London

[mulad]

20 Fenchurch Street in London is a skyscraper built with a concave face. It's able to to concentrate sunlight six times greater than normal, according to one report. The shape of the skyscraper has given it the nickname "Walkie Talkie", but that's getting replaced with "Walkie Scorchie" because of the bright light. One guy reported having the body panels of his car get warped by the heat.

http://www.cityam.com/article/137764963 ... e-scorchie
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2013/au ... of-the-day (see "6.38 pm BST")
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... icles.html

[mamundsen]

Wow! What a story about the towers going up in London! 230 over 20 stories.

http://gizmodo.com/london-is-building-2 ... 1542448818

[Anondson]

“The greatest thing about London is that it’s unplannable. The worst thing about it is that it’s unplanned.”

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/5fc42b9e ... z3JJ4Gu9Rj

[acs]

Have any of you guys seen these videos? I could watch these all day and marvel at their great system.

Secrets of the London Underground
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg84oa6R53Y

Basically just a series of quick five minute videos showcasing the unique art, history, shortcuts, and idiosyncrasies of each station on the line.

I think it would be cool if we did something similar for our own Metro lines. It would do a lot to get outsiders interested in using the system and exploring the neighborhoods around it.

[MN Fats]

I lived in London for three months in college and their transport system is literally world-class. It was a treat to utilize a system so seamlessly in a way that only a large world capital can offer.

[talindsay]

I lived in London for three months in college and their transport system is literally world-class. It was a treat to utilize a system so seamlessly in a way that only a large world capital can offer.

Haha, maybe it's changed a lot since I lived there in 1997-1998, and some brief visits in the mid-2000s, but "world-class" isn't a subway system that has permanent chalkboards to announce which stations are currently inoperable due to train or track issues. London has the world's oldest subway so I'll cut them a little slack for how badly the actual tube lines (Piccadilly Line especially) operate, but given that most of the old lines are combination of open trench and cut-and-cover tunnel, there's no reason they couldn't have been upgraded fifty years ago to modern standards. Using their system daily is like playing roulette on your commute: any given roll may or may not win, but in the long run the odds are against you. The only reliable line was the Jubilee Line. To add insult to injury, cash fares on their lines are about three times any comparable city's fare, and even their electronic fares are almost double.

The intercity rail network, while better than the US, is only just: a Balkanized Thatcherite disaster of a semi-privatized network of slow, unreliable trains running on heavily-used corridors and yet still largely eschewing electrification. Want to get back to London on a Sunday? Better be willing to give up the whole day because all the tracks are shut down for maintenance. The only actually reliable line on their whole network - High-speed 1 - forced the sleek TGV trainsets to slow down to ridiculously low speeds for over a decade before the British project went insolvent and it was finished by a consortium headed by SNCF; and that line uses French design and signalling.

In Britain I always used the rail infrastructure, and in London one would be foolish to use anything but the Underground ("the Tube", though correctly that moniker only applies to the deep-bored tunnels); it does what it needs to do. But London and Britain deserve so much better - a geographically-constrained high-density city such as London and a country whose cities are relatively close together are well suited for a really good transit system, and neither the Underground nor the intercity rail services even begin to live up to that promise. "The Tube" may be iconic, but it's a horribly outdated transportation system.

[xandrex]

^I studied abroad in Manchester for a semester and mostly relied on my feet rather than public transportation. I generally like my visits to London and how well the Tube generally seemed to work, but then I never did have closures when I visited.

I think my biggest issue with rail travel in general in England was its semi-private nature. While fares weren't bad in many jurisdictions (I could easily get from my school to the city centre of Manchester for 50p or less), everything was so fragmented that it proved nearly impossible to piece together trips. Want to get to the (incredibly suburban) mall just outside of town (forced to for a group meeting, unfortunately)? Well you've got that one bus provider that will get you out there, but their route might end early and you'll have to find another company to get home. Should you get the student bus pass? Well, it depends...which student bus pass? There are two or three companies that sell them. Quite a mess.

[Didier]

I did an internship in London in 2007, and I had much more MN Fats' experience than talindsay's.

[MN Fats]

Perhaps it's changed for the better since you've been talindsay? It was 2011 when I was there. I did encounter the maintenance signs and service outages but only a couple times. And even then, a bus was a reliable alternative. I took the Northern Line from Highgate to Goodge St and back everyday, but had plenty of experience on the other lines. Also I had a prepaid Oyster Card which was paid for in part by my tuition so I didn't see the fares coming out of my pocket day by day. Admittedly I have no experience with the transit systems of Asia or the rest of Europe, but the fact that it was worlds ahead of the US left me in awe. Just my personal experience. Can't wait til I have a chance to go back.

[talindsay]

I hope you're right. I love London but the British political-economic system has (had?) some really devastating effects on national infrastructure and it's entirely possible that 1997-1998 - when John Major was booted and Tony Blair was newly in office - was the lowest ebb. It all seemed to be even worse in 2004-2005 however, especially arriving from the Continent on the Eurostar. What I read about HS1 and the new extensions to TfL sound like more of the same, but maybe it's better on the ground.

[talindsay]

Quick update regarding ticket prices: below are the single-ride ticket prices for the central zone of metro systems in the following cities. Note that the rules are slightly different for all of them, but in every case except London this is for a cash-fare disposable paper ticket. They are all very comparable except Amsterdam, which is just a tram system. In London, I provide both the cash-fare disposable ticket price and also the Oyster card single-ticket price, since the two are so wildly (punishingly) different, with the London system basically requiring any sane person to not buy a paper ticket with cash. Obviously in all cases a resident or semi-long-term visitor would get a pass of some sort, but it's instructive:

London - cash: €6.12 (£4.80, at today's rate)
London - card: €2.93 (£2.30)
Paris: €1.80
Madrid: €1.50 - €2.00, depending on distance
Berlin: €2.60
Brussels: €2.00
Amsterdam: €2.80

[Wedgeguy]

I would have hope that by the 2012 London Olympics that they would have had thing in a presentable shape for their guests.

[mplsjaromir]

Amsterdam does have a metro.

[talindsay]

Amsterdam does have a metro.

Haha, you're right - I've never used it and forgot it was there. The trams are just so Amsterdam, I've always used them.

[mullen]

i've only been to london a couple times, last in 2012. found the tube seamless and wonderful. took a sidetrip to manchester and absolutely love that city. they have a growing tram network. many british cities are now expanding their rail. i agree the inner-city rail lacks because of the different private companies offering service in various areas of the country. but still, it wasn't that big a hassle getting up to edinburgh and back down to london.

london buses are great to. i took a couple of bus trips to outlying areas just to see the city from above. i wish we had double decker buses here. why is it we don't?

the london crossrail project is fascinating. ah, to live in a city with such transit infrastructure.

[EOst]

london buses are great to. i took a couple of bus trips to outlying areas just to see the city from above. i wish we had double decker buses here. why is it we don't?

Chicken and egg thing. Most cities don't need them, so most of the manufacturers in the US don't make them, which in turn drives up the cost of purchase and maintenance. The stairs also significantly increase loading time.

[xandrex]

Maybe it was how the British use their double-deckers or the weather or whatever, but the double-deckers were uncomfortable, especially on the upper deck, where the air became sticky and the windows all completely fogged up in the middle of "winter."

[nBode]

I remember reading that SouthWest got some double-deckers for the State Fair this year, and I'm pretty sure they are continuing to use a couple of them...

[at40man]

Been to London 3x this year. It's been wonderful using such a comprehensive system. (And I never saw any chalkboards, all the display boards were dot-matrix).

It's fun when you go often enough and long enough that you start getting familiar with the system and even learn some tricks Londoners don't know (at King's Cross on Northern Line, go against the "Way Out" arrows, and instead of being routed down very long corridors you'll find yourself exiting through the original Northern Line ticketing hall -- before they built a newer one closer to the street creating long corridors that act as form of giant queue).

The new Elizabeth Line (formerly known as Crossrail) was amazing! They really did future proof it, the stations are very large. The trains were clean and fast.

I have to agree with others though about the very fragmented service across England. The tickets are more expensive than they should be. I paid nearly £70 to go to Manchester. And due to staffing shortages, I was put on a replacement bus back to London. Blegh. The other time I went to Manchester, I went with one of my London friends who is very cheap and I decided why the heck not -- and got on a Flix Bus. It wasn't terrible, but not as nice as the train. Definitely took a lot longer, too. But it was only €7 and I dozed off. There were many bus companies to choose from to Manchester, including a national bus that shares the same logo used for national rail services. From Manchester, we took another bus for only £1 to Burnley. Spent the night there with another mate and then took train back to Manchester the next day, pretty basic but leaps beyond most North American transit service.

Also took Eurostar to Paris. Nice and fast! From Paris I took the TGV/Ouigo train to Marseille. What a delight! And it only cost €9! Had I chosen the newer TGV it would've been more expensive, more like €50. The trainset I was on was 20 years "old" but was generally fine.

By contrast to all this great transit, one of my Londoner friends is a photographer and last week was flown to Dallas for a shoot. He took a photo from his hotel room and sent it to me, saying "there's nothing here but Taco Bells and Walmarts". And he commented on how when he touched down he immediately looked up transit to his hotel and then realized it wasn't practically possible so wound up doing Uber instead. He said the driver gave him side-eye when he commented he said didn't know how to drive a car. (I guess the expectation is that most people rent cars in Dallas?). And that it sucks walking.

Sometimes I'm so jealous of my friends. But given I bought my house when I did and now refinanced it at the low-point for mortgages, it doesn't make sense for me to move. So best I can do is try and act as an advocate for better transit here.