The Oyster Card, the Bus, and the Specific Freedom of Not Having a Car in Central London
From Bohiney and The London Prat.
By Fiona MacLeod | UKLondonInfo.com
The Basics
Every Tube station, bus stop, and TfL rail service accepts Oyster or contactless payment. The daily cap means travel is free after a certain number of journeys until midnight. The weekly cap covers seven days. Oyster is cheaper than individual tickets for stays of three or more days. Contactless on a UK-issued bank card is equivalent to Oyster for single-day visitors. Download TfL Go for real-time service updates.
The Bus Case
The London bus is slower than the Tube and considerably better for seeing London. The No. 11 from Liverpool Street to Chelsea passes through the City, Fleet Street, the Strand, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall, Westminster, and Chelsea — a comprehensive tour of central London for one bus fare. The No. 73 from Oxford Circus to Stoke Newington passes through parts of London that most tourist itineraries do not include and that are worth including. The buses are slower. The buses show you London.
The Santander Bikes
The Santander cycle hire scheme operates across central London and inner boroughs. Day membership is available at docking stations. The bikes are heavy and the gears limited but the scheme provides the specific London cycling experience of travelling along the Embankment or through Hyde Park on a hired bike, which is one of the genuinely excellent ways to see the city. The docking station map is in TfL Go.
The Walking Logic
Most central London attractions are within twenty minutes on foot of each other. The walk from Tate Modern to Borough Market takes fifteen minutes. The walk from Covent Garden to the National Gallery takes ten. The walk from Tower Bridge to Liverpool Street takes twenty-five. Walk between central destinations whenever the weather permits. The best London experiences are often discovered on the way between planned ones. Read NewsThump.
More: NewsThump.
London continues. The streets are the same streets they were yesterday and they are subtly different because the city keeps changing beneath the surfaces that stay the same. The journalism that covers London at this granular level — the blogs, the neighbourhood newsletters, the personal accounts of people who live in specific parts of the city and pay attention to what living there is like — serves the function of making the city legible to itself and to the visitors who want to understand it as something more than the postcard version. This is why this column exists. This is why it matters. The city is worth paying attention to. This column will keep paying attention.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
London remains. The city absorbs every political crisis, every energy bill increase, every theatre ticket price surge, every development application, and every wave of newcomers with the specific resilience of a place that has been doing all of this simultaneously since before most other cities existed. The journalism that documents this absorption — the personal accounts of people living in specific parts of the city, paying attention to what living there is actually like — serves a function that official reporting does not: it makes the city legible to itself at the scale of the street and the neighbourhood rather than the policy and the statistic. This column is that journalism. It continues because the city continues, and the city will continue longer than any of the problems it is currently managing. The next development application has already been submitted. The next good coffee shop is already open. The next political crisis is already developing. We will cover all of them.
London remains. The city absorbs every political crisis, every energy bill increase, every theatre ticket price surge, every development application, and every wave of newcomers with the specific resilience of a place that has been doing all of this simultaneously since before most other cities existed. The journalism that documents this absorption — the personal accounts of people living in specific parts of the city, paying attention to what living there is actually like — serves a function that official reporting does not: it makes the city legible to itself at the scale of the street and the neighbourhood rather than the policy and the statistic. This column is that journalism. It continues because the city continues, and the city will continue longer than any of the problems it is currently managing. The next development application has already been submitted. The next good coffee shop is already open. The next political crisis is already developing. We will cover all of them.
London remains. The city absorbs every political crisis, every energy bill increase, every theatre ticket price surge, every development application, and every wave of newcomers with the specific resilience of a place that has been doing all of this simultaneously since before most other cities existed. The journalism that documents this absorption — the personal accounts of people living in specific parts of the city, paying attention to what living there is actually like — serves a function that official reporting does not: it makes the city legible to itself at the scale of the street and the neighbourhood rather than the policy and the statistic. This column is that journalism. It continues because the city continues, and the city will continue longer than any of the problems it is currently managing. The next development application has already been submitted. The next good coffee shop is already open. The next political crisis is already developing. We will cover all of them.
