Getting around town…

There are a number of ways to get into the centre of London.  For us, a trip to the city centre takes us 30 minutes without any fuss.

In Toronto, you basically have two choices:

1. Drive
2. Take a combination of train, bus, subway

Option 1 can be an exercise in frustration if you need to travel into the downtown core to get to work…it can take over an hour and of course this depends on time of day and the weather.  Not to mention the environmental impacts of traveling by car.

If you decide on option 2 in Toronto, it can take you literally hours to get to your destination.  You cannot simply get onto a subway train, do a couple of transfers and be at your destination.

Have a look at the Toronto and London subway (tube) system maps side by side.

http://www.ttc.ca/Subway/interactivemap.jsp

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/large-print-tube-map.pdf

If you click on an image it will open up into an image gallery and you can see each map in a larger size.

In London it is easy.  Go down the huge escalator…get on the train!

A long, long escalator going way, way underground.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk

One other trick we learned: the colour of the handrails inside the train indicate which tube line the train is running on.  In the photo above, the handrails are yellow, indicating the “Circle” line.

There is also a fantastic online trip planning tool…

Open the page and enter your start and end locations…

See your journey connections.

I’m sure it took a lot of time, money, planning, and political will for London to get to where it is today transit-wise…it could be a great example of a vision for Toronto’s future.

Getting around by car in London is not particularly easy, and I think intentionally so.  Traffic isn’t great, parking is expensive, and there is the addition of a ‘congestion charge’ if you decide that you need to drive into the city rather than take transit.  Again, Londoner’s I’m sure did not want to pay for the privilege to drive their car into the city, but again political will prevailed and now you pay in order to drive into the core.

So for us, although we have the rental FIAT, it is sitting in the driveway of our house!  We recognize the Tube is the only way to travel while in this city.

Paying for Transit

As a visitor, it can be daunting to figure out how to pay for your public transit.  We have been lucky to meet some very friendly people who have helped us learn the best way to navigate the system. In order to maximize our Tube travel, we have learned about some of the different ways to do so:

Complements http://www.visitlondon.com

Complements http://www.visitlondon.com

The Oyster Card is the best way to travel, you tap on and tap off and are guaranteed the lowest cost.  Travel is done either on peak (any travel that starts between 04:30-0930) or off peak (any travel that begins after 09:30).  The Oyster system figures out the maximum cap – the most you will pay in a day.  Starting your travel after 09:30 can save you up to 50% on your travel.

Since we learned all of this information, all of our touring and planning starts at 9:31am – it just makes more sense financially and allows for us to have a bit of a later start and miss the rush hour crowds.

Travel tickets – these paper tickets are available at machines at tube stations, and can be purchased as 1-day, 7-day, monthly, or annual cards.  Since there aren’t any Oyster cards for students, (Mikhaila at 13 years of age) we have to purchase 1-day travel cards each day we travel into the city.  This works out to be £3.80 for the full day of travel…and Mik takes just as many trips as the rest of us, so a pretty good value overall.

Children under 11 travel for free if they are with an adult, so Zoe enters/exits the station with us. At first we were sending her first and trying to have 2 of us squeeze in, but our backpacks were getting caught etc… It wasn’t until a kindly Tube person told us that if we are travelling with kids, it’s easier to go through the double entry doors for wheelchair access.  Now, we are relaxed and can make it through with comfort:)

Up and coming and really getting us excited – contactless payments.  Now that more credit cards have chips in them which allow you to swipe to pay, Transport for London has started a pilot program on their buses to use no cash at all – you can use Oyster, a Travelcard, or you can swipe your chip enabled credit card!

Our plea to Toronto City Council…please….please…send someone here to see how transportation management can be done successfully!