Sunny evenings, strikes, and sycling

Made a journey on Friday after all in the end - went out to Clapham Junction for a friend's birthday celebrations in a lovely beer garden just off the beaten track.  Everyone in the party except me, it seems, suffered from hay fever, so I'm not quite sure why a flowery beer garden was chosen, but I certainly appreciated it, and have never in my life seen such a worthy supply of tissues and antihistamines.  Nice.

The journey in, however, was a minute delayed, due to sitting outside of Clapham Junction station for a platform to become clear (at least, I assume that's why - obviously no explanation was given).  There was also a minute's delay coming back, and I have no idea what caused that one.  Two minutes and £5.

This morning, I had another jaunt to the Passport Office.  The train arrived at Vauxhall a minute early, though it didn't let me catch an earlier tube from there to Victoria.  The tube, incidentally, was one minute late for another £2.50.  Following my (this time successful) appointment, the tube from Victoria to Paddington was two minutes late (and horrifically overcrowded).  £5.

So, in total that makes five minutes £12.50.

Also in the news today is yet another strike threat from the RMT.  This time, it's about the plans to axe around 100 'guard' jobs from certain overground trains.  Everyone's favourite shit-stirrer Bob Crow was typically melodramatic:

"The news that millions of passengers are to be put at risk through plans to throw guards of [sic] London Overground trains on north London routes will send shockwaves through transport services."

And finally, if you live in Kensington & Chelsea, expect significant transport problems, as well as your car being towed if you dare to park along the route of a bicycle race in the borough.  Because bike races are more important than the convenience of borough residents or those who need to travel through the borough.  At least, according to our beloved floppy-haired leader Boris Johnson.

Question Time

Three minutes for the train into Waterloo this morning, so I had to take a connecting tube three minutes later than would otherwise have been necessary.  This was delayed a minute further.  No explanations were offered.  Total delay of four minutes for £10.

I have a question for readers: how responsible is TfL for conditions on the road?  So far, with the exception of bus trips, I've been taking the attitude that poorly planned road systems and insufficient measures to cope with rush hour traffic aren't really TfL's fault, but am I right to do so?  Reading up around the subject, TfL certainly seems to be held to account by public bodies for many aspects of the roads, like in my earlier cycling story.  Contractors for TfL also seem regularly to be responsible for clearing up road-related delays/accidents.

This morning, for example, I missed my train into work and had to wait half an hour for the next.  This was caused by bad traffic in the Kingston one-way system, so that a journey that should have taken seven minutes took more than twice as long.



Image credit: Travel and Leisure

 In the interests of fairness, for example, not calling TfL to account for such delays has, on three occasions since the beginning of September, resulted in my not charging them for around one and a half hours' worth of delay - and that's just on the morning commute, not taking into account the many other journeys I make in my car in the course of a full week.

So the question is: should I continue the current policy of letting TfL off the hook for all traffic delays, or should I charge them for this too?  Or should I charge them only in very specific circumstances, i.e. not for general heavy traffic, but for roadworks and failed traffic signals where the repairs have not been put in place at a more convenient time (whether through poor planning of those repair works or because insufficient maintenance work has been done, leading to 'emergency' works needing to be done at the busiest times)?