To think the Olympics will totally fuck transport in London?

[coraltoes]

Right, I've read about the Olympic super fast route for the committee members and athletes. I've read about ambulances not being allowed on them unless blue lighting (not all urgent ambulance trips are blue light emergencies), about transplant organs being transported at night to avoid the route and congestion, and about delays at major tube stations being predicted to be approx 30 minutes.

Wat the fuck is all that about?! Did tfl not know this was coming our way?? Did they really think, oh 2012, by then we will all be flying about with pissing rocket packs?!

I cannot believe it may add an extra hour to my daily commute.

To top it off I have heard canary wharf are asking firms to reduce workforce by up to 30% during the games to ease congestion on the dlr and tube!! So companies are expected to reduce productivity so boris and Seb Coe can have their wet pant moment as the world hails London as an Olympic dream? Ugh.

Not to mention how farcical and discriminatory the ticketing system was. Oh yes, if you are well off and can risk bidding for £5k of tickets that's great. If you can only afford to risk winning £100 worth well you've a far lower chance of making it to the games mate. Welcome to the London Olympics.

Well, it's not even happened yet and people are already panicking. I'm sure it will be worse than usual, but shrug, it's 2 weeks. It's really not that big a deal.

I say this as someone who uses the central line and lives in the east end, 2 stops from Stratford.

I'm currently on maternity leave with DD but usually work in Canary Wharf and planned to handily go back 1st October thus missing all the excitement. However, now DH has been made redundant it's looking like I will have to go back early, commuting into and out of CW daily with 2 DC's in a Phil and Ted's buggy to get them to and from Little Unicorns nursery in CW. I am thrilled to bits at the prospect as you can imagine and ramming my fellow commuters in the shins with said P&T's to get on the DLR after allowing 15 trains to go without getting on one.

Put some sharp spikes on your wheels Edwinbear
Love love your name btw

As in Ben Hur? Brilliant idea

I was thinking like in Grease (when the other car rips holes in the side of Greased Lighting)

I know this is bah humbug but YANBU. I am seriously dreading it. I don't think our city should have hosted it if our current system could not support the volume of people, and lets be honest it's pretty much at breaking point now. I already spend most of my commute against an armpit I didn't sign up for.

I hope I am being a moany old sod instead of my heinous predictions about what it'll be like to live here during the games actually coming true. I mean, will I be able to food shop for example? Will my greengrocer actually be able to get to Spitalfields to buy his stock? Or should I just hunker down to a proper siege mentality for the fortnight?

I was just thinking that! I don't live in London but of you did you wouldn't want to run out of nappies or anything like that! It doesn't sound like anyone living centrally will be nipping out to the shops that often. Jings what if you are in labour?!

I fully expect some celebrity who has paid for their special lane to "rescue" a labouring woman and zip them past queues of traffic to a hospital and we will all have to say how lovely they are. A bit like when someone in a 4x4 gets a pregnant woman to hospital when there's heavy snow. Or when Simon Cowell flew that man to Luton so he was there in time for his son's birth.

I live no where near London and will be abroad for most of Olympics....hope to see some of it on French TV! Ive even decided to travel via Portsmouth Caen rather than the cheaper Eurotunnel to avoid the south east at all costs. Im not excited about the Olympics as it seems to be a London affair only. However, I will watch what I can as I love sport.

YANBU. I'm hoping to work from home.

Dreading it.
I'm an interpreter, cannot work from home, could get a job pretty much anywhere, must be on time.
Arse.

Cbem, the provinces don't have slightly creaky ancient underground networks that carry over 1 billion people per year (2010 - 2011).

Add to that the fact that an expected 500,000 spectators are likely at the Games, squeezed into a 2 week (?) period of time. Most of whom will be using public transport...

I do appreciate there is also an overground and bus network but the Tube is likely to be the transport of choice.

people are moaning but anyone that lives within about 12 miles of their workplace in London can cycle to and from work . i do it every day - ok so not everyone is fit enough and some physically would never be able to do it via age or illness but maybe the majority that could , should just try it and get shrinking their overfed bellies instead of moaning about how busy the tube will be.

theinets - lots of people travel a lot further than that. My journey's about 35 miles and the last thing I want is more flipping cyclists taking their handy folding bikes on rush hour trains, tbh. (I can show you the bruises from selfish gits squeezing their pedals onto packed trains, if you like.)

Given we are losing traffic lanes to the VIP Olympic officials, bureaucrats & coke employees, I'm not sure cycling will be particularly safe, either.

Mayday - I work in publishing too. Sadly the Olypmics coincide with our press deadlines. Unless my company is going to pay for us all to have Indesign at home - which I doubt - we are all going to have to be in the office and at our desks...

Arf at moaning at my 'overfed belly'

Nope, that's flatter than it was before DS

That's great you cycle theinets. Others might have disablities that preclude cycling 12 miles. Or not confident cyclists.

Or just not actually moaning, but speculating about how so many more hundreds of thousands of passengers might affect a public transport system the does it's best, given it's limitations with age and so on.

Can't help thinking this is all a bit of over hyping the whole thing. The world will not come just because of the olympics.

Cycle?! So I should buy a bloody bike for two weeks?! Of course, why not add that to the mounting costs of getting around London. Ffs.

If you think it's going to be awful in London think about the poor souls who live in Dorset. The sailing is going to be in Portland a spit on the end of Weymouth. There is one road into Weymouth and it's not a big road, they've done improvements but it's still a small road. The Esplanade and the Harbour area at Weymouth, not the harbour at Portland where the games are taking place, will be shut to traffic and only people with golden tickets will be able to park there. There will be very little parking for the beach, you can go to the park and ride but it's not easy to lug toddlers and their beach kit on a bus and then walk miles to the beach. You can only park for a maximum of three hours in town for the duration of the games.
The Olympic tossers committee route will basically close the A31 mostly dual carriageway from the London side of Bournemouth right over to near Dorchester. Everyone else will have to go down to Bournemouth, around the ring road and then along the single carriageway road round past Poole and then all the way back up to the A31, except people won't do that, they'll turn off to Dorchester through the villages on the teeny road that goes straight on.
It's already gridlocked down there in summer. This is going to be a nightmare. Do not get sick in Dorset during the games. The Ambulance won't be able to get to you and the Air Ambulance will probably be flying some Olympic competitor to hospital.

It's not just the two weeks that the games are on, roads will be closed for up to 8 weeks.

We live near St James park where beach volleyball is going to be. We live on one side and dd's school is on the other side, it's usually a nice 20 min walk, but at the moment we don't even know if we can get through the park, it's looking like its going to be about a 2 mile detour. I know when the games are actually on will be school hols but there will be at least a few weeks of school time where the disruption will be a problem.

Also the deliveries for my business will be affected, so they will be anytime between midnight and 6am, for 8 weeks. So after working 10/12 hr days I have to wait up all hrs at night too.

Oh dear, poor us.

We will benefit so much from the Olympics. Stop moaning....you're all beginning to sound like dh

I live in west London, DP works in central London.

We are going to Dubai on 29 July and coming back when it's all over :)

Thank god I am up the duff and therefore can insist on working from home for the two weeks.