The Anonymous Widower

Avoid Changing At Bank

For some time now, changing from one tube line to another at Bank has been something to avoid according to Transport for London.

I have advised people coming to see me to change at Bank onto a 76, 21 or 141 bus to go north to Dalston.  But now CrossRail works and putting in a new water main seem to mean that finding a bus at certain times at Bank, is like looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack.

Coming back from Oxford Circus at around four this afternoon, took me nearly an hour, when normally in the rush hour, I can do it on a 73 bus in about thirty-five minutes.

So where were the seventy-frees this afternoon?  Stuck in the jams at Bond Street caused by Sunday afternoon shoppers and the CrossRail works at Bond Street.  I couldn’t tak the Victoria line to Highbury and Islington, as that was closed for engineering work.

The problems will sort themselves out in the next few weeks, as the summer will be over and a lot of the weekend engineering work will be suspended until the Christmas period.

It is now though, that one of the major faults of the Overground is starting to show itself.  And that is the lack of a link to the Central line in the east of London. You have to remember too, that the Central line is actually under Shoreditch High Street station. But then the cost of a new tube station there would probably have doubled the cost of the East London line.

I suppose the planners felt that when CrossRail is finished, then this will solve the problem with the interchange at Whitechapel.

August 28, 2011 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel, World | Buses, Crossrail, London Overground, London Underground, Trains