Getting Around: London

When I visited London this summer, I made an effort to take as many different types of public transit there as I could in the time I was there. I ended up missing out on one that I know of--the Uber Boats--but otherwise I hit up everything I intended to take. And today, I want to take a brief look at each of these types of public transit in London to think about what was good, what was bad, and what I wish I could see more of in the United States. Warning: this is a bit longer of a post, so I'm sticking everything after the Tube under a jump.

1. The Underground

The Tube, the Underground, for Americans the subway: this is probably the most iconic of London transportation. I took a couple of Underground lines while I was in London and I've taken many, many more when I've been there before, and frankly it always manages to simultaneously please me and disappoint me. 

On the one hand, it is crowded, often noisy, and increasingly warming up. Depending on the line, you may have some rather old rolling stock, and in some places it's not necessarily faster than walking. It's the part of London's transit mix that feels like it's changed the least since I first visited the city almost two decades ago, and that can all add up to, well, a little disappointment.

Pretty sure this exact train was here then

On the other, there's a reason RM Transit calls it the "quintessential rapid transit system," and it's not just that it dates from 1863. It's a pretty comprehensive network for a metro (especially when integrated with everything else London has to offer, as detailed below) and while in the absolute center of the city it can be slow, it's much faster than anything that would be on the surface--not to mention, it does a really good job of cutting across parts of the city that can be confusing or difficult to traverse on foot. There's a reason the Tube map isn't actually a map but a network diagram: it doesn't parallel the street network, it substitutes for it.

It has its flaws, but I miss the Tube when I'm not in London--I even miss it when I'm on the south bank of London, but that's a point for later here.

How could I stay mad at this?

Also, there are parts that are getting actual platform screen doors and other innovations, so that's nice to see finally making its way into the old system.

2. The Elizabeth Line

So the Elizabeth line, formerly known and constructed as Crossrail, fills a vital role that the Tube does not anymore: rapid cross-city travel and connectivity. It touches both the Tube and other transit modes at many points, which is part of what makes London such a good transit city: everything interlocks. But it's not a Tube line; it goes far further out, as far as Reading and Shenfield; it uses different rolling stock; and fundamentally it's intended for far more of a commuter and cross-town service than the Tube lines. It's got much more in common with the Paris RER than anything else, and like the RER (which I plan to touch on in a later post), it's absolutely fantastic for getting in and out of the city, and for a much faster journey through the city than you'd ever get on the Tube.

It was also a nice fast transit from the airport, which sort of makes the Heathrow Express service to Paddington feel unnecessary.

I lived in Chicago for years, and I cannot tell you what I would have given for the Metra to be anything at all like this. Or like...

3. Mainline Rail

So the mainline rail around London is a mix of what we might think of as commuter or regional rail on the one hand and national rail services, because the UK (and England even more so) is so much smaller than the US that the two are not always easily distinguishable. I took this not only around the London area but also down towards Brighton to visit family (albeit, still to American sensibilities in "the London area," just not in UK ones), and while the Elizabeth line is much more impressive and the Tube is much more singular, the sheer fact of having consistent, regular, useful, and predictable trains on mainline track* was just so refreshing.

*Yes, UK riders have ample reasons to complain about service, including recent degradations, but it's so far above US rail standards, especially outside the NE Corridor here, that it's ridiculous.

It's just nice to see a normal train operate normally, you know?

4. Thameslink

A close relative of the above services is Thameslink, which is in its own way a "Crossrail before Crossrail" that brings mainline service through places that used to be harder to get through and provides a very useful north-south set of connections. I did take Thameslink, and I used to take it a lot more when I was living in Farringdon and teaching study abroad. But I don't have a lot more to say about it than about its cousins listed 2 and 3 here: suffice to say that I am glad it exists and wish more cities had convenient throughput of mainline train connections.

5. The Overground

Now, I was there juuuuust before they started seriously turning over the Overground to its new named line system, and I'm sad to have missed that! My pictures are just...orange.

The Overground is a nice system to have, and most US cities would consider it a massive upgrade. In London, it's been more or less an afterthought--hence why the single undifferentiated orange on the map could last so long even though it's admittedly confusing since trains don't actually run all over the orange lines. I enjoyed using it, as I have before, to transit some areas of Zones 2/3 that were otherwise difficult to access, and I always enjoy taking someone else's commuter lines: it really drives home that London (and other such cities) are not just tourist destinations, but real places with real transit needs beyond the touristy center.

6. The Trams

I've written about these already, so I won't belabor the point too much, but just like the Overground, I can't help but take the trams and think that the places I've lived much of my life would kill to have this, and it's considered one of the worse options in London. I connected to it via Overground and Thameslink, and passed mainline rail and bus connections--ah, what excess of choice.

Isn't the tram stop cute, though?

6. The Cloud Car

I've also talked about the Cloud Car, my least favorite piece of London transit, so I'll just leave you with the one positive: a nice view of these three toaster buildings.

7. The Uber Boat

I didn't take this, but you can see a dock in the image above, so it feels appropriate to mention here why I didn't take it: I tried to, but it pulled away from the dock while I was scanning my Oyster, and then when I tapped out to go take another route back it stole 25 quid from me for tapping out of the same station, which I found obnoxious enough that I didn't try again. So we'll pass that by and try 7 again.

7. The Bus

Vying with the Underground for its iconic nature would be the London bus, a noted transport of delight. The double-decker is particularly well-known, but here we can see both it and its diminutive cousin in the same shot (as well as on the far right the rising tram tracks in Croydon):

I took several buses on my trip, and they were uniformly pleasant, quick, and easy. If London had only its buses, it would be massively overcrowded, but it would also be one of the best transit systems I've ever seen (especially if they got buses to make up for the loss of trains, somehow). 

I am quite fond of the experience of taking the London buses, from the ease with which they crisscross the city (even in not-so-great traffic) to the view of the city you get from them. It's obviously superior to being underground, but also better for sightseeing than the rail lines that tend to be hidden under overpasses or in other spaces that aren't actually seeing the city:

Hello friend, what are you doing down there?

For most of your actual daily needs that aren't about wanting to take a train, the bus is both cheaper and better for day-to-day use, and I think that's actually fantastic.

8. The Docklands Light Railway

It's ironic that I put this so far back, as it was actually one of the first I took on this trip. The DLR is an automated driverless system that isn't technically part of the Tube, just like the Elizabeth Line isn't, but that feels very much as if it were. It's a sprawling system in East and South London (mostly East) and I quite enjoy the station buildings in the ever-increasingly-affluent Docklands area.

The DLR reminds me heavily of the Vancouver SkyTrain, which I've used throughout my life, and that alone is enough to make me very happy to take it.

9. My own two feet

No, this isn't actually a transit service offered in London, though they do have maps for it. I just can't mention getting around London without pointing out that I also did quite a bit of walking, and it's so much better for that than most cities, including and especially the Quad Cities. 

Even Zone 5 has major pedestrianized zones

This includes spaces like the above, designed only or explicitly for people walking, but it also includes just...pretty much anywhere I wanted to walk.

Sometimes there's just a market, and you enjoy that

Sometimes there are lots of people so it feels very crowded and busy, but still walkable.

Sometimes everyone is chilling.

And generally, it's just a very easy place to move around in, even if locals may complain. At least compared to, well, pretty much everywhere else.

Thanks for coming with me on this whirlwind tour of transportation modes in London. My biggest takeaway? Any one of these would massively improve pretty much every American city's transit, and any attempt towards them should be rewarded. At the same time, they work because they work together: the buses would be too congested if there weren't the Underground, the Underground wouldn't work right without connections to the mainline rail, mainline rail has benefited immensely from Thameslink and now the Elizabeth Line, and so on...city transit runs on systems (and this is why the Cloud Car is bad), and London is blessed to have so many working together.