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Post by snoggle on Mar 31, 2019 23:46:29 GMT
Going to give my input into London as a city to live in. Quite frankly I’m absolutely dying to be a Londoner, it’s honestly my favourite city in the whole world (apart from Vienna lol, stunning place), however I can’t see myself enjoying a content life there purely because of the extortionate living costs. I absolutely love the fast lifestyle that people in London have, I’m a very fast living person myself, no time for doardling or dilly-dallying, I love it. Like ThinLizzy said about sitting in a terrace in Waterloo and admiring Central London, I LOVE standing at the top of the One New Change terrace looking onto St. Paul’s and just admiring the view. But as you’d expect of someone having done 332 (it was 333 until the C2 went yesterday ) of London’s daytime bus routes, I’ve also been around pretty much every single suburb, and every single nook and cranny of outer London too and there’s an awful lot of places there I love too. However as dennistas also said, I’ve been to an awful lot of places in outer London that really are horrendous, however I’m not going to say where as I don’t want to offend anyone who may live in those parts. But I will disagree in some respect, as I think it’s unfair to tarnish the whole of London with the same brush. Every city has its really nice parts (Covent Garden, Hampstead, Kingston, much of Bromley, Eltham, Ealing Broadway, Crystal Palace, Rainham, a lot of Harrow, Pinner certainly and I absolutely LOVE the new builds that have been going up outside Colindale Station) and it’s not so nice parts. Now some may have heard from some articles how London has apparently been voted the best city in the world for 2019, and here is the company that supposedly came to this conclusion. www.traveldailynews.com/post/resonance-consultancy-announces-worlds-best-cities-for-2019Now obviously I will give a slight disclaimer that it’s totally up to you on how you decide to rate the credibility of ‘Resonance Consultancy’, and I’ve seen posts about this on Facebook and people’s sneery comments about how disgusting London really is, but tbh I’d say it’s like marmite. I know plenty of people who hate the place’s guts, but I also know plenty of people who think the place is amazing. But I absolutely agree with this consultancy in that I think it’s the perfect choice for the world’s best city Continuing on from the last paragraph, I’d like to draw attention to the Global Destination Cities Index, which I’d say the information given is very likely to be reliable. www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/city-breaks/most-visited-cities-2017/newsroom.mastercard.com/press-releases/big-cities-big-business-bangkok-london-and-paris-lead-the-way-in-mastercards-2018-global-destination-cities-index/Like it for not for the past seven consecutive years London has been the most, if not the second most, visited city on Earth. So it must be doing something right! and I myself cannot recommend London enough as a place to visit I think part of the problem with this debate is people conflating "living in cities" vs "living in London". Some people, for entirely understandable reasons, prefer smaller scale places with the perception of a quiet and peaceful life. They are happy to trade that against whatever their view of the benefits of city life are. The point here is that the upsides and downsides of cities accrue to all cities everywhere to varying degrees. I can't think of a city that I've visited that does not have its nice posh bits and the rougher tougher parts. Everywhere has its "sink" estates and its version of millionaire row. Now I've only ever lived in cities and I prefer there to be a reasonable level of facilities and services within reasonably easy reach. An occasional escape to the countryside is nice but I really don't think I could live there. The relative isolation and poor access (as I'm not a car driver) would not be sustainable for me. I'm also not at all convinced that rural life is some sort of paradise. There is crime and problems with awkward people everywhere. There's no guarantee you'll avoid trouble if you move somewhere quiet. I'm also not much of a fan of the idealised "everyone knows everyone and their business" country life either. I prefer relative anonymity. Does London have issues? Of course it does. Some of those are down to its relative economic success and its decades / centuries long ability to pull people in from across the world. Like almost all world cities it is busy, noisy, multi lingual, multi cultural etc. I can see why some people are not able to cope with that. That's fine - it's down to personal choice. I can equally see why people are just as keen to move here and take part in what London offers. I see why exactly the same applies to places like Paris, New York, Sydney etc. Not so sure about Tokyo which while it's huge is not quite so embracing of non Japanese people. That's a very long standing cultural issue with roots in Japanese history and is not the sort of thing that's fixed quickly. The Japanese are wonderfully polite and helpful IME but I suspect that living there as an immigrant is enormously difficult because the culture is so very different.
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Post by M1199 on Apr 1, 2019 8:45:43 GMT
You can say Brixton if you like - heard it so many times I'm really not bothered what people think of the place. For all it's faults over the years, it's shaped me to be a accepting person and see the interesting aspects of other cultures and their way of life Growing up, we was always told places like Brixton, Croydon, Hackney, Harlesden, Harrangay, Tottenham were 'dodgy' (Don't mean to offend anyone) purely because of past events, such as the Brixton riots, the issues on Broadwater Farm etc. I can remember me and some mates getting lost driving through Norbury, we stopped at a set of traffic lights and there was a guy, the built like a man mountain was getting arrested at the side of the road, as we were casually watching what was going on, he started offering out for a fight! we were like 'christ, what kind of area is this'! Another time I caught a 224 from my then girlfriends house in West Twyford (just round the corner from Harlesden) the bus pulls up and the driver isn't wearing any uniform, just a black hoodie with the hood covering all his face! Was like 'has this guy just stole this!' But when you actually go to these places, they genuinely aren't that bad, it goes to show that one persons perception of an area or place rubs off on others, indeed I had some mates that lived between Clapham South & Brixton for over 10 years, up until last summer, whenever we was there, I never felt unsafe at anytime. The media doesn't help things either, here in West London, I dunno If I'm the only one that seems to notice this but should there be the unfortunate event of something such as a stabbing, it'll make the local Gazette, but very rarely make the national news, should it happen somewhere such as Brixton or Hackney, it's all over the press and headline news on BBC London News and London Tonight!
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Post by M1104 on Apr 1, 2019 8:58:54 GMT
You can say Brixton if you like - heard it so many times I'm really not bothered what people think of the place. For all it's faults over the years, it's shaped me to be a accepting person and see the interesting aspects of other cultures and their way of life Growing up, we was always told places like Brixton, Croydon, Hackney, Harlesden, Harrangay, Tottenham were 'dodgy' (Don't mean to offend anyone) purely because of past events, such as the Brixton riots, the issues on Broadwater Farm etc. I can remember me and some mates getting lost driving through Norbury, we stopped at a set of traffic lights and there was a guy, the built like a man mountain was getting arrested at the side of the road, as we were casually watching what was going on, he started offering out for a fight! we were like 'christ, what kind of area is this'! Another time I caught a 224 from my then girlfriends house in West Twyford (just round the corner from Harlesden) the bus pulls up and the driver isn't wearing any uniform, just a black hoodie with the hood covering all his face! Was like 'has this guy just stole this!' But when you actually go to these places, they genuinely aren't that bad, it goes to show that one persons perception of an area or place rubs off on others, indeed I had some mates that lived between Clapham South & Brixton for over 10 years, up until last summer, whenever we was there, I never felt unsafe at anytime. The media doesn't help things either, here in West London, I dunno If I'm the only one that seems to notice this but should there be the unfortunate event of something such as a stabbing, it'll make the local Gazette, but very rarely make the national news, should it happen somewhere such as Brixton or Hackney, it's all over the press and headline news on BBC London News and London Tonight! I've never had any problems during my times in Brixton both as a student in college and as a bus driver driving through the area. In college however I was told that most people that lived in Brixton never went to the college in the area but went further afield, therefore most of my classmates were from places far afield as Stoke Newington and Hackney, the closest one being from Dulwich and plus myself from Mitcham. On the Buses the most grief I've ever had in the area is the odd noisy passenger and the occasional unauthorised opening of the doors, which can happen just about anywhere besides Brixton. There was one occasion where my bus broke down in the middle of Brixton Road during the rush hour and I was expecting a whole lot of grief as I was forced to evacuate the passengers from the bus to the pavement. However just about everyone was understanding, including the car that stopped to allow me to escort passengers safely from the bus to the pavement. The passengers themselves, presumably many locals, were understanding as they saw me struggling to restart the bus. There was one passenger in particular that offered to stay with me until help arrived, to which I replied that I'm ok and humorously added that the captain goes down with the ship. With the whole event happening in Brixton I was expecting worst case scenario because of the stereotype often fed into minds regarding Brixton and similar places, but for me it almost made my day as hardly anyone gave grief but instead cooperated. I remember ranting about it in the depot later on in the evening, especially where other colleagues were wondering who it was that " closed up the A23"...as one quoted. I'm not saying that Brixton is an absolute saint, but if its generally as bad as people say it is, then it must have taken the day off when I broke down.
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Post by DOE27 on Apr 1, 2019 11:30:59 GMT
Wonder if someone can tell me, on the bus schedules, what does R and F mean shown next to some times?
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Post by kmkcheng on Apr 1, 2019 11:40:52 GMT
Wonder if someone can tell me, on the bus schedules, what does R and F mean shown next to some times? I believe R means start of break for the driver on that duty and F is end of a driver’s duty
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Post by snoggle on Apr 1, 2019 12:29:43 GMT
Wonder if someone can tell me, on the bus schedules, what does R and F mean shown next to some times? R = Relief. The driver finishes the first half of his shift and has a meal break. A new driver takes over the bus. F = Finish. The driver finishes his shift and a new one takes over the bus. When a bus returns to the garage, usually at the end of the day or mid evening, then the driver finishes his shift at the garage and the bus ends service on that route. There are potentially lots and lots of complications in the rosters that the drivers have. Some may be on a "split shift" which means a few hours work in the AM peak then a longish break and the second half covering the PM peak. Some drivers may work one route in their first half and another in their second. Some rosters may cover a school service and then the bus and driver does a peak time or second half working on another route. There isn't a lot of interworking in London compared to provincial operations where routes can be quite involved. A childhood pastime was looking at the Tyne and Wear County timetable book and working out which services interworked with which.
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Post by LVF_Admin on Apr 1, 2019 13:27:04 GMT
Wonder if someone can tell me, on the bus schedules, what does R and F mean shown next to some times? R = Relief. The driver finishes the first half of his shift and has a meal break. A new driver takes over the bus. F = Finish. The driver finishes his shift and a new one takes over the bus. When a bus returns to the garage, usually at the end of the day or mid evening, then the driver finishes his shift at the garage and the bus ends service on that route. There are potentially lots and lots of complications in the rosters that the drivers have. Some may be on a "split shift" which means a few hours work in the AM peak then a longish break and the second half covering the PM peak. Some drivers may work one route in their first half and another in their second. Some rosters may cover a school service and then the bus and driver does a peak time or second half working on another route. There isn't a lot of interworking in London compared to provincial operations where routes can be quite involved. A childhood pastimes was looking at the Tyne and Wear County timetable book and working out which services interworked with which. The group of routes that interwork the most in London are the B Routes from DT. Theres at least one duty that works 3 of them
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Post by DT 11 on Apr 1, 2019 16:05:51 GMT
R = Relief. The driver finishes the first half of his shift and has a meal break. A new driver takes over the bus. F = Finish. The driver finishes his shift and a new one takes over the bus. When a bus returns to the garage, usually at the end of the day or mid evening, then the driver finishes his shift at the garage and the bus ends service on that route. There are potentially lots and lots of complications in the rosters that the drivers have. Some may be on a "split shift" which means a few hours work in the AM peak then a longish break and the second half covering the PM peak. Some drivers may work one route in their first half and another in their second. Some rosters may cover a school service and then the bus and driver does a peak time or second half working on another route. There isn't a lot of interworking in London compared to provincial operations where routes can be quite involved. A childhood pastimes was looking at the Tyne and Wear County timetable book and working out which services interworked with which. The group of routes that interwork the most in London are the B Routes from DT. Theres at least one duty that works 3 of them Not anymore, been like that for about a year and a half now, as well as the B12 changeovers moved to Erith at the same time, still same rota though but separate duties on all 3 routes
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Post by sid on Apr 2, 2019 22:18:41 GMT
Could have a short life.
Greenwich Council have consulted on proposals to pedestrianise more of the town centre.
Hare Street and Powis Street will be closed to through traffic.
Yes, I was hugely underwhelmed by that exercise. I can't see even more pedestrianisation and kicking the buses out doing much for that end of Woolwich - it already lacks a 'magnet' and the leisure centre move plus Crossrail being at the eastern end won't help either.
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I've taken the liberty of copying the above from the Go Ahead thread where it isn't really relevant.
I really can't see any logic in closing off Hare/Powis Street to traffic, the last time I was in Woolwich that end was like a ghost town, unless I'm missing something?
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Post by Pilot on Apr 3, 2019 20:01:17 GMT
Saw this bad boy today lmao... was so thrashed from the outside. Image
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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2019 20:12:46 GMT
Saw this bad boy today lmao... was so thrashed from the outside. ImageLovely bus to drive. Quick doors, smooth braking, comfortable. Loved driving those.
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Post by vjaska on Apr 3, 2019 22:39:20 GMT
Saw this bad boy today lmao... was so thrashed from the outside. ImageLovely bus to drive. Quick doors, smooth braking, comfortable. Loved driving those. A lot of BX drivers don't want this bus to leave for the reasons you mention
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Post by ServerKing on Apr 4, 2019 1:02:20 GMT
You can say Brixton if you like - heard it so many times I'm really not bothered what people think of the place. For all it's faults over the years, it's shaped me to be a accepting person and see the interesting aspects of other cultures and their way of life Growing up, we was always told places like Brixton, Croydon, Hackney, Harlesden, Harrangay, Tottenham were 'dodgy' (Don't mean to offend anyone) purely because of past events, such as the Brixton riots, the issues on Broadwater Farm etc. I can remember me and some mates getting lost driving through Norbury, we stopped at a set of traffic lights and there was a guy, the built like a man mountain was getting arrested at the side of the road, as we were casually watching what was going on, he started offering out for a fight! we were like 'christ, what kind of area is this'! Another time I caught a 224 from my then girlfriends house in West Twyford (just round the corner from Harlesden) the bus pulls up and the driver isn't wearing any uniform, just a black hoodie with the hood covering all his face! Was like 'has this guy just stole this!' But when you actually go to these places, they genuinely aren't that bad, it goes to show that one persons perception of an area or place rubs off on others, indeed I had some mates that lived between Clapham South & Brixton for over 10 years, up until last summer, whenever we was there, I never felt unsafe at anytime. The media doesn't help things either, here in West London, I dunno If I'm the only one that seems to notice this but should there be the unfortunate event of something such as a stabbing, it'll make the local Gazette, but very rarely make the national news, should it happen somewhere such as Brixton or Hackney, it's all over the press and headline news on BBC London News and London Tonight! Too late to the thread and don't want to spoil the current posts of a decent bus at BX, but unlike that PVL, most parts of London haven't been as lovingly cared for... I lived in Ealing, and despite protests/worries from people, I moved to the then notorious Kingsmead Estate in Hackney... had no problems there whatsoever. Ditto Bow and Roman Road, before moving to Tottenham (Edmonton was okay when I lived there for a year). My ex girlfriend lived in Upper Norwood and depending who you speak to, south London and that part of Croydon isn't the best, but I had no issues there. Moved back to west London from North and hated it, from my car getting stolen, another being broken into, from the chronic traffic, crap shops and most of my friends being back in North London, I returned Tottenham... which does have it's problems but is slowly improving. Over 8 million people can't be expected to get along with each other, just look at the 620 in Parliament for example London overall isn't a bad city, but the knife thing, which has radiated out to other cities has to be sorted out. My only gripe is the protracted refurb of the 318s buses which seems to have stalled...
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Post by busman on Apr 4, 2019 2:43:07 GMT
Could have a short life. Greenwich Council have consulted on proposals to pedestrianise more of the town centre. Hare Street and Powis Street will be closed to through traffic. Yes, I was hugely underwhelmed by that exercise. I can't see even more pedestrianisation and kicking the buses out doing much for that end of Woolwich - it already lacks a 'magnet' and the leisure centre move plus Crossrail being at the eastern end won't help either. . I've taken the liberty of copying the above from the Go Ahead thread where it isn't really relevant. I really can't see any logic in closing off Hare/Powis Street to traffic, the last time I was in Woolwich that end was like a ghost town, unless I'm missing something? Not really missed anything there. There is hardly any traffic passing through Hare Street these days. In recent times decent independent stores as well as large retailers such as Starbucks, M&S and Mothercare have closed and all were based in the pedestrianised part of Powis Street. Now that through buses no longer go within eyesight of the shops, passengers can’t see the retail mix available. In addition car parking has been made harder. Both changes tend to steer big shoppers away from Woolwich. The Charlton retail parks and covered shopping malls at Bluewater and Westfield are far more attractive options. Even Thamesmead is a more convenient experience to do my weekly shop than Woolwich! We also have the new shopping complex at the O2 which is a welcome addition to the area. With so many alternatives for shoppers plus this further pedestrianisation scheme, trading conditions will only become harder for Powis Street retailers. I can see the current Woolwich town centre eventually being killed off and turned into claustrophobic high-rise mixed residential and office/retail units. The future town centre will shift further east with the Spray Street redevelopment and the completion of the performing arts district in the Royal Arsenal.
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Post by busman on Apr 4, 2019 2:55:18 GMT
Saw this bad boy today lmao... was so thrashed from the outside. ImageThis one seems very well cared for. Unfortunately much of my excitement for PVLs was killed by BV’s uncomfortable and horribly musty smelling batch that trawled the 180 towards the garage’s final years. I guess I can also credit BV for getting me to be thankful for riding a Gemini II :-) It’s wierd to see all those GAL WVLs coming to an end of their life now.
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