Naming Buses After Olympic Medal Winners
I am always in favour of naming buses.
Should all Olympic medal winners have a bus named after them?
I think it would be a good gesture, that could have lots of positive benefits.
Personalised Spider Bus Maps
London’s spider bus maps are good and are starting to be copied by other places. This is the one for Bruce Grove and Bruce Castle.
I think it would be rather nice if you could create personalised ones, so that you could show all the routes to or from your house or business.
Returning from Bruce Castle
I didn’t come back by train, but took a 243 bus direct to Dalston Junction station.
A Well-Appointed Bus Stop at Bruce Castle
As you can see, the bus stop by the museum was well appointed.
The buses are so much easier than the trains. And also the climb up the stairs is optional and only is used to get a better view from the front.
Connecting Hackney Central and Hackney Downs Stations
It says this in Wikipedia under the entry for Hackney Downs station.
The station is a short walk from Hackney Central, on the North London Line. Until Hackney Central’s closure in 1944, a passenger connection linked the two stations. However, when Hackney Central reopened in 1985, the footway did not reopen, and passengers transferring between the two stations are obliged to leave the station and transfer at street level.
Last night, I took the Overground to Hackney Central and then walked to Hackney Downs station.
It was quite an easy walk, but not the most obvious.
These pictures show how close the lines are and some of the local area.
It may not be possible to reinstate the walkway, but surely something better can be done, incorporating sensible bus interchanges as well.
I see this very much as an opportunity for Hackney.
More Steps At Stoke Newington
I took the train back from White Hart Lane station to Stoke Newington station in order to get a seventy-free to the Angel for some lunch at Carluccio’s and also do some shopping at Waitrose.
Platform Access at Stoke Newington
These show the steps up from the train to street level. And of course there is no lift! This was illustrated by a rather large fit guy carying a woman’s large buggy and two children up the stairs, just before I took the picture. Surely we can do better than assure access by having to rely on the kindness of strangers.
The bus stop to go south from Stoke Newington is a large double one, but it doesn’t have one of those displays that tell you how long you’ll have to wait. These are important and really help passengers, as often you have more than one option. For instance yesterday, if I’d had to wait too long for a 73 or 476, I might have changed plan and gone home directly on a 76 via a pub.
Walking Along Tottenham High Road
From Bruce Grove, I walked up Tottenham High Road, intended to get as far as White Hart Lane station.
There is some sign of looting and arson.
The Gutted Aldi Store on Tottenham High Road
This Aldi store had seen its last, but on the other side of the road, things were different.
Opposite the Gutted Aldi Sore in Tottenham High Road
The criminality seems to have been very selective. This Grade II Listed building at 639, seems to have been untouched except for the windows.
639 Tottenham High Road
But had they been boarded up before? Let’s hope someone finds a worthwhile use for the building.
It was just opposite the Carpetright store, that is now completely flattened.
One thing I noticed was that the bus and location maps that are so common in Hackney and Islington seemed to be totally missing from the bus stops.
An Almost Information-Free Bus Stop
As this area gets more visitors than most because of Tottenham Hotspur, surely they should be on every bus stop. And whilst on the subject of buses, there are not too many light-controlled crossings in the area, which doesn’t make it the most pedestrian-friendly of areas, as often to get to your bus stop, you need to brave the traffic.
Hackney Downs Station
I wanted to go to Tottenham today, to answer a few questions that had arisen in my mind after the trip yesterday to IKEA.
I started at Hackney Downs station.
To say it is a dump would not be fair, as I suspect that staff try hard to keep a station that has lacked investment for years, working well.
It could be a very good station and I think it could be made into a major interchange by just a few changes and perhaps by borrowing ideas from the Overground.
The access to the platforms, which is by steep staircases, must be improved. I’m not disabled, but do appreciate the problems of those who are. In a wheelchair, unless accompanied by say four of Her Majesty’s squaddies, you wouldn’t stand a chance.
It is dark and dingy too and desperately in need of an imaginative repainting. Hackney has lots of artists, so perhaps they could help or design a scheme. Has a station ever been converted into an art gallery? I know the Musee d’Orsay was formerly a station, but they threw the trains out. Babies and bathwaters come to mind.
How about adding a food shop and a coffee bar?
The interface to the buses underneath the station is poor, as the picture in the gallery shows. There should be a light-controlled crossing over Dalston Lane.
But there is a lot going for the station.
It is close to the open space of Hackney Downs.
It is well served by services going to Enfield, Tottenham, Chingford, Cheshunt, Hertford and of course, Liverpool Street.
A walkway did link it to Hackney Central and this could be reinstated to create a true rail interchange for Hackney.
Getting To And From The Race
Getting to the cycle race in London today was easy. I just took a 38 bus, got off at Cambridge Circus and then walked through to The Mall.
Not at any time, was I told that the bus was being diverted, although once I got off, I realised this was the case as it didn’t go down Shaftesbury Avenue, but meandered around Trafalgar Square and on to Victoria via Whitehall.
It was coming back that I had the problem, as no-one had any clue where I could pick up a northbound 38 towards the romantic, Clapton Pond. There was one diversion sign for the drivers, but none indicating where the stops were. To make matters worse, entry to Charing Cross station seemed impossible.
In the end I decided to go to Tottenham Court Road and get a Central Line train to Bank. I did find a 29 bus that took me part of the way and dropped me north of the station.
I thought that at Bank, I could get a bus home, but the stop was closed, with the helpful sign, that it would close from the 2nd August until further notice.
A Helpful sign on a Bus Stop
It just said go to the next stop on the route. I was lucky in that a bus arrived and the driver let me on unofficially. But what if you’d been a lost tourist told to take a bus from the stop.
Transport for London must get their signage right when they divert buses. Not everyone knows the bus network, as well as I do!
A Saturday Morning Routine
There are two radio programmes, I like to listen to on Saturday morning; Danny Baker and the unsporting quiz, Fighting Talk, as they appeal to my unusual sense of humour.
The trouble is that if I’m going to football, as I am today, it doesn’t really leave much time for me to get to the shops, as I have to leave by about midday to get the train.
So this morning, I got to the Angel, by bus at just after 8:30. I actually took a seventy-free, as if you sit at the back and get out of the rearmost door, it’s much easier to walk to the four shops, Carluccio’s and the physio, that I visit at the Angel.
Today, it was just Boots for some rat poison, Marks and Spencer for some gluten-free sarnies for the train and a beef Stroganoff for tonight and Waitrose for two large carriers of heavy stuff like alcohol and Coke. I went to Waitrose first and found that if I shopped immediately, could get it delivered before the start of Fighting Talk at 11:00. I think I rather caught them on the hop, but hopefully it’ll come on time. But I do have two hours of total float in my critical path, so if they come by one I’m OK.
The only problem, was that Marks didn’t have the gluten-free sandwiches, but then I’ll pass three of their shops that stock them on the way to Liverpool Street. If they don’t have any, then I shall complain. If there aren’t any, it’s probably because they are too good and all those food fadists on a gluten-free kick have snaffled them!
I was back home listening to Danny Baker by ten o’clock.
It sounds like I’ll be repeating this on Saturdays in the future.
The routine could be even better, if Carluccio’s opened at 8:00 for breakfast on Saturday, as they do in the week.
Update at 11:20 – Waitrose have just delivered, so I have plenty of time to catch the train to Ipswich, after scouring Marks for some gluten-free sandwiches.
Thinking about this post. When C and I lived near Newmarket we would go shopping early, often visit one of our horses in traing and then we’d generally be back home around eleven.
I suppose, I’m only repeating what we did together by myself. In some ways, it was easier in Suffolk, as Waitrose opened earlier. But then I had to carry the shopping from the car to the hall. Here, that is all done by the van driver from Waitrose.
Who said manners and service are dead.
Fuel Prices
After my stroke, I gave up driving and moved to a highly-insulated house in Dalston.
If you don’t like fuel costs, then move somewhere, where you don’t need a car and your house has affordable and efficient central heating.
I do all my shopping either on the Internet or by bus. I even go to IKEA on a bus and that is real fun!
The Anonymous Widower 