences were due to the weather."

Gerry Doherty, from TSSA, said: "This amounts to a U-turn. We are delighted that the mayor has seen common sense on this issue. Staff should not be penalised because of his decisions and we welcome the fact that he has now recognised the justice of their case."

I must thank Jonin60Seconds for the Twitter inspired Snow Fail Whale at the beginning of this post, and it looks like with Boris's latest change of mind, an older transport Fail Whale is appropriate.


Let's see how he tackles the current row as it also emerged yesterday that TfL's top managers paid themselves more than £17m in salaries and bonuses last year.

These figures, obtained under a freedom of information request, are particularly galling as the news follows the above-inflation fare increases we were subjected to last month.

One hundred and twenty-three TfL managers earned more than £100,000 in 2007-08. In contrast, the Treasury, responsible for the entire British economy, had just 15 six-figure earners. The Guardian has more on this and it's interesting to note that "The list of top jobs provided includes many with apparently overlapping job titles and descriptions, but there appeared to be nobody whose main responsibility is reducing the impact of TfL services on the environment, according to the Standard, nor any post with a job description which includes emergency or contingency planning, which includes dealing with extreme weather conditions."

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, February 10, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Targeting Tube Ads

CBS Outdoor, the guys that sell London Underground's ads, seem to be ramping up the advertising campaign for their own work. However, I really like this campaign and the ad below really appeals to me.


They've managed to target it at an age group, that probably anyone above thirty would relate to.

It must be quite difficult to devise a campaign aimed at most commuters. I've no idea what the average age of people travelling on the Tube is. I'd guess at early thirties. Unlike one of the other ads in the campaign (below) which refers to recent certainties, the one above hopes that most people will get the Grange Hill, Back to the Future, Swap Shop, Jaws and Swatch references.


Perhaps there's some knowledge of the average age of people travelling through certain stations. I took the first picture at Leicester Square Tube, and the second at Hammermsith.

Maybe there's ads on the system somewhere targeted directly at Baby Boomers. They might make more references to the certainty of knowing that the Beatles would always have a number one record somewhere in the world or that your Dad would say "You're not going out in that mini skirt".

However, they do manage to keep me mildly entertained until the next "big choo choo train" comes along, although funnily enough that was the only part of the first ad which I wish the creatives hadn't written!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, February 09, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Scared of the Tube

Thanks to Holly who runs a interesting site - Minor Delays (more on that next week), who told me about an audio project called Urban Scrawl. It's a series of podcast dramas based on every station on the Piccadilly Line.


So far they've covered Ickenham, Ruislip, Sudbury Town, King's Cross and my favourite Hammersmith.

The one on Hammersmith is about a guy who is scared of Hammersmith London Underground Station. Not just a particular part of it but "just the main part, where the District and Piccadilly Lines go through. I can't go there..."

Maybe he was scared by Shane Ritchie leaping out of the Minder poster there!

It's a funny five minutes, mainly because I'm fairly familiar with Hammersmith station as, it's my daily interchange station. Although I'm sure that phobia of the Tube isn't great.

My ex-husband used to be really scared of being in the underground part of the Tube. When we started dated, it's a pretty weird thing to have to tell someone and I thought he was joking. But he got often got panic attacks underground and I could feel him shaking & sweating, particularly when the trains ever stopped between stops (which they appear to do fairly often when you're scared of them).

He got over this after a while, but we had to make a number of convoluted trips and get off the Tube early & continue our journey by bus, when things got really bad. I'm not sure exactly how he got over it. It was probably eventually, him getting a job, which meant he had to use the Tube everyday. However, the time when the Underground was his personal Room 101, wasn't a pleasant memory for him.

When I was very young, I had a massive fear of escalators (not just Tube escalators). I thought my feet would get eaten by them and I had to physically dragged up Tube ones whenever we came into central London. Thankfully I'm over it now, but I bet there are a lot of people around guarding secret phobias of the Tube or parts of it. Perhaps you're one of them or know someone who is?

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, February 06, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Here Comes Everybody - Mobilising Tube Commuters

Last night I went to see the brilliant Clay Shirky in one of his visits to the UK. I'm a big Shirky fan. I can bore for England on his thoughts. This will be the third time I've seen him speak & one of those was even in his home town of New York, when I was on holiday there last September.


In a nutshell Clay's best selling book "Here Comes Everybody" can be summarised in five words - "Group action just got easier". He believes that the internet has made mass collaboration easier, than it's ever been before & that through things like Facebook Groups, online forums, blogs & plain & simple email, we can get groups of people to do things on a quick & large scale.

In the Q & A afterwards someone pointed out that most successful mass online collaboration comes from reacting against something - ie pointing out that something's wrong & getting people to echo & spread how wrong that thing is in the hope that the powers that be will change it.

In a way the questioner was right. Recently there was a campaign to expose MP's concealing their expenses. A Facebook group gained over 10,000 members in 48 hours & many members wrote to their MPs & blogged and the vote to conceal MPs expenses was cancelled by the Government.

I was challenged to write a post by the Carnival of Modern Liberty & thought if this something I that's relevant to this blog.

However, as much as I'd like it, I can never really see mass online groups working to make real change on the London Underground. Most of the large Facebook groups are usually in the Just for Fun category - ie People who secretly pretend to drive the DLR and People who temporarily fall in love with people on the Tube. There's nothing wrong with them of course & if anything they help us put up with daily grind on the Underground.

But whenever something we really moan about arises - like the annual above inflationary fare rises - nothing happens. We grin and bear it as we're basically held over a barrel - voting with our feet is like shooting ourself in the er.. foot.

Same thing with Tube strikes. We moan, but what can we do? There was the famous London Underground song - which was viewed & downloaded by hundreds of thousands of people - but it didn't actually stop the London Underground from appearing to have most of the characteristics moaned about in the song.


The closest we got to mass collaboration, which gained momentum through the internet was the final Circle Line party to say farewell to the end of booze on the Tube.

I have absolutely no answer or solution to mobilising Tube commuters. All I try to do is to make people aware of issues which I think are interesting, wrong, funny or annoying. I know there's a lot of you who share those views. I also know that the London Underground & TubeLines at least read this blog and other London blogs. TfL even invited me & other bloggers to a bloggers briefing in advance of them launching their online tools. However, as Shirky said last night, bloggers in themselves aren't enough to make social change, no matter how well they write.

Last night, we saw a slightly mellower Clay Shirky to the one who really championed the wisdom of the crowds & crowd collaboration. For the first time he said in public that mass collaboration isn't going to solve every problem. He believes that we really need a mix of bloggers, online group leaders and people doing grass roots work at a local level. He said, that good ideas come from small groups of smart people and people with a shared mission. Not necessarily a large bunch of hotheads trying to game the system. See David Wilcox's post with a video of this part of Clay's talk.

He also made the very good point that nothing solidifies a group like an external threat. He half joked that those that don't have an external threat, have to have a paranoid leader, as they will soon find a threat.


I've always been a little ambivalent towards Cory Doctorow and the Boing Boing guys when they talk about the evilness of Oyster cards. But now I see where they're coming from more, even if I don't necessarily agree with them (I seriously don't think London Underground have the bandwidth or money to do anything with a lot of information they hold on us). Part of my view change is to do with having met Cory in the flesh a few times & he's a very smart guy. But part of this, is the knowledge that nothing empowers groups more than an enemy or a threat to one's freedom (or perceived freedom) or right to knowledge.

The minute our freedom to drink on the Tube or to make Oyster watches gets taken away from us, even if we'd never even thought of drinking on the Tube or making Oyster watches in the first place, that's when we might be motivated into some sort of action.

Anyway, thanks for making it to the end of this post and if you've got any thoughts about this or transport campaigns you think people would be motivated into action about, let us know in the comments.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, February 04, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube boss apologises for shutdown

Tim O'Toole, Managing Director of the London Underground, made an apology (sort of) on London Today, ITV's local news last night.


He said: "We're sorry that our people endured the same conditions as they did struggling to get to work. But, they have to know we worked very hard with hundreds, literally hundreds of people out last night, clearing the network to make sure we could offer them a service this morning."

Transport for London commissioner Peter Hendy also apologised for the disruption to the service. He told the BBC "It was the worst snowfall for two decades. The local authorities deployed everything they had on Sunday night and Monday morning, but it just wasn't enough for the circumstances."

But with more snow expected on Thursday & Friday, and the Met Office saying "Be prepared", will our transport system cope this time?

Stephen Almabritis from the Federation of Small Businesses is unhappy, as the disruption cost the UK economy an estimated £3.5 billion. He said "One of the world's biggest econimies should not be grinding to a halt, even if it is only once in every ten years. We are calling on Boris Johnson to call in the mayors of cities including Ontario, Vancouver and Moscow and just pick their brains. What is it they do that we don't?"

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, February 04, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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London's Transport recovers after wrong amount of snow

After yesterday's "Arctic" conditions, with London's worst snowfall in 18 years, looks like we will have an easier journey into work this morning. Most of the London Underground seems to be working and at time of writing (7.20am) only the Circle Line is completely suspended due to a broken down train. There are part suspensions on the District, Bakerloo & Hammersmith & City Lines, so check the Tube's website before you leave home.


Here's the view from my study today, with the District Line coming in from Richmond, so err... luckily, I'll be able to get into town.

Most of the main roads have been cleared of snow, so most of London's buses are back on the road. However TfL said "Five routes are currently suspended linked to the volume of gritting taking place on local roads and there may be reduced services on some other routes."

The Congestion Charge, which Mayor Boris Johnson lifted yesterday, is back to normal operation today. You'll be pleased to hear that the wrong type of snow wasn't blamed for our transport system not coping. Yesterday The Mayor said:

"There's no doubt about it, this is the right kind of snow, it's just the wrong kind of quantities.

"My message to the heavens is: 'You've put on a fantastic display of snow power but that is probably quite enough'."


I like how in yesterday's interview above Boris manages some clever avoidance. Johnson says "We've actually been quite successful with the Tube network". The interviewer responds rather quickly with "If this was successful I'd like to see what unsuccessful was like".

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, February 03, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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London Transport hit by Snow

Good luck getting into work this morning, as an "extreme" weather warning has just been issued by the Met Office for London & the South East, due to heavy snowfall overnight. Last night all London buses were taken off the roads because of the conditions and they are still not back this morning.




At time of writing (7.20am) every London Underground line with the exception of the Victoria Line has disruptions to service & suspensions.


Stansted and London City Airports are closed at the time of writing. Heathrow has only one runway open and even if you wanted to get there, you'd have problems as the Heathrow Express service has been suspended & the Tubes going there, err.... aren't.

Your best bet is to watch the news, listen to the radio and keep an eye on TfL's website, which was a mass of blue "suspensions" and "part suspensions" this morning.

The snow is expected to continue falling throughout the day, so there may not be much let up. 20cm of snow will be expected by the end of the day. Anyone from countries that get a lot of snow reading this blog or looking at #uksnow trending on Twitter, will think "What are they all moaning about, that's not heavy snow". But for a city that relies so much on public transport, whenever there's the wrong type of snow or too much of it, we're screwed.


That's the current view from my study window above, as regular readers know, my house backs onto a railway line and normally, I can see trains. But for the past half hour, there have been no trains!

Update: Made it to the station to be told, that I should have believed the view outside my house and there's no trains. Here's a few pictures from the snowy station




Absolutely tons of pictures on Flickr of the snowy Tube, but my favourite has to be of the, for once appropriately named, White City by pgchamberlin


2003 was the last time I can remember really heavy snow like this (I actually broke my leg in two places the next day falling on ice), and there were talks of us being prepared for it next time. Guess what? We're not.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, February 02, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Changing Fuses on the Tube

You might have seen the display of London Underground roundels on Westbound platform of St James's Park Tube station (home of London Underground's headquarters). On Saturday, I was waiting at the station for a train home after spending some time at Tokyo Day (some pics of iDogs, mecharobots, emo teenagers & other stuff here). In the display there's some "roundel style" fuse wire holders, which were given out as freebies.


This is pretty generous of an electricity company, as I can't see fuse wire being handed out today. But even if it was, I wouldn't have a clue what to do with it. I'm always slightly worried about the fuses in my house going, as I don't think I'd know how to change them.

Thinking of fuses, reminded me that I'd seen a brilliant cartoon, taken by Andy Davison, which illustrates how Toprate Percy was used to teach drivers how to deal with defects (such as changing fuses) on the Tube.


Andy kindly let me use the picture for the blog and said "I've been told that these were drawn by a manager called Alec Gorton a long while ago so would have been when 1938 stock was the conventional stock. Also Percy changes fuses without a fuse puller."

The cartoon above, is only half of the story, so I'm not sure how Toprate Percy resolved the problem. There's another couple of cartoon from the series here.

Do drivers, sorry train operators, have to change fuses on the trains now, or are there engineers and other people to deal with that? I never hear of trains being pulled out of action because of fuses going!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, February 02, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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London Underground cutting 1,000 jobs

Looks like the doom and gloom of the recession has finally hit the Tube as London Underground announce that 1,000 people will lose their jobs.


Unlike the picture of skeleton staff above implies, LU said no front line staff or Tube drivers, would be out of a job, the cuts would be from temporary and administrative posts.

However, as we'd probably expect with the railway unions, they are saying they will fight the cuts, as they believe the reduction in jobs will lead to a reduced service.

Gerry Doherty, leader of TSSA, said: "This is a real body blow for staff and the London travelling public. There is no way that cuts of this size will not hit services. We should be investing in the Underground in the run up to the Olympics, not cutting back."

Bob Crow, leader of the RMT, was more bullish and hinted at strike action as a result of the announcement: "Any attempt to impose compulsory redundancies among our members or to undermine their terms and conditions will be met with a ballot for industrial action."

He added "Once again it seems if you are a banker you get protection, but if you are part of a team providing a public service you don't. There is no way that London's transport workers should be made to pay for the failure of the bankers and privateers whose greed has created the crisis our economy is now in."

He also agreed with Doherty by saying "There is no way that redundancies on this scale can be implemented without affecting the level of service. If the mayor is looking for efficiencies he should bring the Tube Lines PPP contracts back in house, because they are still draining huge sums of public money from London’s transport budget."


The London Underground employs about 20,000 staff, and the jobs which are slated to go are from finance, IT, procurement, human resources, legal and administration.

For once I tend to agree with Bob Crow (well not about the threat of strikes bit, which he plays too often). I find it hard to see how an organisation can lose that many staff - in whatever functions - and for this to make no difference to the service it provides to the public.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, January 30, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Friday on the Tube

And in the midst of all the recession misery, some staff on the London Underground can still try to remind us one good thing:


Spotted by the lovely Melanie Seasons this morning at Warwick Avenue Tube. She said "The man who works there in the morning always writes the most ridiculous happy-go-lucky messages on the status board and I finally caught one.".

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, January 30, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Stop Standing on my Feet Postcard

I wish this had been made into an official poster for the London Underground. The cartoon postcard below from the London Transport Museum deals brilliantly with two common Tube complaints. Standing on other people's feet when it's overcrowded AND the hot potato about giving up seats.


The disgruntled gentleman seated is moaning as a woman is standing on his feet. "I say Missus, if you're anything of a lady you'd stop standing on my feet". The lady gives back an answer that I'd love to have given myself. "Well, If you're anything of a gentleman you'd start standing on 'em yourself".

So even in Edwardian times, it certainly wasn't given than a man would give up his seat for a woman. I don't expect to be given a seat on account of being a woman, but I if a man offers me a seat (which happens occasionally), I'll gladly take it. I don't know if that makes me feeble, but it's nice that some old fashioned courtesies still exist.

However, I know that a number of men say they won't give up their seat, as they're worried that women will take offence. I think this is mainly down to the dilemma of suggesting that you're only giving up your seat because you think the woman's pregnant.


I wonder if the Edwardian postcard approach would work any better than TfL's current Considerate Londoner / Together for London campaign? There is a poster in the series above which has one of the numpty cartoon characters saying "I'll offer that person my seat" and a female numpty saying something like "I'll politely take it".

It's trying to promote a little give and take or to quote the campaign: "A little thought from each of us, makes a big difference for everyone." Maybe they should test a more humorous or blunt standpoint as seen in the postcard, unless that would lead to even more raised tempers!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, January 29, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Lap sitting on the Tube

Why don't more couples take a leaf out of the book of this pair? This Monday morning on a packed Piccadilly Line, instead of taking up two seats, this guy and girl shared a seat and had a cosy read of Metro.


A nice public display of affection on the London Underground that didn't make the rest of us feel like saying "Get a room".


If only they had sat under the above sign promoting peak hour sitting (spotted by Whatleydude) the picture would have been perfect!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, January 28, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Toilet & Step Free Tube Maps Launched

The London Underground have launched two maps that will show you where to spend a penny and where you won't have to climb stairs when using the Tube.

"The Tube Toilet map shows which stations have male, female and accessible toilets for wheelchair users, whether they are inside or outside the ticket gates, and whether they have baby changing facilities.


The Step-free Tube Guide gives information about the step and gap between the train and platform at step-free stations, and gives information about the stations where you can change between lines without encountering steps or escalators.

This guide will also help passengers with heavy luggage or those with children's buggies." said TfL on their site.


These are great moves forward with the map and very much like the idea explored with AccessCity. Still at beta stage it was one of the finalists in Social Innovation Camp (which I've actually been trying to get in front of the powers that be at TfL and Tube Lines).

Thanks to Kevin from Travolution for giving me the heads up on the new maps.

The current Tube map has wheelchair symbols showing step free access stations, but the new accessibility guide has a map with:

• Green, amber or red symbols on step-free access stations showing the height of the step between the platform and the train, coupled with a coloured ruler on the side of the map so that people can visualise how high the step is


• Information about the width of the gap between platform and train and different symbols to show stations which are step-free when changing between lines, but where it's not possible to get in or out of the station without using stairs or an escalator

When looking at the map, it was surprising (for me anyway) to see how little of the London Underground was actually step free.

What's also interesting is that people on the net have been playing about with maps like the above for years, and yet TfL have only just got round to officially producing them (better late than never).


Geoff produced an unoffical map with toilets on it in 2007 (admittedly to help those doing all day Tube challenges) and Last Rounds Project has an interactive map showing which Tube stations have public toilets near them.

Hopefully, TfL will have less of a "down with this sort of thing" approach to unofficial maps and look on them as ideas which the public might actually find useful. They (sort of) gave us that impression at the blogger's briefing last year.

Are there any other versions of the Tube map you would like to see? If you had design freedom & the sky was the limit, what would you find useful on the London Underground map?

I really think that the Way Out Tube map, which shows you where to get on to get off (so to speak) should be a free map. It's helped me shave several minutes off my journey and when you're in a rush every minute counts.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, January 27, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Atheist Tube Ad

Many of you will have heard about The Atheist Bus, or rather the bus advertising campaign that was paid for by people who don't believe in God's existence. You might have also heard about the bus driver - Ron Heather who refused to drive a bus with the advert on it. Well, thanks to Bloo Phoenix I saw that the atheist campaign has got past the powers that be on the London Underground too.


Rather amazingly First Bus said it would do everything in its power to ensure Mr Heather didn't have to drive the buses with the advert on it.

First Bus said: "As a company we understand Mr Heather's views regarding the atheist bus advert and we are doing what we can to accommodate his request not to drive the buses concerned."

"As an organisation we don't endorse any of the products or sentiments advertised on our buses. The content of this advert has been approved by the Advertising Standards Agency and therefore it is capable of being posted on static sites or anywhere else."

Now isn't this setting a worrying precedent? Do you think that RMT leader, Bob Crow will get Tube drivers up in arms and suggest they refuse to drive London Underground trains with ads in them they don't like?

I've seen ads for all sorts of religions & belief systems inside Tube carriages and I'm sure there are plenty of people (including Tube drivers) that don't agree with the sentiments on the advertisements.


What about entire London Underground trains that are covered in adverts? Wouldn't it be a bit weird for TfL to say "Ah that's alright, you don't agree with London having the 2012 Olympics, so we'll let you off driving the Tube today"?

Update - 27th Jan 2009 - saw another version of the ad this morning


Like how this one is less Dawkins driven and a lot more positive & life affirming, but I suspect it still wouldn't make Mr Heather and many others happy.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, January 26, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Walk the Tube to get healthy

January's the time of year when memberships to gyms rise and more people resolve to get active to work off their Christmas grub. So it's no surprise to see the launch of yet another London Underground map to encourage us walk between stops rather than take the Tube.


PruHealth got together with a team of volunteers with pedometers to count the number of steps between Tube stations in zone one and plotted them onto a map.

The BBC report that: "the average person would take 99 steps in walking between Cannon Street and Monument stations and 2,438 steps from King's Cross to Farringdon.

The British Heart Foundation recommends walking 10,000 steps per day. PruHealth said it would take the average person 75 minutes to walk that number of steps, but it would help protect them from stroke, diabetes and some forms of cancer."

I wonder when we're ever going to get an official map from TfL which publishes information like this on a printed map? The "walk the Tube" map idea has been created before by students at Central Saint Martins College in 2007


This had the average times to walk between stations on it, rather than the number of steps.

Back in 2003 rodcorp came up with an idea of a map showing walkways between Tube stations showing where it's "quicker to walk on the Tube map".


I suppose that TfL would never be able to agree on what "average" walking times were. Although they do deliberately encourage people to walk between Leicester Square and Covent Garden or Holborn and Covent Garden, rather than travel the one stop by Tube.


The students seem to be much more optimistic than TfL with the walking times between those stations.

Admittedly, the Tube have those signs as an effort to reduce congestion and not a health kick. There must be many other journeys like this on the Tube, but I've never seen "walk rather than travel by Tube" displayed on any other in carriage maps. Maybe PruHealth should be encouraged to sponsor an official Tube pocket map, which would give loads more awareness to their campaign.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, January 23, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Who saw docu-drama Stockwell on TV?

I'm kicking myself that I forget to record last night's factual drama Stockwell. This is all the more annoying for me as earlier that day I attended an Amplified09 discussion about the Future of Online Video. I remember saying that I couldn't remember the last time I used my VCR and that commonly people want to watch more TV on demand on a variety of devices.

It will be one of those programmes that I'll end up watching when it becomes available online on ITV1's iPlayer (but normally I'm old skool and prefer to watch anything over 15 minutes from my sofa.


But I digress, Stockwell, was going to be a fairly emotive film as no one still really knows the catalogue of events and errors that led to shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in a Tube carriage at Stockwell London Underground, after he was mistaken for a failed suicide bomber.

The press release says "Based on the evidence given during the criminal trial and inquest, the hour-long programme recreates the actions of the police surveillance and firearms teams in the hours leading up to the innocent 27-year-old's death.

The programme opens on the Stockwell Tube with the sound of screaming and chaos. As undercover police officers charge into a waiting train, people can be seen running from the carriage."

The review from The Telegraph puts a lot more colour to this "Firearms officers arrived at Stockwell Tube station after de Menezes had gone down the escalator. We saw the killing in slow motion, which made the seven shots to the head seem more gratuitous than they were. In reality, de Menezes was doomed from the moment he entered the station, pursued by firearms officers who thought he was a suicide bomber about to blow a carriage to smithereens. Given their belief, they did what most armed officers would do: they made sure he was as dead as possible as quickly as possible


But the belief was wrong, and even now we don't know exactly how they acquired it. Who should be blamed for the shocking delay, and who (if anyone) positively identified de Menezes as the bomber? Stockwell did not guess, but subtly led us to the correct inference that someone at the Met has something to answer for. So, despite the odd melodramatic flourish, this was public service broadcasting in the true sense of the term – and a very fine piece of work.."

I would love to know if anyone watched it last night and what you thought of it. As the film is based on evidence from the criminal trial and inquest, I wonder how many of you will make similar conclusion to the Telegraph reviewer?

"So why was Stockwell shocking? The answer is that – forgive the cliché – it turned 'unknown unknowns' into 'known unknowns'. Perhaps it's just laziness on my part, but I find it hard to visualise detailed media reports of events as complicated as this one. Until last night's programme, I didn't know how many questions about that morning remain unresolved. Now that I do, I can understand why the anger surrounding this case refuses to die down."

If you're in the UK you can watch Stockwell on ITV player it's on their site for the next 30 days.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, January 22, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Future of the Tube

At the London Transport Museum last week, I saw an amazing print of how the London Underground & transport in London might look in the future. It was drawn from around 1790 - 1830. Unfortunately I can't remember the exact date and who the artist was (if someone knows can they let me know), but I love seeing people's visions of the future from hundreds of years ago to compare with how things really are now.


The above image is a cartoon so not meant to be entirely serious, but it's brilliant to see the cartoonist imagine the London Tube, or rather the Grand Vacuum Tube Company, going directly to Bengal from London.

There's a wagon below the Tube predicting London to Bath in six hours. Also the futuristic Steam Horse Velocity meant "No sloppage on the road". If you look carefully at the flying pig in the air, you'll see that it's an airship full of convicts bound for New South Wales. Enlarge the picture and you'll see many other predictions for the transport in London.

I wonder how many people will be looking at Transport for London's current plans for the system in 2012 in a 100 or 200 years time and shaking their heads or laughing?

Update - thanks to Mother of the Bride - found out that it was drawn by William Heath around 1830 (so my guess of timing wasn't too bad) and is called March of Intellect

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, January 21, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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