Quote:
Why not start our own, excruciatingly more effective protest by taking public transportation to work? Possible, or impossible?


If I take the tube to work (I live in North London, work in West London), it takes about an hour on a good day, 1h20 on an average day, 2h30 on a bad day*. It costs me £5, and I have to share the tube with a few hundred other sweaty people. I have one change -- in Central London. If I leave a little earlier or later, it doesn't seem to make any appreciable difference to the time taken.

If I drive (11 miles on the North Circular), it takes a little over an hour at that time in the morning. If I leave earlier or later, it can take as little as 30 minutes. I get to sit by myself, in an air-conditioned car, listening to my empeg. I neither know, nor care, how much it costs.

If it weren't for the fact that, some days, I like to go out for a couple of beers after work (meaning that I don't drive home), I'd drive to work every day.

This week, however, I've been using the tube, so that I don't have to worry about petrol prices or queues: the car's sitting in my space at home with half a tank in it, and it's not going anywhere.

* on 7/7, I didn't actually manage to get to work -- and this was before the bombs went off.
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-- roger