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Northern line Morden branch commuters urged to walk to ease overcrowding

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bicbasher

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24888358

Northern Line commuters urged to walk or cycle

Travellers are being asked to avoid getting on the Northern Line between Tooting Bec and Clapham North between 0800 GMT and 0845.

Transport for London (TfL) said commuters often had to wait for two or three trains before they could board.

Travellers will be given advice on alternative routes.

Leaflets and information boards will be available to passengers at Tooting Bec, Balham, Clapham South, Clapham Common and Clapham North.

Tooting Bec and Clapham North are a 2.5-mile (4km) walk apart.

TfL says the pilot project, starting on Monday, will offer commuters similar help to that offered during the Olympics to find out if it helps to reduce overcrowding.

A TfL spokesman said it wanted passengers to rethink their journeys.

"For example if you get the Tube at Clapham North to Stockwell just to transfer to the Victoria Line maybe you could instead walk as it would only take 10 minutes.

"Or could you start your journey 10 minutes earlier to avoid the crowds?" he said.

A spokesman from website Commuting Expert said while the reality on the Tube was massive overcrowding and he understood it took time to build up extra capacity, it was frustrating for commuters.

"Transport costs are going up and up while salaries stay flat so it is frustrating when the service you're paying for isn't the service you're being recommended to use," he added.

'Exceptionally busy'
The Northern Line, the busiest of the Tube network, is being upgraded with a new signalling system and replacement tracks.

TfL says it will increase the line's capacity to take an extra 11,000 people per hour when work is completed next year.

Gareth Powell, TfL's director of strategy and service development, said: "During the 2012 Games many of our passengers made small changes to their journeys which meant we were able to carry record numbers without the transport network feeling any busier.

"This section of the Northern Line is exceptionally busy during part of the morning and while the modernisation of the line will help to relieve crowding when complete next year this trial will look at whether we can improve the situation now.

"By making a small change to the time they travel our passengers' journeys could be faster and more comfortable."

TfL also wants to extend the Northern Line to Nine Elms and Battersea.

A public inquiry to consider the proposal starts on 19 November.
 
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Peter Mugridge

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A couple of services at the relevant time ( not consecutive, obviously! ) running ecs from Morden to start at Tooting Bec would hoover up the congestion and also prevent the services behind them from becoming overcrowded as well...
 

Nym

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Or you could send an extra or two from Tooting Bwy, but the question remains on how you'd fit this extra into the headways available without putting many stops on the other trains.
 

Peter Mugridge

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I'm thinking just run a couple of the existing services ecs from Morden, not adding extras - as long as they ran them at a normal journey time speed so that they didn't open up a large gap between them and the following service starting normally from Morden it *should* work.

Sure, it means two or so fewer services off Morden, but that shouldn't cause a problem as the following services wouldn't have so many people to pick up from Tooting Bec onwards - same number of people moved overall, just clears the worst of the crowding quicker.
 

bb21

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I agree with Peter on this. This is a commonly deployed tactic on Metro systems to prevent station overcrowding, especially if there is no suitable loop/siding for turning the trains short.

I can't help but feel that TfL have scored a PR own goal here. To the general public, it would seem that TfL have got their money from the Travelcards, then rather than looking for solutions, decided that they wouldn't give two hoots about them. Would the affected commuters get a refund of their Travelcards or a discount when they renew next time?
 

bicbasher

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Clapham North passengers should be encouraged to use Clapham High Street. Ok, it only has 4tph in comparison to the very high frequency on the Northern line, but does have connections to Victoria and Waterloo at Clapham Junction, London Bridge at Peckham Rye and the Jubilee and DLR further along the line.

In some cases, if commuting to Canary Wharf, they'd no longer have the need for a Zone 1 travelcard.
 

Rogmi

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The actual TfL press release is here:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/28847.aspx

“Northern Line commuters urged to walk or cycle”
There are enough cyclists on the paths now, without encouraging anymore. Anyway, who in their right mind would actually want to cycle in the middle of the London rush hour?

"Or could you start your journey 10 minutes earlier to avoid the crowds?" he said
Fine if your journey starts between 08:00 and 08:09. What about the bulk of the people whose journey starts after that, do they start their journey say, 30 or 55 minutes earlier?

“Gareth Powell, TfL's director of strategy and service development, said: "During the 2012 Games many of our passengers made small changes to their journeys which meant we were able to carry record numbers without the transport network feeling any busier”
People didn’t really have much choice, given all the chaos that was forecast if they didn’t change their habits. The difference between the Olympics and now is that then it was for a short, known period. Now it is for the foreseeable future.

"By making a small change to the time they travel our passengers' journeys could be faster and more comfortable."
And disrupt and inconvenience all those that make the “small” change

I see that they used the term “passengers”. Passengers used to be a banned word!


Whilst is may be good exercise to have a ten minute walk from Clapham North to Stockwell, (and, in some ways, it does make sense for people only going one stop and changing to walk, whatever time of day it is), how many people actually live next to Clapham North station?, I’m sure that most Clapham North users will have already been walking some distance before then, so their overall walking time from door to Stockwell station may well be in excess of 10 minutes. How many people will be willing to do that when it is raining / snowing / icy?

What about people further down the line, are they suggesting that people walk all the way from Tooting to Stockwell?

Reversing some trains at Tooting Broadway in the rush hour, as suggested, would certainly help. This was a regular in the peaks many years ago although, because there were so many trains reversing there, it usually meant a train was waiting in the SB platform for the train in the siding to depart and as a consequence, this caused a lot of blocking-back and completely screwed the timetable!

For reversing to be practical, sufficient time would be needed between reversing trains. Each train would need a minimum of 13-15 minutes from the time it arrived in the SB platform to the time it arrived in the NB platform and thus freed up the siding for the next train. That is assuming that the train is allowed out of the siding on time and not held there if the NB trains are running late. This would give three trains, four at a push.

The downside of reversing existing trains is that, in the end, there will be no additional trains going NB in that time period, just three fewer trains between Morden and Tooting Broadway. So, strictly speaking, no more extra capacity.
Another option is to extend one of the Charing Cross branch Kennington reversers to Tooting Broadway to reverse, then sending it via CX NB. The occasional train could still be fitted in with the existing three minute service to Morden. However, this does mean that there will be one less CX train departing from Kennington NB at the scheduled time, leaving a six minute gap in the normal three minute service, which would may cause problems. Also, the train would be running about thirty minutes later than usual, so would have to be turned short somewhere to get back on time.
 

joeykins82

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LO Clapham High Street to Canada Water
Jubilee Canada Water to Canary Wharf

I'd hazard a guess that anyone working in Canary Wharf who could interchange with LO on their journey is already doing so though
 

ChiefPlanner

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Some of the horrible overcrowding on the FCC Wimbledon loop is caused by ex Northern line "refugees" - cannot blame them , as there is at least daylight and air on the surface routes. A tricky one - as most passengers are accessing the City / West end a cycle option is not really much of an alternative ! - and injecting a Tooting Broadway starter using the effectively disused reversing siding might have been an option in the 1960's with around 1 in 4 off peak terminating there , in today's 30 tph each way service.

Crossrail 2 - if ever built - would solve it in around 15 years time....
 

Harlesden

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This is a sefety issue. Clapham Common and Clapham North are the only two remaining LUL statons with a narrow island platform serving both directions of travel
 

stut

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When I first moved to London, I used to occasionally commute from Tooting Broadway (bus from Earlsfield), and having trains starting there was quite common at the time.

When I lived by Clapham Common tube, I simply had to avoid the rush hour. It used to be the case that you could double back to Clapham South and get on there, but it sounds like this may no longer be possible.

In the end, I chose to cycle, and I've never looked back (well, apart from changing lanes, that would be suicidal...) It's a lovely way to commute, and, once you settle into a nice back-road route, you barely know that it's rush hour at all.

The cycle superhighway up through Kennington is awful - some terrible junctions there that the blue paint doesn't help at all. There really should be more promotion of the LCN routes, which make for a much more pleasant, safer ride into Central London - this would get far more people on their bikes, IMO, and make the Northern Line that little bit easier.

In terms of running the Tube - what can they do? Resurrect the "express tunnel" scheme from just before the war?
 

mister-sparky

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They should've built "express tunnels" like new york originally. would be alot easier and less crowded these days if they did.
 

Rogmi

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This is a sefety issue. Clapham Common and Clapham North are the only two remaining LUL statons with a narrow island platform serving both directions of travel

and, generally, a train cannot detrain at either station unless the platform is evacuated first
 

tunster

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I don't understand why TfL don't offer the Boris Bike scheme down to Clapham Common and allow passengers to get discounted fair to either...

- Cycle up to Stockwell where the congestion dissipates because of many getting off to join the Victoria Line.
- Cycle across to Brixton as hardly anyone gets off there.
- Cycle into the city and extend the 30 minute limit.

If the roads down towards Clapham Common/South were organised better for cyclists, that would act as good temporary solution. To be honest, Clapham North customers (the most arrogant IMHO when trying to join on), should walk to Stockwell anyway. Then there's encouraging customers to travel 15 minutes earlier to try spread customer demand during peak and ease the necessity to force yourself on a train to get into work on the dot.
 

tsr

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I don't understand why TfL don't offer the Boris Bike scheme down to Clapham Common and allow passengers to get discounted fair to either...

- Cycle up to Stockwell where the congestion dissipates because of many getting off to join the Victoria Line.
- Cycle across to Brixton as hardly anyone gets off there.
- Cycle into the city and extend the 30 minute limit.

If the roads down towards Clapham Common/South were organised better for cyclists, that would act as good temporary solution. To be honest, Clapham North customers (the most arrogant IMHO when trying to join on), should walk to Stockwell anyway. Then there's encouraging customers to travel 15 minutes earlier to try spread customer demand during peak and ease the necessity to force yourself on a train to get into work on the dot.

For a start, the Cycle Hire payment system isn't linked to other TfL services, so it would be a challenge to link the fare structure. You can't just touch in with Oyster to use a bike. I can perhaps see contactless cards working for this, when they become accepted for payment at all Tube stations, if they can also be registered keys for Cycle Hire membership. Due to the deposit scheme, you're never going to have enough credit on an Oyster card to be able to use a Barclays/Boris bike. I doubt auto-topup would really work for that.

Not all people can cycle competently on the roads you mention, even with improvements, and there are also issues with finding safe places for cycle lanes & bike docks of the correct quantity. You also need to be able to have a supply for every potential user - something that is hard to control at most station interchanges as it is. There's also the problem of what happens if the hire system is unavailable - which could effectively also be if the roads are icy or weather is otherwise bad.
 
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