London cab situation now..
 

..Is it damn near impossible to get a cab in London due to parts of the tube being down? (much of the Piccadilly line in Central London, the whole Circle line,most of district..)

Will be taking the Heathrow express into town on Saturday morning..I've never had a problem getting a cab outside paddington, but wonder if things are different now. I was considering just hiring a car to pick us up at the airport, but don't really like long car rides (i'm staying in Bloomsbury..that'll probably be about an hour from Heathrow, right? Is the cab right from Heathrow all highway, or does it go through London?)

More and more people are sharing cabs and there is a scheme at Paddington for just that. It is explained on The Heathrow Express TV as you arrive at the station.

A car and driver at Heathrow would be much cheaper than a taxi and they would meet you in arrivals, help with luggage and take you door to door. Maybe £35 as against £50 for a cab. Google london airport transfers for some quotes.

On a Saturday (no special events planned according to Time Out) you will probably go straight though central London to get to Bloomsbury.

We've taken cabs from Paddington on our last few trips into London. There is usually a line and you will have to wait but things do seem to move along fairly well. FYI, there's no one coordinating the queue and on our last trip (a week ago), there were more than a few queue jumpers taking advantage of the confusion. Irritating.

It is harder to flag a cab on the street than it used to be. As one cab driver said on TV, his business has been better than ever, but for the wrong reason.

thanks--i will book a car ahead. It might be a nice little "intro" to London for my mother (her first trip). (londontown.com seems to have some great return rates)

It shouldn't make much odds either way on a Saturday morning, but if I were a cab driver I'd go to Bloomsbury the all-dual carriageway route (M4/A312/A40/Westway) rather than through the middle. In light traffic, 35-40 mins, though Mrs F's managed 25 when running late.

BTW, most of the District Line IS running. It's only the bit from Ken High St to Edgware Rd that's out, so in effect there's a perfectly good substitute for the southern bit of the Circle. And the H+C and Metropolitan lines substitute for the northern bit of the Circle eastwards from Baker St. So tube travel is now only trivially affected for most of us. See http://map.tfl.gov.uk/realtime.asp?area=central

Oddly, the only stations totally out of action now are Russell Sq, Covent Garden and Bayswater - all mainly used by tourists. The absence of Russell Sq and Bayswater must be a real pain for many people in the nearby hotels.

So it wasn't us they were trying to mess about. It was you guys.

my hotel is nearer to goodge street than russell sq--im glad the northern line is up!

maybe ill ask the driver to take us through london on the way to the hotel. i just think that would be a better intro to london for my mom than the carriageway!