People should walk more. I got from Clapton Pond in Hackney to Whitechapel Road in 45 minutes without undue exertion. My first thought about the crowd of fellow Londoners struggling for sardine status inside a pair of rammed number 25 bendy buses from Straford as if, well, trying to climb aboard a rush hour Tube, was, why didn't they just stride off down the wide pavement towards the looming Gherkin instead? The City-bound traffic was clogged enough to mean they'd probably reach their destination faster as pedestrians. If the walk seemed too much, there was a large cycle hire docking station at the junction with New Road with plenty of "Boris Bikes" available. Ah well.
Meanwhile, steady streams of human beings were coming in and out of Whitechapel station. Many would have been Overground passengers, unaffected by the strike. The rest had taken their chances with a disrputed Distrcit Line service, or in some cases deciding against. Inside, a whiteboard said there was no service eastbound to Barking while westbound, where most passengers are heading in the morning, from Mile End or Upminster, it seemed you could only go all the way to Wimbledon. But a patient LU lady was explaining to people that they could get off at Embankment and either walk or take a bus from there. And in a while a male colleague was using the cuff of his jumper to wipe the whiteboard clean and update the information accordingly. Seems that by then you could alight at Victoria too. "The trains are alright, they're coming every ten minutes," the patient lady was saying, "it's just that the stations are closed."
A fluid situation, then, at least on this evidence. How's the big picture looking? As I write (from a cafe down the road) TfL's website says the Circle is suspended, the Northern service is good while every other line is part suspended, some with "minor delays". That's an improvement, from their viewpoint, on what the station information was saying half an hour ago. A TfL source has texed to say that the District, Victoria, Bakerloo and Northern and now the Waterloo and City are all "running through central London" and that most people are getting to work OK, though as the Guardian reports many are having to vary their routines.
I'm off now to conitune varying mine, by walking across Tower Bridge to City Hall. It'll be faster than the bus, that's for sure.
