Congestion Charging : pixeldiva

It's all very well for Ken Livingstone to use the Congestion Charge to stop Londoners using cars and get them using public transport to get to work in the morning, but it all kind of falls down if the public transport then gets so congested that it's completely impossible to use.

As I now live beyond the end of the Victoria Line, I have to get a bus each morning to take me to Brixton so I can get on the tube to work.

So far, so good.

Well, until a couple of weeks ago, when things went from bad (on a bad day, not being able to get on the first bus which arrives), to worse (not being able to get on the first, or the second bus which arrives, or a bus or two going past while totaly full).

This morning, however, I was struck with the worst Public Transport Congestion Charge of all.

I left my house just after 8am, and proceeded to freeze my arse off (almost literally - I bought a jacket at the weekend, reasoning that since I don't often have to stand long at the bus stop, it'd keep me warm enough while standing at the bus stop, and wouldn't be too hot for the Tube) for almost an hour, as the bus service spectacularly failed to be an actual service.

The first bus to go by was the express service, which doesn't stop anyway. Fair enough.

Bus two was clearly full, so drove past without stopping. Also fair enough.

Bus three stopped (yay!), but stopped slightly short, so I was towards the back of the large group of people waiting, and consequently didn't get on the bus. Arse.

Bus four was also clearly full, so drove past without stopping.

Bus five was not full at all, with seats visible upstairs, and only two people standing downstairs, and swerved wide, sped up and drove past without stopping, causing everyone assembled to make varied exclamations of annoyance, and form a momentary, very British (but very multi-cultural) bond in mutual loathing for the driver.

Buses six and seven similarly drove past, packed full.

It wasn't until bus eight rolled up that I was finally able to get on a bus, by which time I was cold, irritated and late for work.

Yes, I could have walked, but it would have taken me 25 minutes, and by the time the first three buses had gone past, the risk that by leaving, I'd wind up later than if I waited and got the next bus was too great. There may have also been a tiny but of stubborn-ness involved.

Either way, in addition to the £90something I pay each month for the pleasure of using public transport, congestion has cost me, by my reckoning, at least 7 hours in the last two weeks alone.

That's 7 hours where I could have stayed in bed longer, or got to work earlier, so I could leave earlier.

I don't mind the odd long wait for a bus, but a whole working day's worth of time is too precious to lose, and far more of a congestion charge than I'm prepared to pay.

I'll be writing a letter, I think.

Congestion Charging

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