Tube Running Times - A Compromise?

By Rob Last edited 220 months ago
Tube Running Times - A Compromise?
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The decision over what to do over tube running times on a weekend has been going on for what seems like an age now.

An initial consultation which took place earlier this year received 54,000 responses, with the majority of people deomonstrating a "strong support for a later night weekend Tube".

Of course, in order to do this, the trains would also have to start running at a later time on weekend mornings, and not everyone was in agreement with that idea. Shift workers and anyone who had a plane to catch for example, and frankly who can blame them?

That'll teach TfL to ask people what they actually want.

TfL's response to this was simple and inspired...oh no, wait, it was complicated and unwieldy:

TfL is developing a potential alternative option, to run the Tube half an hour later on Friday and Saturday nights with a one hour later start on Saturday mornings and no change to the existing start time on Sunday mornings. First trains would arrive at Central London stations at around 7am on Saturdays (currently 6am) and 07:30am on Sundays (as they do now); last trains would depart from the West End on Friday and Saturday nights at around 01:00am (instead of 12:30am).

So somehow the results of the consultation in which the majority expressed a wish for later nights on weekends has resulted in a potential "compromise" whereby we get an extra half-an-hour on an evening and the loss of an hour in the morning. So, overall, the trains will actually run for less time.

How did that happen?

This proposal has now officially been put forward by TfL and will be up for consultation until December 12, but don't think you'll get a chance to have your say this time round, as this is a 'stakeholders' consultation only.

So we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Last Updated 22 November 2005