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Passengers' fury at weekend works
Ross Lydall27 Aug 2009
Tube users have inundated a probe into weekend shut-downs on the Underground with complaints about endless station and line closures.
More than eight in 10 of the 700 respondents to the London Assembly survey say their journeys are blighted at least once a month by the modernisation programme, the Evening Standard has learned.
Nearly a third said alternative travel arrangements offered by Transport for London were unsuitable or inconvenient, with more than half describing replacement bus services as poor. The news comes as Mayor Boris Johnson and TfL commissioner Peter Hendy prepare to summon private maintenance firm Tube Lines to a crisis summit next month to discuss delays in the £500million modernisation of the Jubilee Line.
The line has been closed in part or completely every weekend this year, with another dozen closures planned before the end of the year. Tube Lines chief executive Dean Finch said new signalling equipment - which will allow up to 30 trains an hour at peak times - has been installed, but still needs to be tested.
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Reader views (2)
TfL keep saying that getting an annual travelcard means you can 'enjoy' the transport system when not working, well that should be 'endure'. It also says that if you do not commute for a regular 9-5 your work is somehow less worthy. I can understand why they try to placate business, but surely rather than take the service down, do a bit of work, then bring it back up it must be more disruptive than arranging a full replacement service for a week or two where engineers working shifts can do it in one hit.
Alan, Paris does have a smaller population than London and most of it's rail infrastructure had to be replaced after WW2. London's tube started as a feat of victorian engineering for steam trains and those early tunnels are still relied on today. They can't even be broadened as the insertion of premade rings to form a strong 'tube' for the tunnel walls means that they are a set size and they are what holds up hundreds of meters of earth.
- Ian, London, 27/08/2009 17:27
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Why doesn't this happen in France? In all the times I've visited my brother in Paris, I have never come across line closures for engineering works. they seem to be able to get round the problem.
- Alan, carlisle uk, 27/08/2009 14:31
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