Crossrail And The Super Sewer
The two large tunneling projects in London at the moment are Crossrail and the Thames Tideway Tunnel or Super Sewer.
They both require long tunnels and will cost billions of pounds each.
But the public seem to have different attitudes to the two projects.
Nearly everybody seems to support Crossrail, whereas there is substantial opposition to the sewer.
I did ask a friend, if there had been any opposition to Crossrail and he said, there was a bit in the early days from places like Mayfair. People seemed to have been worried about dust and noise during the construction phase. But now everybody just gets on with life and hopes that Crossrail will be finished and walking and driving will get back to normal.
To be fair to Crossrail, they seem to have gone out of their way with green walls to minimise noise, using the river to carry tunnel spoil and being a good neighbour as at Stepney City Farm. They have also launched a well-funded and publicised archaeology program.
On the other hand, the Super Sewer, doesn’t seem to have done the same to allay the fears of a public, who don’t want all the problems of construction and the increase in water bills.
I do wonder, whether the difference is down to the fact that a new railway is something people can use and feel gives them tangible benefits, but a sewer, is something that they only use a few times every day and don’t want to think about. And it looks to me, that Thames Water have not done a good enough job to sell the benefits of the new sewer to the general public.
How To Recycle A Roof
This story on the BBC, tells how the old station roof at London Bridge station, is going to be given to the Vale of Rheidol railway in Wales to help build their new museum.
It wasn’t many years ago, when this structure would have been reduced to scrap, so Network Rail are to be congratulated. Hopefully, the new museum in Aberystwyth will bring tourists to the town and create some new businesses and jobs.
I think too, that this story illustrates how intelligent recycling might be slightly more expensive, but properly done, it can save lots of money elsewhere. The new museum in Wales is reported to be costing ten million, but how much more would it cost without the recycled roof.
How To Make A Big Hole In Solid Concrete
This video will be one of the most watched news stories tonight around the world and the Independent seems to have got there first.
The BBC are also running it this lunchtime in the local news.
Chaos At Richmond
The reception was at Ham House and to get there the Transport for London journey planner, said go to Richmond Station and then get a 371 bus from stop E to Ham Street and walk.
Unfortunately, the finding of a 371 bus wasn’t easy, as south West Trains didn’t seem to have provided any of TfL’s useful bus spider maps at the station. So I couldn’t locate stop E. as I was early, I had a tea in the Carluccio’s by the station and the waitress told me that I got the bus to Ham House from outside the station.
So I got the 371 bus, when it turned up a few minutes later, at the temporary stop, which partly explained my problem. But I didn’t find a bus route map anywhere.
It is an area I don’t know well and it didn’t help that the information system on the bus wasn’t working. But I got there without delay.
Coming back, I was a bit worried about buses late at night, but the stop was covered by the SMS message system that tracks most of London’s buses and I got back home without further trouble.
Checking this morning, it would appear that the 371 actually starts now from stop D at Richmond, so TfL has got a touch of the misinformations.
Schweppes Ruin The Summer
These adverts are on buses all over London.
Schweppes Ruin The Summer
No wonder the weather is so cold and wet! Perhaps they should be advertising cocoa!
It’s Mary Rose Next Week
Now that the Mary Rose museum has opened in Portsmouth, it has given me a suggestion about where to go next week.
As I’m also going to see the Vasa in Stockholm later next month, it will be an interesting comparison.
Nude Cyclists For Jesus Convention
Every so often a series of amusing letters appears in The Times.
Yesterday, they were talking about people holding up signs to greet relatives at airports. This absolute gem was posted.
As a tender-hearted mother I have driven many miles to collect my sons from far-flung airports at all hours. It is a small compensation to take with me a large greeting sign, often along the lines of “Nude Cyclists for Jesus Convention” or similar. It amuses me.
I can’t see C or most of the mothers I know, ever putting up a sign like that for one of their children.
On the other hand, the letter writer seems to be my kind of lady, as I like to think I don’t do boring either, and C stated many times, that she married me, because she knew life wouldn’t be boring.
A Pattern For New Buses for London Is Starting To Emerge
Next month on the 22nd, London bus route 24, gets the New Bus for London. Route 24 has always been a high-profile route and was the first to have the new RML Routemasters in the late 1960s. So it wasn’t a surprise to me, that this route through the homes of the chattering classes, was the first to be wholly converted. The route has a peak requirement of 26 buses according to Wikipedia.
Now it has been announced that Route 11, will be the next to be upgraded to new buses from September 21st. According to the report 25 buses will be used to replace a current requirement of 26. This reduction is probably to be expected as anybody who uses Route 38 regularly as I do, knows that over a distance, they are faster than their normal cousins, as they spend less time at stops. More than once, I’ve noticed four or more 38’s indicated on the display at a bus stop and when they arrive, it’s the New Bus for London leading the convoy.
Will the introduction on Route 11 lead to complaints as they are going down one of the most congested roads in London; Kings Road, Chelsea? On the other hand, it is just the sort of road, where the hop-on and hop-off facility of the buses will come into its own. Hopefully, it’ll entice a few of Chelsea’s residents out of their tractors. It’ll be interesting to read about how the buses are received on Route 11.
Both Route 24 and 11, have a peak requirement of about 25 buses, so as 600 of these buses are expected to be delivered in the next few years, that means they’ll run on 24 routes, if they go in batches of 25.
The more you look at it, the more the introduction of the eight prototype buses on Route 38, was a well-thought out trial to find out how they would be received by the public and how they would perform.
For a start, the terminus at Hackney Central is close to their depot at Ash Grove, so if a bus went AWOL, it could easily be replaced in service by one of the other normal buses on the route. In fact, I’ve not heard of any rumours of serious problems with these buses, although I did see one broken down in the Essex Road. One apparently, also got white-vanned up the backside.
Route 38, is a very cosmopolitan route, with every type of person using the buses, as it goes through both some expensive housing and some big estates, not known for being genteel. So they would get feedback from all sorts and I suspect they have.
Route 38 is also one, with lots of varied traffic conditions, from routes that tend to be pretty clear for a lot of the day, to the congestion of the West End.
I think they have only one major problem, and that is that if Transport for London decided to redeploy the Hackney 8, there would be a lot of protests.
I believe that to use some of the six hundred New Buses for London to fully upgrade Route 38, could be one of the positive things that could be done to give a stimulus to Hackney.
The Advantage Of Properly Integrated Systems
I don’t use an Oyster Card for my meanderings around London, as I have a Freedom Pass, which gives me everything except the cable-car free.
But this advert on the Overground caught my eye.
Oyster Advert On The Overground
When I used an Oyster Card, I suspect, I didn’t always touch out, so it probably cost me a few pounds in total.
So if I read this correctly, if you don’t touch out and you’ve registered the card, you will be told you’ve got a refund. That in itself, will probably mean that you will probably be more careful about touching out.
Remember that Oyster is one of the main ways, that Transport for London, determine the real journeys done by passengers. So removing the touch out error, means they will have better data to plan the network.
This looks like a classic application of the nudge principle.
The Anonymous Widower 