Urban transport. Or call it urban mass transport. It will, for time immemorial, continue to define the way a city travels. They fall down, then the city comes down on its knees. And in similar vein, if the network of urban transport continues to work well, then all’s well for as wide and far as one can see!
One wonders, if there would be many who may disagree with this?
Commuting whether for personal or official reasons for whether to simply lay over to another end of the town to get away from the hustle and bustle of where one habitually resides or works! And in that regard, the role played by a city’s urban mass transport system becomes ever more pertinent.
In that light, can one imagine the city of Paris without the legendary, rather what can also be called the iconic SNCF train service? In that aspect, can anyone among us imagine the city of Los Angeles without the system of AmTrak or the Metrolink?
Likewise, where it comes to Her Majesty’s beating heart in all of England, i.e., London, then can the city ever be imagined in the absence of its tube trains?
In a very English sense of the word, the system of the London tubes have come to be hailed as nothing shy than that of a national treasure in all of England. No jokes; come to think of it, if a Hugh Grant or Harry Potter or Kate Moss are considered English treasures then would you not consider the mass mover of people from one destination to the other as being one of a kind too?
But all of that said, there’s just nothing right with the way the London tubes are, at present. For where it stands in the past three- not one or two- years then one simply hasn’t seen a strike as big and prominent as what one is seeing right now in the city famous for the big London Eye or the Buckingham palace.
So why’s that and what may have contributed to the biggest London tube rail strike in the past three years?
Here’s what one has to note and must:
The 24-hour strike, which started at 0430 GMT, led to the suspension of the Piccadilly, and Waterloo and City lines, and delays on the Jubilee, Central, Victoria and Northern lines.
Transport for London (TfL) said it was running 58% of its usual services.
The walkout of 2,000 Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) members came after disagreements over TfL’s plans to make tube drivers take on shifts at night.
The strikes targeted the five lines where TfL used to employ dedicated Night Tube drivers, with the Waterloo and City line also suspended as it shares many of its drivers with the Central line.
That being told, 36-year-old Joe Swaffham, one of the commuters that Fx Empire was able to speak to had the following to say in the wake of the suspension of the London tube system:
“Commuters were being less forgiving when trying to get on trains and I got pushed two-throw down the platform – luckily the Jubilee line has a glass wall for safety. But I think the train workers shouldn’t have to be forced into hours they didn’t sign up for.”
Besides, one also wonders that what might have happened to the scene of shopping and that of recreation in the wake of the London tube strike? How bad would it have affected things like the super Black Friday sales?