Tfl's five-ringed circus

I stupidly decided to venture onto tfls’ website, just to see what environmental nonsense they were cawing, wholeheartedly, to the press this week.  Simply to show just how environmentally gorgeous they are.  Flapping energetic fluorescing green-striped credentials, to an ever eager lapping media flock!  Such are tfl’s efforts to appear convincingly kosher, seeds are beginning to sprout from atop their compost-able collective heads.

The following is from tfl’s website,

“Energy and climate change
Red Hybrid Bus. We are helping to deliver the Mayor's commitment to a 60 per cent reduction of CO2 emissions by 2025 (from 1990 levels) by promoting sustainable travel, running vehicles more efficiently and using greener vehicles and fuels.
We are adapting our services to the impacts of a changing climate with flood management plans, the tunnel cooling programme and changing bus specifications.”
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/8817.aspx

My first thought was: no, it won’t sustainably promote anything.  As any benefit you think these wonderful aimed reductions are going to have, will be countered by the a*#@*#?! (bus drivers) who’ll not only keep their bloody engines running come: summer, autumn, winter or spring; but, who'll increasingly rev them within an inch of them exploding; as you, old london transport ignominiously re-branded to transport for london (buses division), are a **?#’** managerial shower of *****, that if you fell into a brewery wouldn’t know how to have a piss-up, let alone which part of your anatomy to start from!  The remainder of my thoughts peeled off into incoherence, as they gathered up speed and zoomed off over a helpful metaphorical edge.

With less than 24 hours to go before the five-ringed circus of mayhem - or if you’d prefer to think of it in nicer cutesier terms - there’s less than 24 hours to go before all hell breaks lose and the carefully planned sponsored games, the ancient greeks wouldn’t be proud to call theirs (all the while refusing to have coke and heart-ack fries stuffed down their maws) and the opening ceremony officially dazzles the world.  I briefly wondered how the wonderful olympic spirit and medal wishing zeal, were making people - who aren’t being forced to work for nothing - feel?  

South london press conducted a poll a couple of weeks ago.  Of the respondents 59.8% were all enthusiastic for the olympics, clapping their hands in unalloyed glee; a preference probably abetted by the weight of direct and indirect marketing, stubbornly bombarding them the moment they popped their tv-sets out of standby, switched on their radios, or every time they glance at their 2012 weedel and maddening coke pouring watch.

Although there is no actual tally of the number of people who participated in the poll, nor any checks on where they lived, nor were there any measures preventing respondents from voting more than once (suffice to say it couldn’t exactly be classified as a rigorous scientific poll) it did indicate (whatever the voting pool and intentions) that just over 40% are a bunch of ungrateful miserable no-fun tossers, who would rather gnaw their own leg off (just below the knee) than have anything whatsoever to do with it.  If it takes you longer than half a second to realise which category i fall into, then this is obviously your first pitch into this portion of tripe.  So go back to the very beginning, until you’re begging to have your eyes gouged out with a bit of candy floss and a twig.  Or failing that, begging to have your ears filled with hot dripping wax lit-end first, simply to retire your need to hear or see anything ever again.

So what does this have to do with buses? 

Well, with road closures and the a’hats following the other greedy b’tards following the lead of the brown envelope stuffers, wanting to strike for more money because it’s such a special time, there will obviously be more of the big red things running around the less expensive parts of this ‘ere gold (is saying gold still allowed) coated part of town.  With changed schedules, routes, blocked lanes - where even public transport’s not allowed - the scale of toxic pollution (albeit not as bad as beijing) will increase  by a good old fashioned notch or two.  Oh for an egg to record the levels and have it displayed for perpetuity.

This part of the capital regularly breaches eu limits with pollution levels three times higher than accepted levels.  Although the past three months precipitation (whilst attempting to sink the city and allow some architect to conjure up contemporary hills or mounds as a secondary form of data backup) managed to effectively reduce the stink and particulates over 500 bus terminations per day happily emit.  At any particular juncture, nine plus of these dratted vehicles are sitting there up to 20 minutes at a time; either with drivers keeping engines ticking over or revving them “fit to burst” as one disgruntled neighbour put it.  Pointing an increasingly shaky, pollution-aided alzheimeric hand, in the direction of the biggest polluter this particular road is unnecessarily encumbered with, pumping out their toxic swill.

Perhaps i’m been somewhat harsh on the hard working drivers, who are after all providing a public service.  They’d be providing a far better public service if they also stopped unnecessarily polluting the air, but that would be the same as asking them to stop for passengers when they’re 2 minutes over their shift at 23:30 hrs.  Some might conclude i’m being even harder on tfl.  No, sorry, not in the slightest.  Considering the organisation has been at this transport game (in one guise or another) for a good few years, with a plethora of statistics that would make a burgeoning statistician weep - if they had tear-ducts - you’d have thought they’d have garnered a few basics about peoples travel.  Take for instance the travel planner, a wonderful implementation of getting around from "a" to "b",  unfortunately if you want to go from b to a instead of pressing a button swapping the details and it automatically working for you, have to copy and paste or retype the entries and go through the rigmarole all over again.  Tfl, take a look at how google implements it, simple and basic and it doesn’t time out after 2 seconds.  Of course, if there’s an option somewhere i’ve overlooked i’ll happily eat my other uneaten shoe.

I really shouldn't look at tfl's website whilst consuming anything liquid.  One of these days I really will choke to death.  But in the spirit of fair competition, for one month we should all eat the sponsoring companies (ideally only food and drink) competitors fare, just to show them and the five-ringed circus that monopolistic behaviour isn't really sportsmanlike at all.

In the meantime, i just need to find my olympic: mug, bags of popcorn, coasters, umbrella, and comfortable space-throw, to enjoy all that hard-earned sweat!

Idling TFL

A neighbour, in the battle against bus drivers utilising the bus stand outside who consistently refuse to switch off their engines, called me yesterday querying whether i'd seen that days' edition of the evening standard, and specifically page 25.

I said i hadn't.  Then launched myself at the site only to have them request all my details.  Which is odd, as i fail to recall being required to fill out personal details when picking up the evening standard in the real world, so i'm not sure i wish to be on the end of more unsolicited crap of the type that already litters my tray.  But the grand headline "turn off your engine: idling cabs targeted by eco-marshals", sounded just too good.

So it proved.  Reading the headline first-hand caused an immediate flurry of neurons to simultaneously explode whilst downing a glass of something chilled, either that or a small gathering of serotonin decided to begin kicking me innards.

Tucked away in the 6th paragraph of the article, they said "tfl is writing to coach, bus and freight operators asking them to encourage their drivers to switch off their engines while parked."

Asking them?

I suppose it's a start.

But, asking them?

Surely there's enough data now available, for example the 4,000+ people who die every year in the capital from pollution, that should make tfl not simply ask but demand that it happens; otherwise sub-contractors (and all their drivers) will have their licenses revoked and new companies brought in to operate services without killing the capitals populace, instead.

The cabbies response was to be expected as quintessential squeaking.  If tfl took the attitude of fining them and taking away their licenses - by getting residents on their side, perhaps drivers would soon find the off switch.

Naturally only time will tell whether this is more than a flash in tfl's long line of eco-virtual-pans.  If in six month's time pollution levels have improved, then i will  truly begin to remotely consider the hint of a possibility, they might finally have a success on their hands. 


Updated: 11:08

London Buses trial new equipment to tackle air pollution (according to tfl)

There’s a bigger picture here that i really must be missing, perhaps even a dot or two which have obviously whizzed past my obliviousness.

Especially when i read the following statement:

“We are making huge strides in cleaning up the Capital's bus fleet, not least by developing the New Bus for London, which will pump out 40 per cent less pollutants than a standard, traditional diesel bus. “

Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/19803.aspx

For those residents unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity of a bus stands, i wholeheartedly apologise if the above statement caused you to burst out laughing whilst sipping a cup of coffee, causing you to spray the contents across the room, which unfortunately arced over poor tiddles who jumped back in fright, hitting the wall a split second after the liquid hit the power socket, leaving you now sadly tiddled poor.  It was not my intention.  From the statement, we do though appear to occupy a different universe from those making the pronouncements and dreaming up the plans. 

I’m sure if drivers switched their engines off instead of leaving them ticking over for 5-20+ minutes at a time: spring, summer, autumn or winter; a large 40 per cent bit of those freely floating carcinogenic particulates would be spared finding a lung or two to nest in.  But that would mean managers and directors actually doing something really er., uhm, oh pro-active?  Like some sort of study (for once), to actually find out why they’re getting complaints from people living in the vicinity of stands and why the levels of pollution in the vicinity of stands/neighbouring roads are higher than normal for far more days of the year than other areas bar airports or ports.

Somewhere down the line, i might have mentioned a nagging doubt regarding the environmental trumpeting by tfl of their wonderful green credentials and the chummy back-patting at the annual bus awards.   They should instead introduce a ‘polluter of the year’ award for the most offending garage, manager and driver; i believe there are at least six in this locale who’d be in with a high chance of taking first place.

In the meantime, for those residents in the immediate vicinity of bus stands (remember not the stops, just the stands for now) and in london, here’s a very little helpful ditty which crossed my polluted paws…

 

TfL and the pyres of fire

I tried not posting, but just couldn’t help myself.


First off, thoughts to all of those caught under the triple hit in Japan.  I seriously doubt many other country’s citizens would have behaved so, civilised, when faced with such calamities.

Second, getting ready to eat my hat, as those wringing nations might actually do something before the last squeaking cry of freedom is extinguished in libya.  Just leaves china, saudi arabia, zimbabwe, ivory coast, north korea, or just any country where peoples have demonstrated the exact same cry as those in libya, but whom are without any strategic value whatsoever, and the international community simply defends them  because it’s the right thing to do…

Oh yes, back to tfl.

I have arrived at the sunny conclusion that tfl cares not one jot, not a single dried fig, for the residents haplessly caught in the vicinity of imposed bus stands (and not, in case some people get confused, bus stops) otherwise residents would not be up in arms over those drivers who intransigently continue to sit idling at the stand with their vehicles engines ticking over, and belching bilious clouds of pollution in all directions -as though fossil fuels would last until the end of time!

As my attempts at burning bridges, and detonating the struts and supports has been 98% successful, I spend some of that newly released time looking up stuff from all over the globe trying to see a whole.  In this case, I have taken to looking at air quality measurement snapshots every couple of hours for the area south of the river, with findings pointing to the fact that when the wind direction’s from the n, nne, or nnw, the measurement at the station is higher when compared to its nearest neighbouring stations (actually to most of them), whilst the air in the 0-50m zone smells as though you’ve attached a hose to the exhaust of your car, and left the engine on with the window half open.  Sadly our windows are closed; but with hundreds of bus terminations at the stand and most with their their engines left running for up to 20 minutes, we’re forced to breathe in more toxic vapour than a smoker on  40+ cigarettes a day.

Don’t forget, it was only 4,300 people who died in london last year from air pollution, yet look at the fuss government makes about potential terrorists under the bed when their own actions kill far more of their own citizens!  So who’s going to mind if a few more pesky troublesomes are added to the pyre; obviously, so far, no-one.  Although i’d imagine if 4,300 young londoners were shooting and stabbing each other in a frenzy of blood letting, the papers would be wetting themselves in a virtuous circle of vexatious apoplexy, and a national emergency called.

Court action would appear to be the only option, as polite diplomacy’s turned out to be a dead-duck.  Everyone (in authority) tells us it shouldn’t be happening, the drivers know it shouldn’t be happening -when they know they’re been monitored they practically glide into the stand, switch off their engines the minute their vehicle comes to a stop, and glide out of the stand when it’s time to start their route.  Once monitoring has ceased engines are again at full throttle (amazing how word gets around); but the report back to hq says how wonderfully quiet everything is.

If tfl were a neighbour they’d be done for poisoning with careless intent and the proud owner of an arm-full of tattooed asbos’ they’d no doubt be proudly showing off at every opportunity.

So tfl’s new motto?  We would care, if we could give a…

Blatant lies of TfL, it can't be?

The following was the heading of a document in response to a public consultation about a new route number 324:

"Response to issues raised in public consultation for new route
324"

And tucked away in the document is this little gem.

“Noise, pollution and damage to buildings
We do not believe that the proposals will cause significant overall changes to traffic levels, noise, vibration or pollution. Overall, a well-used bus network will have a beneficial effect on the environment by providing an effective alternative to car use. All buses operating on TfL services comply with or exceed the latest European emissions standards. We will use new buses with modern engines on route 324.”

Not cause significant changes?

Hm, having your skull vibrate like a tuning fork  must be normal, wonder why I never noticed that before.  Or not been able to open a window for fear of 20 hours of breathing in belched out bus fumes'; hmm noise, always keen on having a bus driver use their horn 50 times a day – just when you’re trying to concentrate, just so they can say hello or goodbye to colleagues.  Residents? I see no residents.

Since the termini was plumped here we have been subject to practically 20+hours of vibration, pollution, and noise as drivers (enough to seriously make it noticeable) do not bother switching off their engines - despite continual re-assurances by TfL.

So beware.

If TfL want to put a stand in your area, be prepared, for regardless of what they say, due to driver action what you will end up with will be many times worse.

Buses and TfL

After picking up the phone and verbally complaining - in measured tones (apart from a slight hysterical rant towards the end - which i'm putting down to the frequency of my virtual phone/fax software assistant oscillating in synchronisation with the guest & hosted os's) to tfls customer services (buses division) about the constant idling (no not drivers asleep at the whee- although saying that should really post some of those pictures) of bus engines been constantly left on idling (ticking over) let alone the revving of them, sometimes you could almost be forgiven for thinking you were at a formula one starting grid, on top of the increasing frequency of brake squeals and horn use; and sorry but no, using a horn 16 times outside of rush hour with no traffic holding you up in a residential area is not acceptable.

Sadly it would seem that yesterdays boy/girl racers have turned into todays bus drivers - even the aged ones.

So i was impressed with the attention given by customer services at tfl despite having to numerously repeat the bus numbers every other sentence so they could work out which companies to send the complaints to, indeed I was so impressed that 11 minutes later i detected a slight thawing in my attitude. So much so, my original mad bashings titled 'lies, lies, and tfl customer services' that i was going to put online (which for those who have somewhat followed the odd post can just imagine with that headline what the body of burblings contained) has been temporarily put to one side, not deleted, just placed on hold to allow sufficient time for those extra chances (as though five years isn't long enough) to see how well things could improve over the next couple of weeks - although the ongoing chugging (and screech of heavy brakes at four minutes to midnight) seems to indicate which side of the hill this particular saga's continuing to slide down on.

Because you just know that if the sound was on the other foot, which would be the equivalent of burning down the bus garage, finding every relation of every bus-y driver who refuses to switch off their engines and doing a dexter - whilst the driver is watching, then doing away with the driver too, then ferkling out every official supervisor who has received and read complaints from residents (anywhere) in relation to noise issues yet singularly done nothing about it, to subject them to 24/7/365/4 years worth of 200db taped noise (and yes I know eardrums burst at 120db - remember this trail of mayhem murder and mischief is bit of fiction simply added for indicative effect - and to slowly work ones way up the "chain of command" to the directors, place them into cannons and launch them (feet first) from one side of the channel to the other (and yes I know the success rate of cannoning a person from the english shores to the french has been zero - they simply needed to add more bloody powder) however many times it takes until they get the message: that this is how ignored environmental events can impact on those in the nearby surrounds... i'd be tasered every millimetre of the way to a prison cell and deemed a severe menace (well bar any knicker scorcher flying over that is), until the end of my days.

Loud? When is loud too loud? Maybe i'm just becoming more sensitive as the years tick on by, which would be bloody sad as i was quite looking forward to incipient drooling senility, and the only time i would need to inanely socialise is when been digested and shit out by earthworms - but despite full-ear fitting ear-plugs, over which is a full-ear covering set of headphones i can still hear the squeals of brakes or bus horns, and all through double glazed windows - believe me it's loud; and i am not the only person complaining about it.

To think only a few years ago I was fondly thinking of bricking up all the windows...

Oh my, maybe it really is time to move to the country - middle of antartica about 200m below the surface, or maybe i should install secondary glazing (it already has double before some smarky tit interjects)-, no tertiary glazing and turn one room into a panic/silent/two-fingers to the noise, room with air-purification, lots of plants, foam backed walls to absorb sound, slightly lower the ceiling with padded foam on the other side, suspended floor with noise cancelling inch rubber thick matting and wooden panels... it might just make at least one room semi-nice to live in once more, even if it no longer has the space to swing a dead newborn rat.

Update 30/01/10 15:44 slightly amended to improve readability.

Green credentials, ha... haha... hahahahaha....

I was so underwhelmed by my previous post on tfl i had to pay the topic another visit, and throw in the local council at the same time.

Over the past couple of days i have been mulling over the transport for londons 2008 environment report".  A report which opened up to reveal a beautifully put together, laden with all the proper buzz words, 30 page report about how green they have been, are being and will be, covering a fully-proofed 365°future.  So green and aware, they even disabled the pdf printing ability, so if you wanted a copy you had to whizz off and order and then wait for it to be delivered by carbon friendly post, hm ok. 

Millions have and will continue to be spent on greener buses, of coming up with wonderful new environmentally friendly ways of scratching their heads, working out how to reduce the impact on the coughing and choking land.

One way, which may save a few hundred or thousand tonnes of toxic emissions daily, would be to have bus drivers turn off their engines when using terminus’s.  Amazing, simple, even easy (you would have thought) to implement — if drivers can remember a whole route then you would have thought that the probability of remembering a command (from the non-driving higher ups) to switch off an engine when at a stand might stick for more than two trips around the route map, in a pavlovian kind of way — something that would, within days, start to improve their monstrous footprint and contribute to a reduction in the city’s level of noise and air pollution — apparently the 13th leading cause of death.

As the tfl energy pledge went on to say: “the initiative encouraged staff to make one simple change to their working lives to help reduce the amount of energy tfl uses…” which is all well and good for head office staff, but it might have proved far more useful had it been applied across the entire frontline operation of their buses division.

And the council?

“Nothing to hear here. Noise, I hear no noise ta-da-de-da.  Just your imagination.”

Hm, still underwhelmed, might have to put an illustration up the next visitation.