New Buses For London Arrive At Liverpool Street
New Buses for London are now operating out of Liverpool Street station.
What better way is there now to show children Central London, if Liverpool Street is your London terminus? You just take the escalator up to the bus station and go to stop C, where you board one on route 11. Wikipedia says this about route 11.
The bus route passes many tourist attractions such as Westminster Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Methodist Central Hall Westminster, St Margaret’s, Westminster, Churchill War Rooms, The Cenotaph, Downing Street entrance, Banqueting House, Horse Guards Parade, Admiralty House, Trafalgar Square, Royal Courts of Justice, Prince Henry’s Room, St Dunstan-in-the-West, St Bride’s Church, St Martin, Ludgate, St Paul’s Cathedral, St Mary Aldermary, Mansion House, and Bank of England.
it will get even better when the route gets its full compliment of new buses and they finish the works at the station for Crossrail.
Will this updating of route 11, help to solve one of London’s worst cross-London transfers between Liverpool Street and Victoria, as this route goes very close to that station for journeys to the south of London? At a quieter time, I would certainly take the bus, but that is always the best way to get round Liverpool Street station’s lack of Underground lines going south!
How Does Liverpool Street Shape Up?
I needed to get my ticket for Ipswich for later in the day, so I travelled S Class to one of London’s busiest stations; Liverpool Street.
It was fairly quiet, but the litter levels outside were worst than at Kings Cross.
Note the clock on the front of the station, which is placed so you can see it, as you walk from the City.
When they talk about good stations, they always seem to forget Liverpool Street, as it was created in its present state in the 1990s when few were interested and it is very much a commuter station. It’s also effectively my local terminus and I often use it for shopping and collecting tickets.
you might do a few things differently today, but in many ways it was a very good updating of a Victorian station. You notice how good it is, when you arrive in the station at a far from busy time. Like at the New Kings Cross and St. Pancras stations, you walk in natural daylight to the barriers and onward to your destination or bus or Underground to get there. Compare liverpool Street to the dreaded Eusless.
Let The Fun Begin
Kings Cross Square is hosting a party over the weekend.
It looks like it could be a good party.
I was pleased to see the area clean, so early in the morning. there has been a report saying on the day it opened it was rather litter strewn.
The Hospital Test
As I travel around the country, I like to apply the hospital test to all of the places I visit.
Imagine, that a friend or relative has been taken ill or had an accident and is in the local hospital!
By going to the local main station or airport, can you get to that hospital easily using information available there?
Some hospitals are easy to do the last link, but for others, the information is sadly lacking.
I’ve just looked up Barnet Hospital, where both my in-laws died. I did find the nearest station and bus information on the web site, but it wasn’t on a front page link, as it seemed to assume most will drive. On the Transport for London web site, I did find a spider map for the buses to and from the hospital. But not in every case, will I have such good local knowledge!
Incidentally, it seems that most London hospitals have their own spider maps showing all buses around the hospital. The only one I can’t find is one for University College Hospital.
How does your local hospital stack up?
Remember a high proportion of visitors will not be in the first flush of youth and many will have mobility and eyesight problems.
A Reply From Birmingham
After Ipswich played at Birmingham a couple of months ago, I posted an Open Letter To the Mayor of Birmingham. I posted a copy to him and today, I got a substantive reply from someone at the council. This is the e-mail I received.
Thank you for forwarding me the link to your open letter and I am sorry to hear that your recent visitor experience to Birmingham was not a good one.
As you mentioned New Street Station is currently undergoing a major rebuild as part of the Birmingham Gateway project. In April this year the east side of the station complex (the side closest to the pedestrian link to Moor Street station) was closed to facilitate the rebuild if that part of the development. This means that until the reopening of the whole station in the spring of 2015, pedestrians seeking to travel to Moor Street station will have to walk a less direct route around the station from the west side entrance. Whilst temporary pedestrian signage has been put in place which is soon to be supplemented with permanent “way finding” signs, we will respond to your feedback and look at ways the current signing arrangements can be enhanced to improve clarity for visitors.
With regard to the issue of pedestrians crossing at the Bordesley Circus junction I am pleased to say the City Council has recently been successful in securing for the necessary funding from the Department for Transport to carry out whole sale improvements to the roundabout. These improvements will include the provision of signal controlled crossings to help the pedestrian movement you have described and completion of the works is currently programmed by early 2015 at the latest.
That is very fair and it is good to see that progress is being made on the dangerous junction at Bordesley Circus.
Kings Cross Square Welcomed In Vancouver
This report about the opening of Kings Cross Square appeared in The Province.
But then George Vancouver would these days take a train from Kings Cross to get to his birthplace at Kings Lynn.
Smoking In Kings Cross Square
As an experienced police officer said, when I visited earlier in the day, you have to give people somewhere to smoke, until the habit dies out.
One of the East Coast crew, I talked to, said that there should be an area for non-smokers.
But perhaps the most amazing comment I heard, was from a man, who actually asked one of the cleaners in the square, would she mind if he smoked.
I don’t know whether he did, but he had asked the question in a very sheepish manner.
So does an efficient cleaning team, waiting to pounce on a dog end, make smokers feel guilty?
I think it will be very difficult to predict if smoking is allowed in the square in say five years time.
The New Waiting Room At Kings Cross Station
I returned to Kings Cross Square to take a few more pictures.
It would appear that the public has got the hang of the new square and is using it as a waiting room.
Everybody seemed very happy with the square and the sunshine.
One of the East Coast crew jokingly moaned about the lack of anybody selling ice cream. But who’d have thought that they’d be selling ice cream in front of Kings Cross station. They don’t yet, but the area today was a good sun-trap.
Kings Cross Square Opens
I went to Kings Cross Square this morning to see the opening.
In the end I had to leave before the actual opening.
I liked the new Kings Cross Square a lot and it is good addition to London. The biggest advantage to me of the square, is that when I’m say travelling from West London to my home in Dalston, it gives me a much better route home. Instead of walking for miles through the labyrinth at Kings Cross to get from the Piccadilly line to the Northern for The Angel and a 38 bus, I think now I’ll surface and walk across the square to a 30 or 73 bus, which will get me more or less to my home. If it’s fine, I can even sit in the sun away from the traffic, while I wait for the bus. If it’s raining the bus stops are much bigger than they were before the development started.
The other thing about the square is that is now a wonderful place to meet someone for a bit of business. Or perhaps to start a date or a visit to the theatre or the cinema!
So that seems to be Kings Cross station virtually finished, with Paddington and London Bridge stations, well on their way.
When do we get started on the terrible dump we call Euston? Or it is Eusless?
Londoners Still Love The Hackney Eight
I was coming home from the Angel last night, when one of the Hackney Eight showed its distinctive shape coming from the direction of Saddlers Wells.
As it approached the stop, prospective passengers walked past the 56 that many of them, like me, could have taken and waited for a few seconds for the New Bus for London to arrive.
Why don’t Transport for London do the right thing and convert route 38 to the new buses?
But then us plebs in Hackney don’t count for much, as BT have shown by their non-delivery of fibre-optic broadband.
If the 38 went to Archway in Islington, it would have been converted by now!
The Anonymous Widower 