From just my own experience in the past couple of days on the tube and cycling around London, I think TfL have massively over-egged the potential for travel chaos and as a result, businesses are suffering. Empty restaurants in Chelsea on a Sunday at lunch time? The city is absolutely dead with none of the normal queues for lunch.
If I was a Black Cab driver, a restauranteur or even a shop owner, I would be crying. Just a prediction, there will be no boost to the UK economy from the Olympics, other than the money spent by the government on it, and we'll have more negative growth.
To those who say that TfL were dammed if they didn't, that is no excuse for what they have done. The economy is at stake and they selfishly covered their own arses at its expense. They basically said "stay away from London" and people have quite rightly taken them at their word. This was wrong. We coped with massive tube disruption after 7/7. Right, rant on behalf of London's service industry over.
Tags for Forum Posts: london2012, olympics, tfl
Interesting if it turns out that the Zil lanes weren't really needed for games competitors and their support staff. Even a possible lesson for other countries which face Olymperialist demands by the IOC bosses.
Where do they need to get to, Pam?
Greenwich. Hyde Park. Wembley. Excel. Eton Dorney. Hadley Farm. Hampton Court. Horse Guards Parade. Lea Valley White Water Centre. Lords Cricket Ground. Cardiff Millenium Stadium. Old Trafford. St James' Park. The Mall. The Royal Artillery Barracks. Weymouth & Portland. Wimbledon. The Ates Restaurant 402 High Road N17. Ally Pally Boating Lake.
I made the last two up.
They're all on the tube or overground aren't they? Except those furrin places outside London. (A train station at Bridport would be handy.)
Journeys on the North Circular and M4 today and yesterday had the zil lanes open to normal traffic.
Whatever extra visitors may be here for ©The Games©, will be offset by those who have stayed away.
My one personal example - a friend from the US is in Europe - she went to Paris and Dublin but chose not to visit her English family tho' would have done so normally. That's one, or rather two as there is also her partner.
Have all the fun you like Michael but this is terminal for the economy. Look what an extra bank holiday this year did to it.
But that bank hol was going to save us from extinction.
There was an about-time discussion on R4 this morning on, +/-, The Limits to Growth. I remember reading that book in 1970something and not quite getting why it wasn't happening.Still dont understand Econononomics. Maybe that should be my next course.
Of course there are limits to growth but why on earth screw ourselves like this? A normal summer for London would see tourists and the London service industry happy. Instead this monstrous Lympic mafia has allowed TfL to scare everybody away. We should be far more fightend about this than we appear to be. It is catastrophic and too late to fix now.
Expect reverberations until after Christmas - and no more Gideon and perhaps no more Coalition too. You will have a government in turmoil, right when you need Gordon and Alistair.
- Chicken Licken.
What I don't get, is how many of these furrin visitors have season tickets to the whole thing? How did they get tickets, in a package? And if they are only going to a selection of events, why are they not out there doing their duty and shopping and queueing for Mme Tussards like they know they should?
I'm with you Michael and will not be following the moaners down Gloomsville Road. Too much traffic, good old moan. Too little traffic, good old moan!
Want to sort the economy out, collect all the billions and trillions of avoided tax from the banks, corps and selfish elite from all their little havens.
Go Team GB!
GB 1 Brazil 0
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