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  • 2 months later...

i have been looking at thr travel planner on the london 2012 website and i have a feeling there could be lots of lost Olympic tourists if they follow directions they are being given. It is also very different to what the TFL website suggests.

Trip from Maida Vale to Stratford

TFL - Bakerloo Line to Oxford Circus change to Central line to Stratford travel time 36 Min

London 2012 planner - Bakerloo line to Baker Street station change via 7 min walk to Circle line to Liverpool Street station change to central line via 3 min walk and take train to stratford travel time 50 min

are they doing this to get people off the central line?

I have also looked at the map on London 2012 website and it recomends West Ham as the best station but looks like its about a 30 min walk just to the gate then about the same to get to Basketball or Hockey. Any Londoners know what the walk is like West Ham station to Greenway Gate?

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My first thought is that this is typical Olympic planning. They are very happy to send ticketholders on convoluted inefficient paths to minimize the possibility of congestion and to increase security a bit. Expect to hear many, many warnings of possible backups at the main Stratford gate to Olympic Park and suggestions to go via the Greenway or Victoria gates.

But with more thinking, I think it more likely that this is just a example of goofy computer-generated diretions rather than purposeful inefficience.

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I bought my tickets from Manchester to London the very day that they went on sale. I couldn't believe that the lowest priced tickets were actually all gone within hours. I have never seen this happen before, even at Christmas and other major events.

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I'm finding tickets are really cheap on east midlands trains from Sheffield to St Pancras. got a return first class for £37! Traveling a day before the OC and returning the 29th July.

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  • 1 month later...

So they had the congestion crowd control rehearsal at various train stations today. I went through London Bridge to work and there's some strategy which I find really perplexing, not worth elaborate here.

I am still very much a Olympic Transport Chaos denier. Really don't think the whole train system will be as bad as they imagined, nor will collapse without their draconian, often non-sensical approach as seen today.

For those of you who were in past Games, is transport crowd really going to be THAT bad??

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Hmm. one of the things they do in congested areas like hub stations is create a Disney type snaking line around stations to avoid bunching up. In addition, they say get there 2 hours earlier so arrival times are spread out. Typically I would say the crowds start to really pick up when athletics starts, thats where I would leave early, its more of an issue when leaving an event rather then getting to it.

One thing that concerns me is this olympic park access ticket, never seen that before, typically you need an event ticket to get into the Olympic park areas. I could see there being a lot people clogging up the Olympic Park. That could be an issue.

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So they had the congestion crowd control rehearsal at various train stations today. I went through London Bridge to work and there's some strategy which I find really perplexing, not worth elaborate here.

I am still very much a Olympic Transport Chaos denier. Really don't think the whole train system will be as bad as they imagined, nor will collapse without their draconian, often non-sensical approach as seen today.

For those of you who were in past Games, is transport crowd really going to be THAT bad??

From Sydney's POV - an emphatic NO!

And we had the same sport of buildup - predictions of chaos, official requests for people to shift working hours, take time off, change travel patterns to avoid chaos etc. Basically, a heightening of expectations of mess, with the amazingly pleasant surprise of how smoothly it all went for the event.

Indeed, it's been a refrain in Sydney for years - "Why can't the roads/transport operate like they did during the Games?"

And I can testify, it was one of the best ever time to drive in the city - hardly anyone on the roads.

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From Sydney's POV - an emphatic NO!

And we had the same sport of buildup - predictions of chaos, official requests for people to shift working hours, take time off, change travel patterns to avoid chaos etc. Basically, a heightening of expectations of mess, with the amazingly pleasant surprise of how smoothly it all went for the event.

Indeed, it's been a refrain in Sydney for years - "Why can't the roads/transport operate like they did during the Games?"

And I can testify, it was one of the best ever time to drive in the city - hardly anyone on the roads.

That's good to know! What I find frustrating is, for us Londoners who still have to go to work every morning will be subjected to all these access restrictions and detour which is tedious and time wasting and might prove unnecessary in the end! But they still implement it because of the 'expected' crowd chaos which never was!

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Every Olympics (since about Lake Placid '80) has been pretty much the same. Predictions of doom and gloom. LOTS of scare tactics to keep people away. Ridiculously complicated plans that send people from points A to point B via very roundtable fashion. Then when enough people actual get scared or chased away, actual congestion ends up being less than normal. In the first few days, there are usually 1-2 trouble spots, but those get fixed pretty quick.

The organizers are in a tough spot. If they scare people with predictions of terrible congestion, they won't get it. If they don't scare people, they will.

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The organizers are in a tough spot. If they scare people with predictions of terrible congestion, they won't get it. If they don't scare people, they will.

Correct...

And even with there special measures things are going slower....

From experience (except Athens where the city was empty of its citizen and where they have a very effective Olympic Bus Network), you could expect longer journey from 10 to 30 minutes as usual.

You could sometimes, even with those measures get bad experience... As in Vancouver, where at the waterfront station had to queue more than 30 minutes to board a train... Or in Beijing (no problem to board the metro) where we were often stucked in the Olympic Green station waiting in line to exit the station for very very long minutes because of congestion at the security screening....

Knowing well London, Knowing well the Games.... mixing both would not be an easy thing at Games Time !

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Is it just me or does anyone else find it odd that there's little mention of the Javelin service? The much touted '7 mins from St Pancras' surely sounds more appealing that the Central/Jubilee line.

It seemed like LOCOG/TfL's trump card after the evaluation report but not there hasn't been much publicity for this since.

Have I missed something?

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I was thinking exactly the same thing. I thought it was the preferred transport method by LOCOG and yet here in Manchester I have heard nothing about it. Also, I only found out recently by chance that there were facilities for thousands of bikes. That should have been made clearer too.

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I was thinking exactly the same thing. I thought it was the preferred transport method by LOCOG and yet here in Manchester I have heard nothing about it. Also, I only found out recently by chance that there were facilities for thousands of bikes. That should have been made clearer too.

Just literally done a search online and nothing on TfL website... but found this!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/may/25/olympic-javelin-train-service-overwhelmed

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There are many option you can take from Euston to Stratford. Here are just some of them:

1)Go 2 stops on Victoria Line and take London overground service

2)Northern Line from Euston to Bank and DLR to Stratford

3)Northern Line to London Bridge and Jubilee line to Stratford

4)walk to Euston Square and get Hammersmith and City to Bow Road. You can either walk from there or get DLR

5)Walk to St. Pancras and get javelin service.

Of course you never really know where the problems will be so it's best to know lots of routes and use the ones at the time that the announcements tell you are less congested. Be sure to check London Underground website to see how services are running. They are very quick to update service quality on each line.

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Thanks Lee, looks like i'll be spoilt for choice!

Although I will only have 1hr 30mins to get from Euston to the Olympic Park - they advice you to get to the Park 1hr before the event starts. I don't mind being a little late as the Hockey session lasts 4hrs - so I'll see some of it no matter how long it takes to get through security on the day.

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Does the Olympic Games travel card cover the Javelin Service or just tube?

If I arrive in Euston Train station is their a direct tube train to Stratford or am I best to walk to St Pancras and get the Javelin train?

I would recommend walk to St Pancras to take the javelin. Less than 10 min by foot or 2 stops on the bus.

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If you can use the Javelin with your travelcard, I'll go for it aswell. Given that I'm planning to commute from Norfolk each of the three days I'm in London, I reckon I should get to know most of these routes quite well.

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