How many forms of transport can you use within one hour in London? We've done the maths and come up with the route below.
60 mins left: Begin in Bondesque style by landing in a helicopter at The London Heliport, Battersea. It's a five-minute walk from the heliport to the Santander Cycle docking station in Fred Wells Gardens, so if you leg it, you'll have time to disrobe from your helicopter gear too:
55 mins left: Cycle from Fred Wells Garden to Queen's Circus. Even if you're no Bradley Wiggins, you can do it in eight minutes:
47 mins left: (Responsibly) ditch your wheels at the docking station here, then take a two-minute cab ride to Battersea Park station:
45 mins left: take the seven-minute train from Battersea Park station to Victoria station. Trains in London always run to schedule, no?
38 mins left: catch the tube from Victoria station to Pimlico. We'll add an extra couple of minutes (so five minutes in all) for getting down into Victoria tube, because after all, this is a highly realistic challenge:
33 mins left: A combination of walking and bus (eight minutes in all) gets you to Millbank Millennium Pier. Lovely stuff:
25 mins left: the sprightly Thames Clipper whisks you to Westminster pier in a mere five minutes. Who says water travel is dead?
20 minutes left: run from Westminster Pier to Westminster station. It's a six-minute walk, so let's say a three minute run down to the Jubilee line platforms (especially as Google seem to overshoot the mark here):
17 minutes left: up until now, everything's been relatively compact. Now you're going to fling yourself eastbound on the Jubilee line for 13 minutes (yep, tube repetition, can't be helped), to North Greenwich station. Feel free to hum The Final Countdown at this point.
4 mins left: well looky here. You've done so well (in this incredulous London of ours) that you can take a casual four-minute-long stroll to your final destination, the Emirates Air Line.
0 minutes left: Float over London as you congratulate yourself for having taken a helicopter, bike, cab, train, tube, bus, boat and cable car — all within 60 minutes. Don't spoil the moment by checking your bank balance. And don't crack open the champagne — it's public transport.
Hello pedants: of course, traffic and train times will have to be on your side for this to have any chance of working. If you reckon it's possible to squeeze in another form of transport (or do an entirely different route), we'd like to hear your idea. We won't, however accept, things like 'ambulance' or 'go-kart' — it's got to be transport you can readily access from wherever you are.
Another idea was to use London City Airport, but factoring check-in/out time, it's not really plausible.
All images © Google and TfL unless otherwise stated.
