Grinding to a Halt

It's that odd wasteland again between Christmas and New Year when most people see the sense to stay tucked up in bed and recharge their batteries. For the unlucky few, however, there is still the need to work. Those that work in retail, for example, as well as those who work for essential services such as at hospitals or for the law. Then there's folk like me who used up all of their annual leave trying in vain to catch up on sleep, but anyway, these people still need to get to and from work. As I am finding out, at this time of year that is becoming an even more unlikely task than ever.

For many years now the government, hand in hand with the numerous private firms in charge of the various areas of the transport system in this country, have been working closely together with the eventual aim of preventing anyone from getting anywhere. Straight from the age old school of thought that 'if people have to pay more for something it will discourage them to do it', we've had massive rises in the two motorist taxes*, as well as huge rises in the cost of using public transport**. Throw in a gradual reduction in service and it really seems like the grand plan is starting to pay off.

Take my journey to work this morning for example. Firstly somewhere along the way Southern have decided that whilst it is clearly a week day, they will operate trains to their weekend timetable. Granted, this reduced service wouldn't be such a pain in the arse if I hadn't arrived at the station to find the train on my usual route had been cancelled anyway. Rather than wait around for three quarters of an hour in the freezing weather, I considered my options and decided my best route would then be to jump on the next bus outside the station, to Morden, taking the Northern Line in to work. After some waiting, then some more waiting, I finally arrived at Morden in my car. I seem to recall a lot of talk not so long ago about the powers that be 'encouraging' people to use public transport by stating that the vast majority of train and tube stations have decent, well maintained car parks. Indeed as I discovered, Morden appears to have exactly that. What they neglected to mention is the £4 charge to park there. Still, I guess there wasn't space on the newsletter.

Anyway, I'd made the extra effort and as the tube train pulled out of the station I sat back and thought to myself that at least I would only be ten minutes late. I would have been, if it wasn't for the 'massive signal failure at Oval' that struck just as the train I was on reached the Tootings.

I hear they're going to raise the tax on shoes soon too.


* The official tax (road tax) on my car has gone up significantly over the last few years and is now the better part of £200. The unofficial tax on the same thing (petrol tax) has gone up even more. When I started driving in 1998, prices near me were around 59p a litre... now it's usually 95p or more.

** When I started regularly commuting into London two years ago, my travel card was around £129. They've just put it up, again. It's now £153.