One of the things about living here in London, you walk alot. ALOT. While being a very mobile city with buses, tubes and rail lines crisscrossing the city, most of the best things and places in London are experienced on foot. You can walk through part of the East End and *poof* you run into a thousand year old piece of the London Wall. There are many different lanes that are only explored outside of a car or public transportation. It is really amazing how close everything is, whether it is a different neighborhood, a huge attraction, a historical monument or something architecturally significant.
It is also a very lovely city in which to commute. My company has an office near Victoria Station – which at the time is UNBEARABLE to enter or exit at any time during the day due to constant refurbishment. It is a complete disaster during rush hours, so much so, that the Underground station entrances and exits are one way only and you herd down into tiled tubes to overcrowded trains. As you learn in geometry, the shortest distance between two places is a straight line. And, as you learn in psychology, the shortest distance between sanity and insanity is unbearable trauma. Like entering Victoria Underground station to try to board the Victoria Line northbound to Oxford Circus – which is also undergoing refurbishment and takes people with strong constitution to fight their way through clueless tourists who get off a train and stop dead in their tracks while thousands of commuters prepare to throw them into the gap instead of telling them to “mind the gap”. The shortest distance between Victoria and my flat is through three royal parks – St. James Park, Green Park, and Hyde Park. It’s definitely walkable – 45 minutes on a good day – but enter TFL’s joint venture with Barclay’s – Barclay’s Cycle Hire.
This taxpayer funded scheme is a brilliant idea. There are bike rental stations peppered throughout the city – close to tube and bus stations, public parks and monuments, tourist attractions, business headquarters, rail stations and shopping centers. You can be a casual user – £1 for a day, or £5 for a week which you can rent using a debit card at the rental locationor become a member and pay £45 per year for a key that gives you quick access. Up to 30 minutes is free, any more time has an incremental amount per hour. For a ride home, or a quick ride to a museum, it’s free. If you want to take a long bike ride through all of the parks, it is still extremely affordable. Also, it gets you outside and out of the public transportation or off the roads, which from a socially conscious, greener city like London is a beautiful thing.
Definitely a way to get around if you plan on visiting or living here.
American Expat in London 