@73caroline: DLR delayed. Jubilee line closed. Blackwall tunnel stationary and full of police. #willIevergettowork?
As a lot of Londoners will know by now, there was carnage on the Jubilee line yesterday morning. Now peak hour tube travel is never pretty - crowded trains, minor delays and someone else snatching the last copy of the Metro are all quite the norm for most London commuters – but this was bad even by those standards. For about two hours, from 7.30am until half past nine, there were no trains running in either direction between London Bridge and Stratford. None at all.
By the time I tweeted the above, I had been trying to get to work for about an hour and a quarter. Normally I catch a bus from my house to the DLR station at Woolwich. The same bus goes on to North Greenwich tube station, but I’ve worked out it’s slightly quicker to get off at Woolwich, catch the DLR to Canning Town and pick up the Jubilee line there. More changes, but it shaves about ten minutes off the journey and, as an added bonus, there’s a bus from Canning Town station to my office. As any Jubilee line user will tell you; it’s always good to have a backup plan.
Just before I left home I caught a news bulletin on the radio which said there were minor delays on the DLR. No problem, I thought. I’ll just stay on the bus all the way to North Greenwich. A change is as good as an arm which is fore-warned, and all that. (I may be mixing my metaphors slightly.) The news about the Jubilee line came to us, via the bus driver, just long enough after we’d passed the DLR station to make it not worth going back. But that was fine. As a seasoned Jubilee line user, I had a Plan C up my sleeve. Plan C involved getting on another bus at North Greenwich which would take me, via the Blackwall Tunnel, to Bromley by Bow. Which it did ,eventually, but not before it spent several life-times sitting in the Blackwall tunnel.
I did get to work finally; about two hours after I first left home, and half an hour late. I wasn’t the only one.
@LDN: TfL to refund passengers affected by Canary Wharf disruption this morning http://LDN.in/i9C2NW (via @anniemole)
I was mildly irritated by this headline; the ‘disruption’ I experienced this morning wasn’t anything to do with Canary Wharf. Stupid lazy journalism (I thought). I clicked the link which took me to a news story on the Transport for London website, and then my blood began to boil.
@73caroline: FUMING about this: http://LDN.in/i9C2NW Jubilee line runs through the most deprived areas of London. Why only Canary Wharf users refunded?
Turns out it wasn’t lazy journalism. Turns out that TfL are going to refund tube users who suffered yesterday morning, and give them a free trip home. But only if they get on or off at Canary Wharf or its neighbouring DLR stations.
This seems fundamentally unfair to me. Particularly since, as noted in my tweet, the very eastern end of the Jubilee line runs through the borough of Newham, which regularly pops up on ‘most-deprived-areas-of-the-country’ lists.
Within minutes, I had a reply:
@Cbp76: @73caroline dont think u read that properly mate, try again
I don’t know @Cbp76 at all, so the ‘mate’ rankled me slightly, while the ‘try again’ tacked on the end seemed needlessly patronising. Still, I re-read the article carefully.
It said exactly what I thought it said.
@73caroline: @Cbp76 Er, think I did, actually! Canning Town passengers, say, would be refunded if they were fined for incomplete journey ->
@73caroline: @Cbp76 <-- but someone who commutes from/to Canary wharf would have had their fare waived completely. Doesn't seem fair....
I still think I'm right about this. Here, word for word, is the information as it appears on the TfL website:
Customers who exited Canary Wharf Tube, or Heron Quays, West India Quay or Canary Wharf DLR between 07:15 and 10:30 this morning will have their journey fare refunded.
Any passenger who incurred incomplete journey charges during this period at these stations, or while travelling through any station on the Jubilee line between London Bridge and Stratford, will have these automatically waived.
In addition, anyone travelling from Canary Wharf (Jubilee line or DLR), Heron Quays or West India Quay between 16:00 and 20:00 this evening will have their journey fare automatically refunded.
The refunds, which apply to Oyster pay as you go users, will be applied automatically when passengers travel through the gate line as usual at their regular station.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad Transport for London are offering passengers some kind of compensation, even if they’re only doing it because Boris Johnson shouted at them for making him look like a bit of an idiot.
What I’m not happy about is the inequity. Especially since as a whole, the people getting on or off the tube at Canning Town or Stratford are going to be a)less financially solvent and b)less able to navigate their way through the complicated process of applying for a refund than the ones using the stations at and around Canary Wharf. Who, let's face it, will mostly be bankers.
Now I know that I'm generalising slightly. And yes, I know that bankers are easy targets. But why give the automatic refund and a free journey home to them, but not to the other commuters who were affected? The ones to whom the extra money might make a real difference? It seems fundamentally unfair to me.
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