London Underground > Reviews > Better than nothing, right?

Author's product rating:   

Frequency of trains	Good
Reliability of trains	Occasionally on time
Comfort of trains	Slightly uncomfortable
On-board facilities	Satisfactory

Advantages:	Quicker than the bus .
Disadvantages:	Too expensive; isn't 24 hrs; unreliable

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Ask someone to list the four biggest, sexiest, most cultured and most important cities in the world, and it's a good bet that you'll hear New York, Paris, Tokyo and London. But without a decent public transportation infrastructure, a city's claim to be up there with the big boys takes a hard knock, and London is the only one out of those four cities which suffers from an unreliable subway system (look at the respected New York Subway or the Paris Metro and it's enough to make any Londoner get the green eyes.) I know it's easy to knock the Tube, and I acknowledge the fact that it is a child of its (very early) time, and was just not built with the intention of its being used on a 24-hour continuous basis as in New York. Building in air-conditioning units was definitely not at the top of the list of the Tube's architects back in the 19th century. Londoners berate the Tube, but although it's easy to say that they'd miss it if it wasn't there, this is not, and should not be, a catch-all answer to the solvable problems that regular users of the Tube know of all too well.

The first major problem with the Tube is that you simply cannot rely on the trains to be running at the right time. Unless you have checked the website before you leave the house, you turn up at the station with absolutely no idea whether the tube lines you plan to use are running without problems, or with minor delays, or major delays, or just not at all (although this is admittedly rare). You could say that this is the same with any system of public transportation, but the difference with London is that delays and cancellations are so frequent that the Londoner cannot assume on the basis of probability that everything will probably be okay, because whenever I have used the Tube - and I have lived in London for a year - there is always *something* not working properly.

The next weakness of the system to focus on is the fact that it is disgustingly expensive for non-Londoners. Regular users of the Tube will probably have invested in an Oyster card by now, which allows them to travel for less (a Zone 1 single ticket pre-paid for on the Oyster Card is £1.50), but there are questions regarding this touch-in-touch-out system, with its implications for central authorities being able to track a traveller's movements in a way that they could not do when everybody travelled anonymously with paper tickets. To compensate for the money lost giving Oyster users discounted journeys, the prices for non-Oyster users have been increased; the cost of the aforementioned Zone 1 single was increased from £2 to £3 for people who wish to pay with cash. Compare this to $2 for a single journey on the New York subway, regardless of the length of that journey, and the expense of the Tube is showed up as farcical. It must certainly have an impact on international tourists' willingness to come to this fantastic city.

I know that nobody goes on the Tube for the fun of it, but people who use the Tube in London seem to have a knack for being uniquely miserable. Maybe it's because the trains are so narrow, resulting in the commuters being packed in like sardines, meaning that people become agitated because their personal space is being invaded, but you just can't help feeling like a unit when you're down there. Everyone plugged into their iPods, focused only on getting to their journey at the expense of basic manners. It's the same wherever you look in the world, but using the Tube is quite a depressing activity.

But I will give the Tube credit where it's due. When it works, it's the quickest way of getting from A to B in this overcrowded metropolis. Some of the stations are a beauty to behold - witness Canary Wharf (likened by many to a futuristic cathedral) and Westminster - even though probably just as many, if not more, stations (especially on the outskirts) are becoming derelict and badly-lit. The Tube is safe, easy to navigate (thanks to the pioneering and frankly genius design of the Tube map- the NYC subway has much to learn in terms of cartography!) and has plenty of stations so that you never have to walk very far to find one. The rolling stock is being upgraded with new car models, most recently the District Line (and not before time, either.) Accidents are rare, even if scare stories about cracked rails or weak tunnels appear on newspaper front pages frequently. Of course there's the threat of terrorism, you wouldn't be in London if you'd bat an eyelid at that.

Nobody ventures underground for fun, obviously, but after living in London for a year I have largely abandoned using the Tube, and will now use buses wherever possible, even if this takes slightly longer. The buses are cheaper (although still not really that cheap), usually easier to find a seat on and, if nothing else, it's less claustrophobic.

London is let down by a shoddy Tube, and the Tube has been let down by shoddy management, both by its own managers and the government which subsidises it. In this respect, the Tube shares much in common with the rest of British public transport; decades of underfunding and a derisory attitude from central government followed by a collapse in public confidence. London would undoubtedly be much worse off without the Tube, but it would equally undoubtedly be improved immeasurably if stations were cleaner and brighter (case in point: the Jubilee Line extension.. if it hadn't run massively over budget), the staff were friendlier, the prices were less ridiculous, and there was actually a chance to reasonably expect your line to be running without incidents when you turn up at the station.