Commuting

[Jowsey]

and the northern counties grumble about the amount that gets spent on travel upgrades down south. I'd love to quarter my commuting costs!

I think it's probably due to the size of it!

Oh, and just a little snippet of info. Ever heard of the Metro Centre? Well, you can't actually get a metro to it... Just false advertisement!!

[Butcher]

About £120 pcm for petrol for me, plus costs of running the car. Still probably a bit cheaper than a lot of people in London.

[OilSheikh]

10 years ago, when I got on the District line in the morning rush hour, I was able to find a seat. In fact, if I didn't get enough sleep in the previous night, I caught upon my sleep on the train. These days, forget about getting a seat. Few trains will come but they will be packed. You are lucky to get on the 3rd train.

In my latest find, I have discovered the usefulness of the free Metro or Evening standard. Roll it and then you can hold it in a suitable angle to prevent situations like someone's bag is poking your asset, someone's belly is being portruded on your back, etc. Maybe if I have two papers, I can have dual lightsabers.... sorry, wrong universe...

[GuidoLS]

How do you behave when you commute ?

I speed walk to my station , overtaking everyone else who is walking in front of me and also heading to the station. My oystercard is in my hand even ebfore I reach the station. I then do a split second overtaking to make sure I get through the barriers before the next guy who is about to. As I am passing through the barriers, I do a U dance as I gracefully go through!

On the platform, I have already memorized
- which carriage normally has empty seats
- where does this carriage stop
- at which part of the platform should I stand at so that the doors for this carriage open up in front of me and I am the first one to get on the carriage

At anytime, I like peace and quiet on my commute. I eye any chicks on the carriage. Then, I sleep Business-class style : Legs stretched across the carriage and my upper body at a 45 degrees comfort position.

If there's anyone who is playing their music loudly ( mostly it's Africans / British Africans / East Europeans ), I give them a dirty I WILL RIP YOU APART look and I keep staring at them until they reduce their music volume. If they don't, I get my phone out, go sit next to them and play the Modern Warfare 2 Spec Ops theme or the Etihad Airways boarding theme , just so I can pis them off. Obese people are also uncomfortable to sit next to. You feel squashed and unable to move your arms.

When getting off at my destination station, again, I position myself in front of the door that will be nearest to the exit. If I am on a carriage which is far away from the exit, I jump out of the carriage like Batman and then run for the exit zooming past everyone!

If you have to catch a 2nd connecting train and your 1st train has just arrived, indicate with your hands ( like the signal guy on a aircraft carrier ) to people who crowd up near the doors : CLEAR out of the way. I need to GO straight.

While walking to work, I like to avoid these types of slow coaches :
- Old ladies
- Tall men ( they walk like Peter Crouch .. takes big strides but slowly )
- Fat men/women
- Ladies wearing heels

Only ladies who wear boots seem to be good at this. They take long strides and walk fast as well!

If someone is trying to overtake you, don't let them pass you.They will get in front of you and slow you down.

Timing is everything

I drive, to avoid the temptation of ripping the throat out of people who are this self absorbed at the expense of everyone else.

[ik9000]

I drive, to avoid the temptation of ripping the throat out of people who are this self absorbed at the expense of everyone else.

You have no idea what London is like my friend. Do not judge until you've worked here.

[GuidoLS]

You have no idea what London is like my friend. Do not judge until you've worked here.

I lived and worked in both downtown Washington DC, which is not commuter friendly regardless of mode, and Manhattan (a part of New York City, for those unaware), which I'm relatively certain is at least as large as London, population wise, and even less commuter friendly. Ugly is ugly - doesn't matter where it is. And with the levels of hell that the world has descended in to, again, I have absolutely no discomfort at all calling ugly ugly. Maybe if we all started pointing out certain things, the ugliness would at least recede, if not entirely disappear.

[ik9000]

The only two places i know of which are worse are Bombay and Tokyo. DC has nothing on this place.

[GuidoLS]

Not sure how you're defining worse. DC is definitely bottom 5 when it comes to sheer rudeness. NYC and Boston are both way up there just for the people crush. Agreed on Tokyo, but the Japanese are so polar opposite in regards to politeness and just being correct when compared to us in the west that it's hard to mention them, except for the sheer number of people.

But I stand by my statement - 1 or 100 or 1 million - there's no excuse for ugly.

[ik9000]

But I stand by my statement - 1 or 100 or 1 million - there's no excuse for ugly.

True enough in this context. Though at least 50% of what he is says is standard London commuter. some however is not.

[TooNice]

My experience of DC wasn't bad. Though I was there on holiday so probably missed some of the worst of rush hour. I remember that the first time I got there, I was carrying my lady friend's luggage down in addition to my own down a rather long escalator, when another lady came to give us a hand. Positive first impressive.

I have to agree with GuidoLS that it is no justification for obnoxious behaviour. Improving one's commute efficiency by memorising the carriage is a good idea. But everything else the OP has said gave me a poor impression of his character. Apply the simple test, what would it be like if everyone did the same. If it's going to be ugly, then don't do it. Japanese tend to get it. Well, I did have two ugly episodes up until now (one which was sort of amusing at the same time involving a drunken salaryman), and I would say that underground is also where their manners are at the worst... but average it is still good (*).

(*) Not sure if the experience is any different for the ladies. Until now I have yet to witness any in train molestation but some of my friends have.

[OilSheikh]

Because trains are packed these days, a new breed of commuters has been born.
When someone who is seated gets up to get off at a station, the seat is emptied. These days, people won't wait to let you off but will rush in to grab the seat. As a result, people getting off are the last person to get off a train due to oncoming traffic!

[kalniel]

Because trains are packed these days, a new breed of commuters has been born.
When someone who is seated gets up to get off at a station, the seat is emptied. These days, people won't wait to let you off but will rush in to grab the seat. As a result, people getting off are the last person to get off a train due to oncoming traffic!

Thankfully that's not my experience - commuters don't dally about, but they know that it's faster to let people off first so they usually do.

[OilSheikh]

New breed :

King of the train!


Pic source : From net

Good luck with your journey if it happens to be a builder who is wearing his unwashed clothes that he has been wearing for the whole week and he flexes to have 0cm gap between you and him!

[ik9000]

New breed :

King of the train!



Good luck with your journey if it happens to be a builder who is wearing his unwashed clothes that he has been wearing for the whole week and he flexes to have 0cm gap between you and him!

I had to do a visit once where I came back covered in plaster dust. I got 3 seats. Mine and the 2 next to me. I stank of bit of physical exercise, and looked dusted. Slight whiff aside the seats adjacent were otherwise unaffected. Odd what people will and won't endure.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

I just moved houses more central a few months ago and since then I've been cycling to work which takes 20mins

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[TooNice]

The only two places i know of which are worse are Bombay and Tokyo. DC has nothing on this place.

I am going to re-quote. After visiting the London and other parts of the UK for the first time in 5 years after moving to Tokyo..

O.M.G. I guess that once spoiled it's hard to go back.

Our venerable transit system really hasn't aged very well eh. Since the last time I was here, the cap on the Oyster card has gone by at least another two pounds. I am pretty sure that is well above inflation. Yet I don't see any improvement (well, I suppose that the couple of lines that runs all night during week-end is one good thing - and they finally finished renewing Tottenham Court Road station and it looks quite nice). I know that we are effectively dealing with a legacy system but fact remains that our system is severely behind time. I mean, the average person here is bigger, but the train is significantly narrower. Some people complain about how the UK is "overcrowded", but the truth is that even if we kicked out half the people in London, we may end up with less crowd during rush our, but the infrastructure will -still- be in dire need of a major overhaul in many ways to be considered remotely modern. And to justify what they are charging!

And it's not just the tube. Since coming back, I've taken coaches, trains and planes. I am not joking when I say that three quarter of the time, they run behind schedule.

Trains and planes are rather expensive. Well, to be fair, the high speed trains (Shinkansen) in Japan are also expensive. But that's a high speed train, which we lack, and speed aside, it is clean, comfortable, and runs on time almost all the time. Travelling by regular local trains in Japan isn't more expensive than over here (actually, there are some very decently priced passes - and unlike railcards, are available to anyone). You really have to go to the countryside to find some very old trains - and even those are clean and run on time. And our regular trains.. seems to vary from average to in dire need of work. Well, I suppose that at least our safety record is good (I think).

Coaches (National Express/Megabus) is dirt cheap. It's also quite the experience if you ever do an England <-> Scotland journey. Comfort aside, I also feel that the cleanliness needs some work..... a lot of work. I kinda wondered why I've never seen "luxury" coaches I have seen in a number of other countries that bridges the price gap between el cheapo coaches and trains for those long distance overnight trip. But it seems like Megabus has an answer to that.. in the form of Megabus Gold. I tried it. It was.. better than the usual Megabus. But still felt like sleeping through a constant earthquake (and I know all too well how earthquakes feel like by now). Frankly speaking, nice, large comfy chair > el cheapo bunk bed and shouldn't take more space.

Sorry for the rant. I've been back to the UK for about 2.5 weeks now, and tried really hard not to make a thread about what I thought about the transportation in the UK but I couldn't let this chance pass