Category: Commuting

Twice a day, every day.

5 Types Of People You’ll Encounter On The Tube

If you commute into or around London every day, chances are you’ll know your fellow passengers very well indeed.

Maybe not by name, but most likely by sight, and occasionally by your own silently given moniker – “sunglasses girl”, “loud phone woman”, or, “that bloke you thought was hot until he repeatedly picked his nose and ate it on the platform at Baker Street the other day” (true story. Nothing breaks the heart and turns the stomach like seeing a good looking boy having a bogey breakfast on the Bakerloo Line. Sad face.)

But for the most part, you’ll recognise certain commuters because every station, carriage and tube line has their own version. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to…

1. The Wacky Racers

Recognise them by: the nervous sideways glance they’ll give you as you as the tube pulls into the platform. These commuters aren’t in a rush for any reason, they’re just on a one-man mission to be the first person off the tube. After sizing up their competitors, they’re up and standing by the doors before the next stop is even announced, ready to run. This ain’t a commute sunshine, it’s a goddamn race.

2. The Newspaper Nuisance

Recognise them by: the tutting, shuffling, perturbed gang of commuters on either side. There’s barely room to swing an Oyster Card in the crush, but that doesn’t stop this space invader from bringing the FT, Daily Telegraph or worse still, The Daily Mail (what it loses in size, it makes up for with offensive headlines) onto the busy tube and reading it at full spread. When it comes to newspapers, less is more. Fold it in half or face the silent wrath – and occasional elbow – of your neighbouring passengers.

3. The Drunken Monkey

Recognise them by: the ambiguous stains on their jeans (could be kebab, more likely vomit), missing shirt buttons and lolling head. The seat beside this commuter will nearly always be free, but do yourself a favour and avoid it at all costs. If you must enter the danger zone, proceed with care. And always have a camera phone ready to capture any good ‘uns for comedy value.

Sorry, dude.

4. The Very Angry Caterpillars

Recognise them by: the frantic activity (pointing gestures, outraged facial expressions) through the window, followed by an irate, window-rattling yell of “CAN YOU MOVE DOWN, PLEASE“. Having issued their directives from the platform, the Angry Caterpillars will proceed – with accompanying tuts and hurumphs – to squeeze into a previously invisible space using a barrage of elbows, bag swinging, and audible muttering until the inevitable awkward silence descends. On a particularly fraught commute, it is not unusual to come across a succession of them. All are best ignored.

5. The Entertainer

Recognise them by: ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ts ts ts ch ch ch ch ch ti ti ti ti ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch, and these:Usually head nodding, occasionally rapping / tappin’ to da beat, always oblivious to the disapproving looks from those around them; the Entertainer shuns noise-reducing Sennheisers in favour of earphones that provide a live, treble-heavy musical broadcast to the rest of the carriage. Only the brave (or the Angry Caterpillar) will dare to make the “volume-down” gesture, and the best course of action is to counter the tinny assault with your own music.

Failing that, always have the other London travel essential to hand: a pointed, steely glare.

If I’ve missed off someone as always, do let me know.

27th March 2016
Here are Some Better Ways for TfL to Save Money Instead of Making Buses Cash Free

As of today, you can no longer pay with cash on London’s buses.

Lots of people aren’t very happy about it, and as someone who manages to lose between 5-8 Oyster cards a year, I also fall into the group of those who would rather be able to pay £2.20 than beg, plead and weep at a bus driver to let me on so I can get home at 3am on a Saturday morning.

If you think it’s a stupid idea too then I’d encourage you to read this blog post or maybe this one, not because it’ll make a blind bit of difference when you’re stranded on Waterloo Bridge without any Oyster credit or a contactless payment card, but because nodding at your screen in an indignant way while imagining hypothetical bus payment scenarios which may or may not happen might make you feel a bit better in the short term.

Apparently the whole cashless buses thing happened so that TFL could save some money, and while that is largely agreed to be horse twaddle, it’s been a quiet weekend so I’ve been giving it some thought anyway.

Here are some other things they might like to consider to save money and improve London’s buses.

1. Make windows that open.

Boris sorted out all these new buses which was good of him – thanks, B. Can I call you B? – but on a sunny afternoon they’re like being stuck in a tropical fish tank without the pleasing coolness of water, and instead of cute little terrapins snapping at your fingers you get a conductor yelling “MOVE DOWN INSIDE THE BUS PLEASE, RIGHT DOWN, GO ON, MOVE”.

The air con must be expensive to run on full blast all day, so TFL could save lots of pounds by introducing ventilation in the shape of “windows” that “open” thus allowing a “breeze” to flow through. Think about it. You know, like the Victorians did.

2. Sensors on doors.

Save thousands in passenger injury compensation claims by putting sensors on the doors to prevent them closing when there is something in the way. Like a person. Either that, or ask your drivers to stop shutting doors actually on people’s faces.

And by “people’s faces” I mean “my face” because it’s happened twice now and I’m about to take it personally.

3. Allow passengers to get on the bus.

By training drivers to recognise well known signs such as “hand held out onto road”, “waving hand” and “polite smiley girl tapping on door when bus is stationary at a red light and hasn’t yet left the stop”, you could increase on people actually getting on the bus and paying for a journey.

4. Save paper by not throwing people off the bus.

When any other service in the world runs late, the attitude is very much “oh my god, so sorry, let me make sure you reach your destination now the traffic has cleared.” Not so on a bus, where after keeping you on board in stationary traffic for half an hour, they simply terminate early and drop you off wherever so they can catch up on their schedule, thus making you even later and wasting precious ££ on paper for “transfer vouchers”.

Solution? Don’t do that. Get people to where they need to be. Save paper. Save the WORLD.

5. Bus loyalty card.

Introduce guaranteed boarding for regulars to stop the fair weather cyclists nicking all the seats when it rains. I’d totally pay 30p for that. Or someone would, anyway.

6. Offer seat reservations.

Because now there are not one but two different ways to get onto the top deck of the 38 bus, the race for a seat has never been more tactical or fierce. Get some reservations on that shiz. Like Eurostar.

7. Sell earplugs.

Available for purchase from the conductor at the back, and particularly useful in the morning when fellow passengers are failing to respect the “no talking on your phone before 9am” rule that I made up just now.

8. Let people pay cash for their bus trip.

Because otherwise when they’ve lost their Oyster card for the 18th time that month and all the ticket selling places are shut, and you can’t activate the money you just topped up with online because the tube stations are closed, and it takes 24 hours and you want to go home now, you won’t get any money at all. You’ll just get me. Crying. All the way to Dalston. On foot. And no one wants that.

If you have any additional money saving ideas for TfL, put them in a survey and send them over here so that I can put them in the bin. Thanks.

Image: κύριαsity via Flickr

7th July 2014
Is This the Most Civilised Bus Stop in London?

There are several ways you can tell that an area has reached Peak Gentrification.

Aside from the crazy increase in house prices, there’ll be new artisan coffee shops, delis, baskets of brioche bread, sour dough sarnies lying about the place and liberal usage of the word “organic”.

TimeOut will write that the trendy moustache and beard wearing hipsters absolutely adore shopping for vintage finds in the area’s pop-up ramshackle car boot sale, and the streets will be full of young, affluent people who, between sobs, will tell you they’ve just paid £600,000 for a 1 bed flat above a kebab shop after getting caught in a sealed bid.

But for me, the surest sign that an area has achieved peak well-heeled status is when people start to form an orderly queue at the bus stop.

I mean, look at this.

Just look at it.

This is the scene every morning at a bus stop on Southgate Road in N1. Here, the commuters queue for their bus; come rain, hail, storm, or tube strike.

At the bus stops before and after – Stamford Hill, Dalston to Old Street – there are no queues. But here in DeBeauvoir the bus shelters are empty, and there is a clear ‘get to the back of the line‘ policy happening.

The only other place this seems to happen is in Canary Wharf, where everyone pretends they are still in a bank even after they leave work.

I suspect this Southgate Road queue business is probably something to do with the fact that the bus is always too full to let people on once it gets here, hence the need for the “I was here first, I deserve the bus more” thing.

It’s all very British.

Personally, I prefer the rules further up the road in Dalston, where commuters advocate a much more effective “My elbows are sharper than yours, and I’ve got a bus arrival app so technically I saw it coming first, and god damn it get out of my way, this one’s mine, bitches” approach to boarding a bus.

What can I say? It’s not pretty, but it works for us.

So, is this the most civilised bus stop in London? Or have Posh Bus Queues become a thing near you too?

13th February 2014