People have mixed feelings about the London Underground.
Ask someone on the Central line as they’re commuting to work on a Tuesday morning and they’ll tell you that it’s hell on wheels and ask “what’s wrong with you?” True, the Tube can be cramped, stuffy, boiling, occasionally smelly and suspiciously sticky, but as far as public transportation systems go, it’s one of the best in the world.
That’s what Dennis Green of Business Insider discovered when he left New York City to come to the capital for a week’s holiday.
“To take a break from the swamp that New York City becomes in the summer, I took a weeklong trip to the sunny paradise of London for a well-deserved vacation,” Green wrote in an article published on Business Insider earlier in the week. “OK, fine. London may not be that sunny, but it is a transportation paradise.”
In the article, Green compares the London transport system to New York’s “crumbling infrastructure that millions of New Yorkers rely on every day,” and he has nothing but good things to say about London’s transport.
“Its trains run often, its buses have a priority network, and there’s even a congestion charge for private cars driving in the city center that feeds money back into the transportation projects,” he says.
“Not once did I get stuck in a tunnel or even have to wait longer than four minutes for a train — and with countdown clocks at nearly every station, I always knew when the next train was coming. I also never had to detour because of track work, which is done overnight in London.
“I think it’s best summarized in the status update heard over the PA system every so often in the Underground: “There is good service on all London Underground lines.”
Green then goes on to detail (and in some detail) a journey through London, from Waterloo to Stoke Newington. It’s a lovely read and will no doubt make Londoners value their transport system even more than they already do.
Read the full article on Business Insider
