London Can Be a Pain in the A**

Commuting around London can be a nightmare. The last couple weeks have been just dreadful for getting from home to work, as well as for family weekend outings. My standard commute on the Tube, London's subway system, is to take the Jubilee Line from St. John's Wood to Green Park and depending on the weather for walking and waiting for the train it ranges from 30-40 minutes door-to-door. Not bad - unless something breaks down. The Jubilee line, which runs through the tony suburbs of north London is recognized as the most reliable Tube line in the system, supposedly for its well-heeled and politically connected clientele, but of late service has been remarkably spotty.

On four occasions in the past week I (or we) have had to abort half-taken trips (i.e., get out of a train, resurface to street level, and find an alternative route - all after having paid the "discount" rate of $4 for a one-way trip that regular travelers get through an Oyster Card.) Last weekend, we took the kids to Tower Bridge (a la "London Bridges Falling Down...") and made a bona fide effort to take cheaper, faster public transportion. Both going and coming, the Tube didn't get us there (different stories each way, but same result). Annoying not only for the $16 in aborted one-ways for the adults nor merely the fact that many older Tube stations have neither lifts nor escalators so we had to carry the stroller with Sarah in it up and down stairs that would make Escher dizzy, but also because in both directions we ended up taking taxis, which all in cost us another $80. During the week, on two occasions I needed to get out of the Tube station and find a taxi, no easy task when hundreds of others are attempting the same.

Today's mishap was based on the naive attempt to cut my losses and take the bus that runs along the western edge of SJW (n.b., the SJW Tube is a fifteen minute walk to the eastern edge of the neighborhood) and ultimately puts me down in Hyde Park Circle, from where I can take the pleasant stroll through Green Park next to Buckingham Palace and end up at the west end of Pall Mall. (Fellow cartophiles might want to triangulate all this through this site.) Alas, every bus was jam packed. I was told that the Bakerloo line (another Tube line 10 minutes down the road) shut down and commuters were scrambling for transport. I waited 30 minutes for a bus to come that had any capacity for additional riders. As they say, the road to hell (which very well might be Edgeware Road) is paved with good intentions. Today it took only an hour or so to get to work. My "record" so far from last week is 1hr 45min. Really, not so bad to go all of 3 miles. I could run to work, run back home, and back again to work in less time. (Don't email me with the obvious question. Not really in the mood.)

The irony of this London mess is not lost on me. I just scribbled the other day about the tortuous commute through Mumbai, and while the situation here at home ain't that, it's not worlds apart either. Despite the disparity of wealth and development of infrastructure (I didn't even write the other day about the busiest commuter train in the world - one train line in Mumbai that carries ~ 6 million people per day), this most cosmopolitan of cities confronts some of the very same road, train, and airport bottlenecks found in the poorest of metropolises.