To be totally dreading the Olympics because I live in London

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I just am! Yesterday, I went to London Bridge to get to work and there was a practice for the Olympics and the whole station was in chaos and it was really shambolic. Last week I went to St James Park and most of it and the Mall was closed. It's going to add ages on to my journey. We have been told to cycle to work if we can but the bus lanes are to be closed so the VIP cars can use them and as i am sure anyone who cycles in central London will agree, this is going to cause lots of problems. Am sure the games themselves will be brilliant but it's the trying to get about in London bit I am dreading.

nancy and all the other people who are saying we are pessimists please re read my post.

^has anyone mentioned the many people in newham whose rents have gone up considerably and have had to find alternative accomodation due to landlords wanting to rent out their properties for Olympics?

They are not worried about getting tenants after Olympics as their is shortage of housing not shortage of tenants.

The schools closing earlier.

The children's centres, nurseries etc not being allowed to go on trips by public transport or coach during summer.

families being told not to take their kids out anywhere for the whole 8 week summer holidays. at least not anywhere by bus or train or car.

the businesses in newham not being able to take deliveries for the summer during the day. which will impact particularly on small businesses which are family run etc.

people not being able to do their shopping, or get shopping delivered. considering they cant use car or bus i am not sure what they are supposed to do?

the whole of newham being parking permit only.^

I have only talked about the ways that the Olympics are already having an effect or definitely will.

Out of all my friends and acquaintances, I know no one who has tickets, they are unaffordable for the majority of Newham residents. I know one person who is suppossed to be working at Olympics but has had no idea when and where in order to arrange childcare and is scared as she has had no practice of security work, just class room based training.

And as yet no one has told me how the Olympics can benefit me and my family, and how I can be involved?

Even the ticket buying system was unworkable for most, you could only pay by mastercard, and had to pay in advance a large sum of money.

I am prepared to listen to the arguments why i am being unreasonable, but no one is telling me why, just that I am.

As for having four years to get out of London, in those 4 years I have had 3 kids! lol so it would not have been much use to plan just for myself four years ago! and we couldnt afford a holiday anyway.

'As a country we are going to come out of the Olympics several billion pounds up'

Gosh, ajandjjmum, do you have any sources for this? It contracts all the analysis I have read, and the experience of almost all previous Olympic host cities.

My sisters bf lives in stratford and has raised those concerns too. It is a middle class indulgence which will have no long term benefit for anyone

NowThen, your post made me laugh a lot. I would like to go down the pub with you so we could eff and jeff about the Olympics to our grumpy hearts' content! I hope that bus drivers' story is a load of guff although wouldn't put it past them

I'm dreading it because I have very limited mobility. I live about 5-6 miles from my job in central London, and go by bus everyday, although it takes 90 minutes or so, compared to 40 minutes by tube/train. I can't walk more than 150 yards without stopping for 10 minutes or so, and can't manage steps. I am allowing 3 hours for my journey during the olympics, although that will be 6 hours travelling on top of my 10 hour day. Boris can stick his 'why not walk?' advice right up his japs eye. Wanker.

Nowthen - i meant your post about yorkshire having no bus drivers because they are all coming to the big smoke to seek their fortune was bollocks.

how is the Olympics a 'middle class indulgence'

OlympicRingSting (fabulous name!), I am ashamed to admit that I hadn't even thought of how folk with limited mobility would cope in all the madness. I've been so preoccupied with my own miserable journey. I am suitably ashamed, I promise you. Then again, I'm not Mayor of London if only so whatever flimsy excuse I may have for being so ignorant, Boris has NONE WHATSOEVER. He is a prize tosser.

Hope you'll be ok during your commute from hell

DS1, 14, has to go to the Tate for several days by train and tube for GCSE Art coursework - would not normally be concerned, but will now be anxious he might gets caught up in some 'security' situation theat results in him being kettled

ajandjjmum where are you getting your profit figures from?

As for G4S, they are providing all the paid staff they agreed to. Problem is, they are a few thousand short on the volunteer staff they had promised.

www.craigmurray.org.uk/

Yes, I know Nancy-I was joking...
Ah, well, we will see if it's bollocks or not in 2 weeks.

Thanks, Lottapianos. At least if I'm on a bus for 3 hours, I won't have to stand at stations etc, that would be impossible. I will load up the iPad with loads of films etc so I can occupy myself.
If it was doing the country some good, it would be easier to bear, but it seems like London has been hijacked for a festival of advertising. The souvenirs and ticket have been sourced outside of the country, small businesses in the Uk who cannot afford the extortionate sponsorship fees are not allowed to sell branded goods within the stadium.
The only people to benefit from the games will be Macdonalds, Coca Cola, Visa, Samsung and Heineken.
The stories in the press of how WI branches, small florists, schools, are being policed and threatened with legal action are outrageous. it's a shame that they could not pay the same amount of attention to the security arrangements. I should think terrorists are rubbing hands together in glee. g4 security are still recruiting at the moment. They can never CRB check people in 10 days. I dread to think who will policing things.
My pride in this country ended the day after the Jubilee celebrations. What a shower of MP's and government departments to let us be taken for mugs.....

I haven't read all of this, but just to let you know that the Olympic cars don't have a special chip in them to turn the traffic lights green. I'm a volunteer driver [waves regally from the Olympic lanes ] and the traffic is going to be monitored closely on the lanes, but the cars themselves don't have a magic way of affecting the lights. I get people's worries about the hassle, especially if they are not interested in the sport at all, but I'm going for the "maybe it won't be so bad after all" and "worth it for having the Olympics here in my lifetime" mindset.

dreading it.

I live in a part of town where we annually host one of the largest and most prestigious tennis tournaments in the world... with no road closures and very little disruption to residents other than a bit more traffic on the roads.

Bring on the Olympics, a minor third-rate competition where tennis is concerned... and they are closing and blocking every road you can imagine, Games Lanes, olympic route network, you name it, for the IOC fatcats, and not taking any of the advice of the people who do it every year.

It's going to be a nightmare.

of course it won't make any money, so many hundreds of millions will be lost in lost productivity - people not bothering to go into work. they are telling people to stay at home and not commute. I'm sure they won't all be logging on at 9am sharp...

Many reports talk about an increase in GDP, some are more optimistic than others, but with the exception of Athens, all recent host countries have seen significant contributions from the Games. A report from Lloyds issued earlier this month talks about a £15 bn legacy over five years - but bearing in mind that they're sponsors, we can expect that they're being too positive! Of course, none of us will KNOW for five years, and it can be difficult to gain a balanced perspective, as most people are working to their own agenda.

I'm surprised that G4S were responsible for volunteers - I thought they were all the responsibility of LOCOG, who received 250,000 applications for 100,000 places, so more than enough volunteers I would have thought.

Wilbur - DS is a gamesmaker on the transport team in the Olympic Park - I'll tell him to give you a wave!

The Olympics practically bankrupted Montreal - they had them in the late 70s, I think, and were still paying for them into this century.

I don't see how they can possibly make any money. Yes, people are coming to see them, but "normal" tourism is way down - you can get tickets for the theatre for pretty well anything you want to see during the Games. And there will be an amazing amount of lost productivity, because even if everyone's conscientious about working at home, anything that involves co-ordination with other people is going to be incredibly tricky to arrange.

I think G4S may have been planning on usong workfare "employees" hence the voluntary cynical

YANBU. I'm not looking forward to it and I'm nowhere near London! I'd be really concerned about the crowds, transport etc.

Yes, I'd assumed that, ItsAllGoingToBeFine. Possibly they got scared off after all the negative publicity about people working for nothing during the Jubilee and being made to sleep under a bridge.

Reading this thread I am soooo glad I don't live in London anymore. Anyone with any sense should get out of London for those 3 weeks if they can, but not everyone can, can they? Really hope that for those who have to work during the Olympics it won't be as bad as people fear.

I had to drive through Woolwich today, it was murder.

I am not an especially moany person but I have no choice but to try and get to work (zone 2 to 1) every day and it's already getting bad. You are very patronising and dismissive Nancy 66. Are u Boris Johnson? Or the ghastly Seb Coe?

The pictures of Bejing now post olympics are shocking empty buildings and wasteland

Well I was sort of thinking surely it can't be that bad...BUT...

Lovely DH decided, as he occasionally does, to take DC's out while I had a lie in this morning, they got the tube at 8am down to Westminster to look at Big Ben and get some breakfast. Now usually all is pretty quiet at that time on a weekend morning but he said it was packed, also loads of people in town, it seems Olympics effect has already started and it's not looking pretty.

We also drove down to South Ken at about 2.30pm, driving is still ok because the Olympic lanes aren't yet in operation, but now having seen them and knowing what the roads are like normally, we definitely won't be moving the car for a few weeks! When we got there, the queue for the museum was astonishing, at almost 3pm it snaked back right back to the main gate in front of the building. We go there quite often on the weekend and have never seen that before. The museum staff were also warning everyone how crowded South Ken tube was as we left, not fun .