To be totally dreading the Olympics because I live in London

[labelwriter]

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.

DontmindifIdo - I saw a woman being manhandled yesterday after misunderstanding something being shouted at her through a loudspeaker!

Oh, yes working from home. Not if you run a "public service" you can't. Today my very large employer has said that rather than pepole working from home, they can all come into our department to work if they want. So assuming that everyone in our department can get in to work, which we wont be able to.

grrrrrrrrrrr. is not feeling very passive today

As soon as the Olympics was awarded to London, London lost any say in how it was done. The IOC is even taking over ALL the poster sites in London to make sure that no competitors' brands are advertised.

London's infrastructure is already creaking. It is nothing like Sydney which also has the sea and is far less populated anyway. I suspect full gridlock. On Monday Westway closed and Putney was gridlocked. It shows how quickly one major road closing impacts an area 5+ miles away. With all the Olympic lanes, nothing will move.

YANBU. Waterloo is badly laid out and crowded on a normal day - at the moment with the building work that supposedly will be finished in time, it's twice as bad,. There were Olympic people handing out flyers more or less telling us not to use Waterloo at all during the Olympics - well, great, how am I meant to get into central London exactly then, never mind get to work in Canary Wharf, when I've told not to use the Jubilee Line either?

The last straw was yesterday when Boris Johnson came over the tannoy telling commuters we're all in this together and to buckle down and get on with it - like he won't be in one of the VIP cars hogging the bus lanes.

Yes, Olympics is exciting, especially for the children, but the day-to-day reality of living here for most Londoners during it is going to be a massive inconvenience.

'Working from home' is fine if you have a computer based job and don't physically need to be at your place of work.

'Walking to work' assumes you aren't one of the (millions I belive) people who don't live in London but work in the City every day, getting trains in from outlying counties.

And both of these assumptions are based on the fact that the organisers think the people visiting the Olympics are more important than the people who are actually working to pay for it. And the fact that many overseas ticket holders were also issued zones 1-6 travel cards for the days they bought their Olympic ticket - they aren't being told to walk. We are being told to walk to keep the tubes and buses free for them. That is a fecking liberty.

YANBU. I work at London Bridge normally, I can't tell you how glad I am to be on maternity leave living outside of London this summer.

However DP is one of the emergency services and has is on 10 WEEKS of Olympic shifts, just starting now, long long shifts, lots of night shifts (great when I'm trying to keep a 6mo quiet at home while he sleeps!) and they've been told their rest day's aren't even guaranteed. This summer is going to suck.

I have been involved with the planning of several olympic events and Live Sites. I'm dreading it! Anyone who doesn't have to work or is allowed to take leave during the Games is very lucky. We have a leave ban and have to work at our main site and go to venues :(

Yesterday the a13 was chocka because of Olympic bloody buses.

Dear aj - Let me tell you the tax payer is paying. My uncle has a big tow truck and he works for the company that has been picking up the BMW that people being paid by the olympic committee have written off. It wasn't BMW footing the bill.

My father is also a black cabbie - people are overly friendly with information that they give cabbies and I can tell you us tax payers spent £70 quid on a fare for some woman to go to a town centre to politely ask that traffic wardens are less efficacious during the Olympics. She also told my dad that once the olympics are over she will be made redundant and will be receiving a nice pay out.

Obvious - you mean you work as an Olympic planner and are expected to go to work during the Olympics....fucking outrageous.

No I don't work as an 'Olympic Planner'.

There were Olympic people handing out flyers more or less telling us not to use Waterloo

Waterloo, of course, is probably the only other London termini that those of us told not to use London Bridge or Victoria could reasonably get to by changing at Clapham Junction!

I really think that London is unsuitable for the Olympics. It is, primarily, a working city (as others have said) and the road and transport systems are already congested without the physical space left in which to expand either. I am also very suspicious of the legacy benefits too but that's a textbook in itself.

I hope the Olympics are successful. I'm not such a killjoy that I'd prefer to look entirely on the negative side. However, I think it is perfectly reasonable to dread the disruption and question whether they are being held in the right place.

Bread and circuses. At least the Romans had the nous to let the plebs actually attend the circus!

@star waterloo is a joke! They have been doing building work on it for two years and in the past week more has been done than in the entire period. How are the shops going to have moved in?

After two years of queuing up to use escalators etc due to this 'essential' building work I am quite bitter.

I'm with you - I live in Greenwich. It's going to be hell for me travelling to work and back :(

Just pray that this ridiculous F1 in London plan comes to nothing...

GlassofRose
I don't know the arrangements with BMW for written-off cars - but hopefully there won't be too may of them! Your uncle might issue an invoice, but he doesn't know who the cost is passed on to.
As far as staff being made redundant after the Games - what would the option be?
Agree a £70 cab journey seem excessive assuming public transport is available, but I KNOW that LOCOG paid staff have to pay for their own journeys even when transferring between several sites during a working day.
A lot of individual bits of gossip can give a distorted impression.

Nancy66 there are events all over London not just at the Olympic Staduim.

For those in the know. What would the best way to get from Kings Cross to North Greenwich Arena be?

I was thinking Kings Cross to London bridge on the tube and then the boat from London Bridge to North Greenwich/Greenwich and then walk to the arena. I am looking to limit tube use as much as possible but I don't think it's walkable from Kings X to North Greenwich!

@alpha if you wanted to avoid carange at london bridge you could get off at Southwark and see if the boat goes from the Tate Modern/St Pauls? Or do the 20 min walk from Southwark to london bridge.

OK, some good news. My neighbours are renting their house to 4 American couples whose boys are rowing for the US in the Olympics (at Eton Dorney). They have all saved and saved for their two weeks in the UK. They have budgets of $10,000 each (so $80,000) for renting the house, car hire, eating out, buying Christmas presents (!) etc. We know this because our neighbours have been helping them plan day trips etc. So that's £52,000 into the British economy. And they're flying BA (not included in the £52,000).

Nancy I live in Essex - although still in a London Borough...right on the edge of the East End.

I've just been out shopping and signs have appeared all down the high street saying that due to the Olympics, cars must not stop anywhere on the high street and parking will be banned anywhere on it.

It's going to affect most people in London/surrounding areas in some ways....just some more than others.

Snapshot 1: We've had a year's worth of disruption on our train line due to rebuilding work relating to the Olympics, and I live 60 miles from London. It's cost us a fortune in petrol to get DS1 to school on the days that the line is closed (the replacement bus service would not get him to school on time, and it's a 30 mile trip to his school. No refund on his season ticket, either). It has been exhausting for us, and we are all well cheesed off

Snapshot 2: DH was in London yesterday as he commutes to work there, and they had a terrorist attack rehearsal at all the main line stations at once, except nobody was told what was going on. So he had to walk from Kings Cross to Euston with thousands of other people because they closed the station, only to find that the Euston people were walking towards King's Cross at the same time, and it was utter mayhem. God forbid anything would actually go wrong, otherwise everyone would be doomed anyway.

Snapshot3: I had to go to London for work yesterday, and I was quite shocked at how run down the 'non-Olympic' stations have been allowed to get during the preparation period. I am sure we are storing up problems for the future.

Summary: I really don't think much thought has been given to the bigger picture here, and many people are basically being treated as though they are in some kind of wartime experience, required to put up and shut up. Nobody has made any effort at all to get them on side. The ticketing problem has added to the sense of anomie people are experiencing. It's hardly surprising they are starting to feel resentful and wondering what other liberties are being taken with respect to their daily lives.

My only solace in all this is the TV comedy 2012, and I sincerely hope they put on a Christmas special with some of the actual events featured in there.

Thanks ethelb. That sounds good. I would be up for walking up to an hour there and an hour back.

Would it be well signposted for these routes? or at least easy to find?

Actually, dialing down my 'rant levels' I think a lot of the anger is due to the way this has been organised and informed to Londoners/people working in London as something that isn't inclusive. The ticketing fiasco that didn't prioritise Londoners, the transport chaos and poor decisions about that has lead to this feeling that the Olympics isn't something that's happening in our town that we should be excited about as it involves us, more that it's something thats taking over our town.

London companies have been told to plan to keep people away from the city. This isn't something we are being told to enjoy, for the last 6 months, we've been told to plan how we will endure it.

It's only now they are trying to talk about Londoners getting excited, but the damage has been done, this isn't a "London Olympics" it's "An Olympics that happens to be happening in London". It's not been made a London thing in the slightest. It should be London's event. Instead, we've been told to stay away and let other people have the fun. It's not for us. Our job is just to pay for it, and try not to get in the way too much.

"The IOC is even taking over ALL the poster sites in London to make sure that no competitors' brands are advertised."

I didn't know this, thanks Larry! The corporate/security takeover is just horrible. I thought I'd heard it all but clearly not.

And if I have to hear that ghastly Boris voiceover again I can't be held responsible for my actions.