Tuesday 27 February 2007

My transport

Just whipped off to the TfL website to check how the Jubliee Line is doing before I go home. I don't usually bother to do this, only this afternoon the Jubilee Line sent me a text message to say that there were 'minor delays'. Well - guess what, nearly three hours later - there are STILL minor delays!

Today's given reason is a person taken ill on a train earlier at Canary Wharf. I do not see why this has to delay the trains! Why does the ill person not GET OFF the train and let the train go on it's merry way. On the subject of people being taken ill on the train though - I do wish that somebody would correct the grammar of the PA announcer at Green Park. He insits that an "earlier person taken ill on the train" is a reason for delay. At which point a mental image of an earlier person (perhaps a caveman, or a knight in armour) always pops in to my head.

I hold out little hope for my journey even when TfL claims that a good service operates. My oft stated opinion that TfL must have a different definition of a 'good service' than mine is, in fact, true. A 'good service' equate to no noticable impact on your journey. You have to get down to 'severe delays' before they will sanction you taking another route! On this basis I disagree that last night when I arrived at Green Park a 'good service' was operating on the Jubilee Line. I arrived on the platform to see the indicator board stating 7 minutes until a train. As the stated journey time between Green Park and North Greenwich is 19 mintues this meant that a third of my journey time would be spent on the platform waiting for a train! I call that a minor delay as I had a 'noticeably longer journey time'.

When I did get to North Greenwich I noted that all four escalators were actually in service between the bus station and the ticket hall - which is how it should be as two have only been in service for a month! It didn't last thought... back down to three again this morning!

The new escalators are part of the big 'O2' facelift to the area around what most of us still call 'The Dome'. This includes closing off about half of the car park back in Febraury, and making it available to season ticket holders only on weekdays. Now considering the cost of it, I'm not sure why anybody else would want to pay to park there on a weekday, but that is beside the point. The point is that since they have fenced off the large area of the car park - NO WORK appears to have been done. I can see why car drivers are annoyed.

There was the usual degree of chaos in the Bus Station... there are three main stops which serve a variety of routes. The busses I want irritatingly leave from two different stops - the 422 shares with the 108 as they run the same route past the old hospital and the 486 shares with the 161 and tthe 472 as they run the same route through the peninsula. I get really annoyed with the 486 as what usually happens is that all the people waiting for the 472 and the 161 don't bother to move their arses to let passengers onto the 486 and it all turns into a massive scramble. Maybe it will get better if the 486 is really running double deckers now!

Finally leaving the bus station we encountered the 'hole in the road' which seems to have taken residence along East Parkway. It is of such size that the busses have to give way to each other to progress in opposite directions. I'm not sure what purpose the hole serves, but soon it will be elevated to having capital letters!