An environmental group has decided that public transport is poorly linked:
Public transport has too many weak links making it difficult to switch from one mode to another, a report by an environmental group suggests.
Travellers polled for a Transport 2000 survey said buses did not connect with train times and stations had insecure cycle parking and poorly-lit footpaths.
I can’t help wondering just how much this survey of the bleedin’ obvious cost – or, that anyone was daft enough to think that it needed any research. Our trains do not provide a twenty-four hour service. This is because the overnight lull is useful for servicing the trains and maintaining the track. It is just unfortunate for the traveller if he has arrived at Stanstead on the Montpellier flight; just in time to catch the last train to Liverpool Street (you have to get your skates on, mind). Once there, the station is in the process of closing down and the underground has already closed – oh, yes, LUL doesn’t provide an overnight service either. So, it’s a taxi trip across the city to Paddington only to arrive long after the last train to the West Country has departed. Nothing is open; no cafés, no toilets and no waiting rooms; it’s a cold night on the platform ahead until the first train to Reading leaves at about four in the morning and you take it, because it is warmer than waiting another couple of hours on the platform. Damned right our system isn’t linked. Integrated transport is a pipe dream – you don’t need a survey to tell me that.
No concept of wastage whatsoever.