109 journeys in central London are quicker on foot than by Tube
 

New signage is intended to make it easier to navigate on foot:
http://www.legiblelondon.info/wp01/?p=87
http://www.legiblelondon.info/wp01/?page_id=2

I've always thought it was easier to walk around London, then waste time on the tube. You get to see more by walking too.

Our theory on visiting London has always been to take the tube to the first stop of the day, after that walk from sight to sight (in the same general area) and then, at the end of the day, grab a cab back to the hotel to rest before dinner.

If the first sight is close to the hotel, we just walk all day. And this is a great way to expore neighborhoods and see some of the intruiging/unusual sights you would miss otherwise.

BUT,we're New Yorkers and used to walking a lot of places. I know to many suburbanites the idea of walking several miles each day can be daunting - but we do it all the time here.

I must say, I like the idea that these new signs and maps have been developed on the basis of some solid work on how people actually think about getting about. It looks very promising: if only the money's there to apply it consistently.

The other statistic that impresses me is the one about 32 different signage systems in the central London area!

I've always argued that Harry Beck's schematic Tube map has deceived people into believing that the Circle Line is a circle, the Central Line is central, and the distance between Covent Garden and Leicester Square is the same as between Hyde Park Corner and Knightsbridge (well, they look the same on the map, don't they?)

I use Nanika.net/Metro for my navigation, and if it tells me that the stage length is less than ten minutes, I'll walk.

It would be a service to all Tube users if a geographic map were presented along with every schematic one. Here's one such, for your edification: clarksbury.com/cdl/maps/geog.gif

Here's one you can get in any Tube station: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/centlond.pdf (Yeah, it's a bus map. But it shows the Tube network, too.)

You'd have to be exceptionally daft to think the tube map was a realistic representation of distances between stations or exact relative locations.

Three big clues:-

1/ It is a mass of straight lines.

2/ The river is almost always shown and this again is highly stylised to be overtly geometric.

3/ Almost every major transport network worldwide has adopted the topographical system, so why people might think London would be any different, I don't know.

On top of that, every A-Z shows 'realistic' maps with transport links overlaid, so it's hardly a secret.

PS I do think the new signage is a great idea to encourage people to walk more.

PS - The Circle line is not shown as a circle on any tube map I've ever seen.

The circle line is bottle shaped.

<i>Author: RM67
Date: 11/28/2008, 12:33 pm

You'd have to be exceptionally daft to think the tube map was a realistic representation of distances between stations or exact relative locations.

1/ It is a mass of straight lines.</i>

If you were from a place like Phoenix, Arizona, you might well think that London was a mass of straight lines. Living here is like being on a piece of graph paper. This is a geographical map:

http://www.valleymetro.org/images/up...ap/July08c.pdf

Manhattan (except for Broadway) looks like a Cartesian co-ordinate system.

&gt;&gt;Manhattan (except for Broadway) looks like a Cartesian co-ordinate system&lt;&lt;

Ah yes.... I think, therefore I AAM WHAT - I - AAM!

If you're at 55th and 6th, you can guesstimate the distance to 34th and 3rd pretty accurately in your head.

ttt

&lt;&lt;&lt; (Yeah, it's a bus map. But it shows the Tube network, too.) &gt;&gt;&gt;

It also shows the main tourist sites (and a lot of the minor ones as well), so it's probably the first stop for ANYONE visiting London

Actually, I don't think you'd have to be daft at all to be misled into thinking tube stations are closer to each other than the tube map would lead you to believe. Among the most misleading representations are the &quot;connecting&quot; tube stations that can add quite a bit of time to your commute as you walk very long distances through mazes underground.

I'm most familiar with the New York city subway system, and those maps give you a clearer idea of how far it is between stops. And you can see it's not practical to walk to switch lines, as opposed to taking a crosstown shuttle. The &quot;grid&quot; of Manhattan does make it easier to calculate distance, but even if you are looking at Queens or Brooklyn, you can see how the train lines diverge.

As to walking in London, I've always felt going on foot, even in lousy weather, gets more accomplished, on schedule, than most public transport.

That said, it took some effort for me personally to re-orient myself to looking in the correct direction for oncoming traffic when crossing streets. In recent trips to London, I've much appreciated those reminders painted right onto the pavement about which way to look, laughable though it might be for some natives. For me, watching out in the other direction just takes some thinking every time, and I probably &quot;stroll&quot; less in London than I do in some other places, as I momentarily check myself at every street crossing. It's one of the reasons I so enjoy cutting across London's beautiful parks.

And here they are:

http://www.diamondgeezer.blogspot.co...07959410090302

I wonder if TfL could be interested in posting outside each station entrance:

IF YOU ARE CONTEMPLATING A JOURNEY TO ANY OF THE FOLLOWING DESTINATIONS, YOU MAY FIND IT USEFUL TO KNOW THAT WALKING WOULD BE FASTER THAN RIDING THE UNDERGROUND:

Destination A
Destination B
Destination C

(Think of the Tube capacity it would save!)

Great thread - thanks for posting it Patrick.

&gt;&gt;I wonder if TfL could be interested in posting outside each station entrance&lt;&lt;

They already do something like that to divert people from Covent Garden station, which gets particularly overcrowded.

But the focus of this new initiative is to try to get a consistent approach across all sorts of access points and ways of accessing information - including tube stations and bus shelters.

This is a work in progress, so for the short term it is useful to know that there are good local maps in the entry areas of underground stations and on the bus shelters. BUT locals will always advise you to buy a map book. It is difficult to help people to navigate who wave a touristy map at you with about 3 inches allocated from Madame Tussauds to the British Museum. Since London was not built on a grid system, detailed maps help walkers.

&gt;&gt;I wonder if TfL could be interested in posting outside each station entrance&lt;&lt;

Because it would lead to hordes of tourists standing outside the stations with their touristy maps &amp; getting in everybody's way.

Why not, as in many cities, just have signposts at street corners pointing the way