Just been taking a (very quick) look at LOCOG’s transport plans for this summer’s events.  In general, it’s nothing I didn’t expect and we, as hosts of an international sporting event must accept, but forewarned is forearmed. At the moment it’s at ‘consultation stage’ but they’ve not got much wriggle-room if there’s a problem – I suspect this is deliberate on LOCOG’s part. I’m expecting this to be railroaded through pretty quick. The one thing I would be VERY keen to know is that we will be given plenty of clear, focused information so that we can work around whatever we have to suck up.

I’m not going to reinvent the wheel by going through it all here, but on a quick perusal I note a few things we should look out for:

South Eastern claim they’ll have a max capacity of 11,000 per hour, but bad luck if you want to use Maze Hill station to travel away from London am or to London pm – trains just won’t stop in those directions in the rush hour.

There’s a whole bunch of bus alterations too, mainly locations of stops. I guess as long as it’s well-publicised (and there are notices on the affected stops so people know where to wait), this should be dealable with.

Cutty Sark DLR will be closed because of short platforms.

Residents parking zones, on the whole, will be as usual, with extended hours. I guess businesses that have customers parking outside will have to deal with it.

One thing that will annoy some residents is a list of parking suspensions on various streets around the park who will lose their resident status to allow sundry coach parking/ set down / spectator walking routes/ taxis/ ‘venue operations/ one way systems and ‘games family’ parking (which includes the notorious ‘marketing partners’ –  but then I’m sure Park Row residents will be only too delighted to give up their parking spot for the CEO of MacDonalds…) I wonder if anyone will have the guts to dock their residents’ parking badge payment on a pro-rata basis…

Times of controlled parking zones where residents bays are not suspended will be standardised – 08.30 – 19.00 during the games (something I hope will not become a regular feature)

Similar restrictions will be imposed on the Isle of Dogs so that spectators will not be able to park on the other side and walk across.

I won’t go into road closures – you can find them on the document.

All in all, it’s generally reasonable stuff. We always knew this bit would be unpleasant and frankly, there is no way around some traffic disruption.

But I repeat – we MUST be told about this. I will be expecting something in writing through my door; I don’t want to have to rely on hearsay.

I understand there was a horrible accident on Bugsby’s Way yesterday, between a pedestrian and a 486 bus, at the crossroads where the Odeon is. The Twitter feeds I saw claimed it was fatal, and if so I am thinking of that person’s relatives today, and what they must  be going through. I can’t imagine what that must be like or what I could say to make it any better at all.

Thing is, though, this isn’t the first accident there by any means. Jon tells me that  “this happened 3 weeks ago at the same spot with a 108 bus and a pedestrian” but despite the air ambulance’s attendance there “was no mention in the local papers or anywhere else” – certainly it wasn’t mentioned here as I didn’t know about it. Nor did I know about  the incident a year ago at same spot when a school girl was hit by a bus.

Clearly the proverbial ‘something’ needs to be done about this junction. There’s certainly a very odd piece of road management for car drivers coming from the direction of the O2 and wanting to turn right to go to B&Q /Sainsburys/Comet/ Odeon, where the ‘obvious’ place to turn is actually a bus-only lane; drivers are required to take the one immediately left of that. It is marked with No Entry signs, but isn’t clear if you’re seeing the junction for the first time and I’ve seen dozens of cars taking the wrong route over the years. I’ve never made that mistake myself (though I have accidentally driven down the bus lane on West Parkway thanks to duff signage) but I have to stop and think every time.

But this wasn’t between a car and a bus, as far as I know, but a pedestrian. Now, part of the problem could be pedestrians jay-walking because there’s a long wait between green men, or because there’s only an official crossing between GMV and the retail park on one side – if you’re coming from, say, Moseley Row and wanting to cross on the side near Holiday Inn, it’s pretty tempting to nip across the bit that doesn’t have a proper crossing. I know I’ve done it on occasion, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone.

According to Jon, even that’s not the issue. He lives at GMV and tells me that he watches, day in, day out, buses speeding and running red lights. If it’s that, then short of cameras at the traffic lights to catch people doing that (and I’m not even sure if it counts for buses?) then I’m a bit stuck.

Whatever, yesterday’s tragic incident is the third in two years. With building resuming on the peninsula, this really needs to be looked at.

Chas asks:

Any idea why the escalators at North Greenwich tube station are configured the way they are? At the moment you get off the bus at the north end of the bus stands, then have to cross a stream of people coming out of the tube on the ‘up’ escalators which are also at the north end, to get to the ‘down’ ones. The people coming out of the tube then have to cross the flow of us ex-bus passengers heading for the ‘down’ escalators so they can get to the buses on the south end of the bus stand. It’s particularly problematic when there’s something big on at the O2 and there are lots of people coming out of the ‘up’ escalator.

Surely switching the up and down escalators would make the flow much simpler?

The Phantom replies

You know it’s never occurred to me before, but since you mention it, yes, that does seem like a simple switch that could be made. I don’t think it makes much difference to the flow of people going to the O2 as there’s room both sides and they have to go back on themselves anyway. Of course they’d have to switch the in and out turnstiles at the bottom, but I bet that’s an easy fix.

Can anyone think of a reason why a switch like that would be a bad idea? If not, I think I’ll drop TfL a line…

Blimey – a real, live reply from Southeastern. Remember the missive I sent a little while back about their not announcing train lengths any more, which results in overcrowding in some carriages or an undignified 100m dash when the train arrives halfway up the platform?

Well, here’s their reply…

I am wondering whether it would be possible to reinstate the useful additions to the train announcement displays, whereby waiting passengers are told the length of the train expected. This allows people to distribute themselves along the platform in advance, according to how many cars the train has.

At most stations the length of the train means that it will stop at different places on the platform and not knowing how many carriages there are means either a concentration of people hedging their bets in the middle or an undignified sprint once the train arrives.

There always used to be notice of the number of carriages on the display boards – so clearly Southeastern has the technology to do it. I have no idea why the practice was stopped – but is there any chance of getting the advance notices back?

I think this is quite a polite letter – don’t you agree? It’s not earth-shattering stuff. I’m not haranguing or screaming for something unreasonable, or at least not in my humble opinion. I sent it a couple of weeks ago, and so far no reply, but I’ll let you know if I ever hear anything…

Folks – amazingly, I got a reply from Oyster this morning about the email I sent them after my bad day on sundry forms of transport. Due to an ‘operational issue’ I am owed a refund of £9.30, which sounds about right to me.

So -clearly it IS worth complaining. Hurrah.

HOWEVER. Much as I’m told that network rail IS included in the capping system, I’m edgy about it. I’m going to be buying paper tickets more often than not now.

Tell me, folks, is it just me or is anyone else suddenly finding that their pay-as-you-go Oyster card regularly fails to acknowledge that they have reached the daily travelcard rate? I’ve been long suspecting it, even though it’s hard to keep track when you touch out at a barrier and all it does is tell you to pass through, rather than telling you how much your journey was (particularly bad at tube stations) but it was blatant the day I went to the National Archives.

I took the train to Cannon Street, then the tube to Kew Gardens, which took me to just under a fiver – the tipping point for automatic top up. When I got back on, Automatic top-up stuck a further twenty quid on my card. I got to Cannon Street, and just had time to nip home before going out again. The train was advertised for Platform 2, so I went there. On Platform 2 it also told me it was a Dartford via Greenwich. I got on. First stop Grove-something – Park, End, Row – I don’t know – somewhere I’d never heard of in deepest South East London.

I was cross with myself – I thought I’d made a mistake. It was only when a small army of similarly disgruntled passengers crossed the platform to go back that I realised it wasn’t just me. Still, I kept calm and carried on.

By this point it was too late to go home and change to my evening boots and cloak, so I went to London Bridge. As I got out, my Oyster card charged me SIX POUNDS for the pleasure of wasting an hour of my life. I hadn’t tapped in or tapped out as I’d just crossed the platform at the mysterious Grove station, so it must have been some kind of fine for taking too long to go between Cannon Street and London Bridge.

Cross, but still just about keeping the Phantom temper, I went to my evening appointment. When I came home, my Oyster card charged me another two pounds. I calculate that I was charged over £15 for travel that day. That would never have happened with a paper travelcard. I’ve talked to three people since, and they’ve all noticed that their Oyster cards seem to continue charging them after the travelcard cut-off, but I’m wondering if it’s getting to be universal, and TfL are just hoping we don’t notice.

I’ve written to Oystercard about it. I’ll let you know their reply.

What’s your experience of Oysters? I was so looking forward to them being on mainline stations too – in Greenwich it does make it much more convenient but it seems we’re paying through the nose for that pleasure. My Oystercard, ONE DAY AFTER I TOPPED IT UP, needs cash again. I am seriously considering going back to travelcards.

Forgive the title of this post. There are times when only cliche will do.

Today I am going to a place just north of Farringdon. This journey would normally take – what – 35 minutes – if that. Today I’m allowing just over an hour. the TFL website journey finder reckons my best bet will include a walk, followed by a train, followed by a tube, followed by another walk, followed by a bus. Frankly I’m just going to take a chance that Cannon St will be open (TFL reckon it will be, but I’m always edgy until I get there) and walk the rest.

Weekend engineering works are such a sore point it feels tedious just to mention poor transport links – every blog I read moans about them on a weekly basis. But just because it’s getting boring now doesn’t mean to say that it’s any less inconvenient, irritating or downright fury-inducing.

The weekday services have been utterly appalling – especially during the snow which created excuses a-gogo for Southeastern, and yet, strangely, didn’t seem to affect anyone else nearly so badly – even those companies in the west of London that had it so bad TV reporters camped out to gloat managed to get on their feet more quickly that our lot.

But the weekend services have been on a trickle of misery for years now. The Jubilee line is worst of course, especially when it’s closure has coincided with Southeastern closing the Charlton/Westcombe park/Maze Hill/ Greenwich line (and not mentioning on any kind of notice a the station that there’s no point taking a bus to the Jubilee line ’cause that’s shut too…)

And now it’s all kicking off with the Northern Line. However much Boris may huff and puff, I’m guessing that it will make no difference. Tube Lines will continue to be inefficient because they know they can’t get kicked off the job (I’m convinced they just factored the fines for late delivery into the initial cost).

It’s enough to make you get back in the car.

But no – you can forget that too, if you’re planning to be out any later than 9.00pm and – heavens – decide to cross the river.

For the next three years, don’t even think about driving south through the Blackwall Tunnel between 9.00pm and 5.00am, Sundays to Fridays, AND Sunday, 1.00am-8.am – so that’s your Saturday night on the tiles scuppered.

Why is there no contraflow created? All I can find are mutterings about Health and Safety. I don’t buy them. As Lupo-Lupo points out, this won’t just affect motorists either – I don’t think I’d go as far as to say that Evelyn Road, Blackheath Hill and Greenwich town centre will be ‘paralysed’ every weekday night, but the traffic will be heavier and we will get jams. Not least because there’s not been that much advance warning of this, and there will be a whole bunch of confused motorists getting as far as the A2 and being forced to turn back. No hope of extended Ferry crossing hours, of course.

It doesn’t seem like any time at all since this all happened last time.

It all kicks off from tomorrow – so here’s a fun thing to do tonight:

Get a load of mates together and drive back and forth through the tunnel all night – between one o’clock and eight – just because you can, luxuriating in the delight of two tunnels at night.

So – from today we can use our Pay As You Go Oysters on the clippers, which gets us a 10% discount on the fare. I’m really pleased about this – it joins up the transport system much better even if it doesn’t follow through that the Clipper counts on the daily travelcard-capped fare which would have been the ideal outcome (of course…) You can find more details here.

Even more useful for those of us who use the Southeastern trains, we’ll soon be able to use our PAYG Oysters on the main lines too – the machines which were shipped in several months ago will, apparently, be turned on on the 2nd Jan 2010. I guess it remains to be seen whether we still get to have actual human beings in the stations after the demand for paper tickets drops…

Where I’m also less clear is what the hell’s happening with Southeastern’s new timetable. We’ve been warned that we’d get no through trains to Charing Cross in the new edition but from my (albeit brief – I hate reading timetables online – must get a proper paper one from the station – if there’s a human there, of course…) perusal of the new version, there do still seem to be the odd one or two through trains. I know nothing about what’s going on there.

I’m going to test out my Oyster on the Clipper ASAP. I’ll report back.

Scared of Chives has just sent me this link to an announcement by the mayor that as from November we’ll be able to use Oyster cards on the Thames Clippers, which is obviously good news, especially since if we do, we get a reduction on the price.

He’s also introducing a new service – sadly for us, only between London Bridge and Canary Wharf – a shame – it would have been nice to go to Greenwich. But with rail and road getting so full, maybe he’ll look at putting in more boats that go further – perhaps to Woolwich or even Thamesmead – in future. For the moment, though, a small victory for the commuter…

Now let’s see Pay As You Go Oysters useable on the trains…