On the buses
I returned to London this weekend for the first time in a few months and was disappointed to find that the tubes were not gold plated and there didn't appear to be any buffet trolleys, toilets or in-trip entertainment. Now, you are probably all thinking I'm mad to expect these things, but I feel I have a right, since fares are now over 50% higher than they were three years ago. When I first started at Imperial a return in zone 1 was under £4; now it is £6 and yet the service does not seem to be any better! The tubes are no more regular, they do not move any faster and they are certainly not less crowded! Maybe if I was a Londoner I would be asking `red' Ken, he who once championed socialism and the public sector, what the hell is going on! If he carries on like this the only people who will be able to afford the tube are Russian millionaires and I hate to tell him this, but they don't tend to use the underground a great deal. I do miss London, it is a wonderful city to live in but if I had to pay the tube and bus fares nowadays I think I would barely be leaving my halls. I admit that I didn't find out what price bus tickets are nowadays but last time I checked they had gone up to the very annoying amount of £1.20, it's one thing to find a quid in your pocket after a night out as you stumble on the night bus, but a quid and a twenty pence piece is asking a bit much. I wonder if there is a correlation between the increases in bus fares and drunken arguments with drivers on night buses, that would a be a good project for some social scientist to do!
I do remember that what particularly annoyed me about that last increase in bus fares was that at the same time it was announced that there would be free transport on buses for children under 16. In this day and age of obese children do we really want to be encouraging teenagers to ride the buses rather than walk? At least that way they will get some exercise on their way to buy the latest computer game, or as they wander to the nearest fast food outlet. I did see on a big poster that if they behave anti-socially on public transport they will have their free transport taken away from them; this did make me wonder whether free transport was originally offered just so it could be used as threat in Tony Blair's Respect campaign!
This free transport for those under 18 also means that there will be more of them on the buses, and therefore it will be even more crowded and noisy, so other people will not want to use it. Well, would you want to be on the same bus as some of the school children you see nowadays? You can forget about being beaten up for your lunch money, they'll be after your cards, your pin numbers and your phone; which, after they have stolen it from you, they will use it to video themselves happy slapping you! Eventually, this state of affairs could mean that there is no money going into public transport from fares as the only people travelling on it will be under 18 students. Mind you, to give Ken his due, he has probably managed to stop this happening with his congestion charge. Now I have no real problem with the congestion charge, as I hardly ever drive in London and it has reduced traffic on the roads. If, however, I did have to travel long distances in London every day I reckon I would be very pissed off that the only choices I have are to pay a £10 charge to drive or more than half of that to stand on an over crowded public train.
Mind you, at least London has buses: in Cambridge they don't really exist. Well, they do, but its a well kept secret where exactly they go to and from. You see them on the street and occasionally at bus stops, but there are never any bus maps or bus numbers written on the stops or the main station, and if you ever do catch a bus it's a bit of a lottery where you might end up. If anyone knows the secrets of the Cambridge buses please let me know! Personally, I think the secret is known to only one old man who sits in a darkened room chuckling madly and redirecting the bus routes at whim, like some sort of bus version of the fat controller of Thomas the Tank engine fame! One thing that Londoners need to watch out for is the public transport becoming as bad as Cambridge; if that happens you too will know the horror that comes from having too many cyclists!
