please empty your brain below

Totally agree with this. Bus passengers using Westfield are treated like a new subclass of scum.

The overkill with the security scanning - a total insult to the bus passengers when cars are going through largely unchallenged, the very poor road system that seems ill-designed to cope (watch a 97 or 241 trying to get out of the security screening area back onto the road, the corner is way too tight, and traffic coming down the hill usually needs to give way to it.

And that bus station. I wouldn't want to have to wait there for a bus. Fortunately the 97s are running so frequently now they seem to leave in a convoy.

The centre itself resembled gangsta (sic) city when I visited it, gangs of "children" everywhere trying to look hard (and also presumably working out who the best people to mug or pickpocket will be later on). It's quite a threatening environment when it's so busy.

I'm hoping it dies down to normal levels, as I would quite like to be able to have a look at the shops in shopping centre instead of working out what the quickest way to get out of it again was.

I was at Heathrow T4 (Connect) the other night. There's only a 4 minute turn around for a train coming in to it going back out again.

As the train arrives, the platform staff announce that no one get ON please as they need to make "security checks". Everyone ignores this (especially foreign visitors - quite a lot of those at an airport) and gets on anyway.

A nice man in a hi-vi jacket then has to go along turfing everyone off, apologising as he does, walking the entire length of the train. The train is then 'checked' security wise, and then with about 30 seconds left before departure, everyone is allowed to get back on again.

Now that's madness...

They have also decided to redirect people in the Jubilee Line / Central Line interchange tunnel in the main Stratford Station. People trying to take the usual steps up to go East bound are redirected up the new stairs opposite. These channel you into a section of the platform opposite the Central Line where there is then a squash to get past those waiting for the train to arrive back at the end of the Central Line platform. Basically this appears to allow those arriving from the west to have a smooth trip down the stairs to head for Westfield without engaging with the scum who need to change at Stratford. So lots of peoples commutes just got slightly more irritating to allow for the great god Westfield.

I think we can safely presume that your comparisons with walking and taking the DLR were done on the basis that the person involved was not laden down with shopping.

Also, i came out of the back of Westfield the other night to go over to the new DLR station. I had to cross the road where the replacement bus comes.

As I approached the karb, a bus was driving along. He slowed down, and I started to go into that mode that I've done for the majority of my living life (30+ years) where you negotiate who goes first - simple, right?

Apparantly not, because a nearby busy-body in a Westfield jacket with nothing better to do than shepherd people told me to "Woah! Hold up there!" and try and direct me as if I were a five year old child and he was a lollipop-crossing lady.

How I've manged to get to be almost 40 years old in my life and not be run down by not having a patronising person telling me how to cross a road all the time is beyond me.

I don't know about other routes at other times, but I've been on the 277 going through Canary Wharf in the small hours and that gets checked by guards too.

It sounds grim. As part of my job I taught in Stratford occasionally. I've just taken voluntary severance and it sounds like that Central Line journey and the Stratford Station Experience is one part I won't miss.

So people arriving at Westfield go straight in. People leaving Westfield have to negotiate two pedestrian crossings and a long wait.
Which ones will be laden down with shopping?
Sack the designer, before he builds anything else!

I've been stopped when driving into Canary Wharf, but then again I have a car which would benefit from being blown up.

The "other" Westfield has quite a decent bus station at White City, loads of shelters and seats but always seems almost empty of passengers when I've been there.

Mountfichet or Montfichet? (First caption.)











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