Favorite Fotos: Getting around

More photos from my signs collection, plus a few more, to showcase different ways of getting around (or not) in the UK. There are many reasons I would never want to drive a car in London (crazy drivers, crazy bikers, crazy pedestrians, etc.) but the forest of signs on every corner would be a major one. On the right is a corner near the classroom building, where there's a major concentration of foreign embassies—hence the reference to diplomatic parking.

Parking in general is a major headache, I'm sure, for anyone in London with a vehicle. If you live in Kensington, you might be greeted with another diplomatic notice like the one on the left, and wonder, well, where am I supposed to park, then?! (Click on the graphic to see a larger version.)

Then there's the danger of "clamping," which I assume means that axle-locking hardware that catches some cars on our campus here occasionally....


At least most of the time in London the streets are wide enough for two cars (although a few little "closes" and "mews" and "walks" look pretty tight). In Scotland, when you get off the "A" road near Loch Ness, and you meet an oncoming car, you just have to hope that one of these signs isn't far away:



Fortunately, in London at least, you have other ways of getting around. Although I didn't sample the equestrian method, they do take that into account, at least at some intersections (the sign on the right is at the busy Wellington Arch roundabout). And there's always walking, and to help you with this at particularly busy intersections they have subways (not to be confused with the underground, which is called the subway in New York)—handy under-street walkways. Although, I might think twice about using the one referred to in the sign on the left....

And of course there's the tube and the wonderful bus system, the transportation methods of choice for almost all of my journeys. They can take you to amazing places, like Druid Street, near the Tower Bridge Road south of the Thames.

I can tell you quite a bit about London transport from this photo alone. It's a stop where you don't have to hail the bus (because of the white background behind the bus roundel; if the background is red the sign will also say "request stop" and you need to make eye contact with the approaching bus driver to let him/her know you want to get on). If it was 4 in the morning, you could still get a bus here (the number 188) and during the day you can also catch the 42 and the 78 (and I could consult my handy central London bus map and see exactly where these routes would take me, but even without that I'd know I could either head toward the Surrey Quays or Aldgate). Once you get the hang of it, it's an unparalleled transport system that saves you from having to drive in the crazy, crazy traffic. (Hal wrote this nice piece with more practical info on London buses.)

If you see a number 9 or number 15 (there might be a few other routes, too, but I remember these) on your bus stop, you might get to ride in one of the few remaining old style double deckers like this one:


But most of the buses you see are newer models, although most are still double-deckers, unlike this one, touting its new hybrid engine: