Welcomed To Glasgow By A Lith
On arriving at Glasgow Queen Street station, I was met by this obvious lith.
Welcomed To Glasgow By A Lith
From the map, I was able to locate the tourist office for more information.
A Solitary Edinburgh Lith
Walking along Princes Street in the rain, I came across this solitary lith called an Edinburgh Navigator.
A Solitary Edinburgh Lith
They are described here on the website of the company that designed them. For systems like this to be truly useful, there needs to be lots of them and they need to be all over a city and not just in the places, where visitors go. This is the opening paragraph from the web page.
Although Edinburgh has a number of renowned landmarks, research revealed that visitors still found some difficulty finding their way around. Our review of existing visitor navigation illustrated a lack of clear and integrated signage. The solution was to develop an entirely new visitor orientation system – Edinburgh Navigator.
It could be said of so many cities, all over the world.
Buses In Edinburgh
Whilst in Edinburgh, I travelled several times on Edinburgh’s buses. They may be understandable to those, who live in the city, but they don’t have the bus maps everywhere, that Londoners and most tourists like in London. So if you’re not with a guide, it can be difficult to find the bus and the appropriate stop for where you want to go.
I was staying with a friend, just outside the city centre, and she can take buses from two companies to get home. So, although you can buy a 24-hour ticket for each company, you can’t buy one for all of the buses that use Edinburgh. And of course, I can’t use my English bus pass in Scotland. I have wondered how many English, who fancy a weekend away, don’t go to Scotland, as their bus passes are not valid. Surely, every UK bus pass, should be valid all over the UK, to encourage tourism.
But the fact that there is no 24-hour pass for the whole of Edinburgh, was a total surprise to me. Many cities in England and of course London, have systems to give 24-hour travel to everybody, who wants it. Surely, this problem will be solved, when every city in the world follows London and allows a bank or credit card to be used as a ticket. There’s a lot here on contactless ticketing with bank cards.
Talking of tickets, will you need a third 24-hour ticket, for the trams in Edinburgh?
Edinburgh has the silly single door buses, that don’t announce their stops, that still persist outside London. Was this why on my several trips on Edinburgh’s buses, I never saw a mother with a baby in a buggy or anybody carrying anything heavy?
What summed up the badly planned nature of Edinburgh’s buses, was this timetable on a stop.
How Not To Do Bus Information
Note how to text to find the next bus, you have to type in an eight-digit number and then use a full mobile number. In London, which appears to be a much bigger city than Edinburgh, all stops are covered by codes that are just five digits and you text the same short number of 87287 at every stop.
I also think that as you can get the buses of two companies from the stop I was using, you actually have to use a different system to get the times for the other company. London,which has several bus companies, merges all the routes and companies together.
No Directions To Kings Cross Square
I took a Piccadilly line train to Kings Cross today, from where I got a 30 bus to my home.
But there were no signs to the Kings Cross Square and the buses that stop alongside.
The interchange is working well and if I’m coming home on a Piccadilly line train say from Heathrow, I now surface at Kings Cross station and get a 30 bus home or a 73 to the Angel, where I change at the same stop to the 38 for home. It solves the problems of the lack of Underground stations in my area of Hackney.
This interchange will get better, when the second entrance to the Underground opens and the bus routes in the area are improved. The 390 for instance is getting New Buses for London.
Today, the big light was on too, so I was able to bathe in its warmth, as I waited for my bus.
Obviously, not everybody has an energy problem!
Three Visitors Inspecting A Lith
I took this picture of the lith outside of Russell Square station.
Three Visitors Inspecting A Lith
I also talked to one of the staff inside, who liked the lith, but they said, they still got people asking them for directions.
Most stations now seem to have these Legible London liths outside. I now never carry a map, or use a map on my phone, as I walk around London, as the liths and the maps on bus stops and stations, will get me where I want to go.
We Need More Openness Everywhere
This story from the BBC is a big dose of common sense from MPs. Here’s the jist.
Councils in England should publish annual parking-charge accounts if they want to prove they are not being used as a “cash cow”, MPs have said.
I think we need much better access to all government data.
Here’s a few ideas.
If you run a company, as I’ve done several times, you have to publish a set of simple accounts, including things like cash flows and a profit and loss statement.
Why shouldn’t the government publish such a brief set of accounts, which the man on the Dalston Omnibus could understand?
But of course they don’t!
Some years ago, I tried to find the data to do create some simple accounts for UK plc. The data is there, but it is in several different places and despite help from a BBC financial journalist, I thought I had better things to do, than dig holes in treacle.
I would also like to see an anonymised database of those who are in prison. A man like me would be described as male, 60-70 in reasonable health, who was a non-smoker living in North London.
It would allow those, who make wild statements about prisons to be challenged and hopefully, it would lead to better justice and penal policies.
I must admit, that it has got a lot better in recent years with the growth of the Internet, but too often, data that would help us to have better lives is hidden from view.
The NHS is one of the worst for hiding data. There has been a lot of discussion about A & E units in recent years. Surely, a database should be available on the Internet, of all visits to this department. Again, it would be anonymised.
It would then be easy to find out for instance, how many drunks turned up at various hospitals demanding treatment.
The trouble is, that a national database in this area of the NHS, would show how A & E departments should change to get fit for the twenty-first century. Some would be obvious candidates for closure, whereas others would need to be expanded with special units.
As Charles Babbage said
Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.
Give everybody the data, so that we can all finish the job!
You don’t make a good omelette without breaking a few eggs.
y
Liverpool Tries Scrapping Bus Lanes
It is being reported on both BBC Breakfast and their web site, that Liverpool is scrapping bus lanes in a nine month experiment to see if it reduces congestion.
What Liverpool really needs is better information on how to use the buses and walk around the city, as I said here in this post. I didn’t get a reply. Unlike from Birmingham after this post.
Closer to home, I’m being seriously inconvenienced by road works in a bus lane, which has resulted in the closest stop to my house being closed. This means that when I return from the Angel with my shopping, I have to walk several hundred metres further. In a couple of cases, I’ve taken taxis home, to avoid the walk.
Hopefully, in a few days, we’ll be back to normal!
A Welcoming Lith In Geneva
This excellent lith with a map and information, was placed just out of Geneva station on the way to the lake.
A Welcoming Lith In Geneva
Every station exit in the world should have one!
I can’t find anything about these liths and their maps on the Internet.
Welcome To Milan
The tourist office in the station was shut.
In the end, I took the Underground to the Duomo and then found that my hotel was by the station, so I had to come back.
I know there was a lot of building work going on, but surely some maps and posters around the station would have helped. Surely, Milan only has to look two stations down the line to Genoa.
I did fill in the survey, but there was no place for comments.
Sheffield’s Wayfinding Liths
Sheffield seems to have put up better maps since I was last there.
There’s more here on Connect Sheffield.
It does at least seem that other places are jumping on Legible London’s bandwagon.
The Anonymous Widower 