Hi all
Some of you may have cycled in London. In the last year I have cycled there on three occasions and to my surprise, it was not the horror that I thought it would be.
Part of the reason for my enjoyment was that there is a website called "Transport for London" which has a cycling section, which up to a few weeks ago, would allow you to use an interactive map to get from A to B using quiet back streets and cycle paths. This could be downloaded as a PDF file. A longish route necessitated a number of A4 pages (the longer the more pages) but it was really helpful and made for a very easy trip. The route was marked as a continuous line on the relevant streets and was really easy to follow.
Imagine my consternation when, last Saturday, I went to the same website to get a route map between central London and Greenwich and found that all it would give me was a single map of the entire route on half a page of A4, and a list of the streets and roads I had to follow. I tried to follow this route but I got lost on at least two occasions and without my London A-Z it would have been a lot worse. It took me two hours to travel 8 miles, because I had to stop constantly to check the route. The problem was that the list of streets was not completely continuous - on one occasion I ended going up the right street but in the wrong direction. Anyone who has ever used an A-Z map will know how tiny the print is on the maps outside the central area and even though the sun was shining, I found it difficult to read and interpret.
I emailed TfL but I have received no reply. I asked them to reinstate the detailed PDF maps, but I'm still waiting! Anyone else ever have this experience?
Some of you may have cycled in London. In the last year I have cycled there on three occasions and to my surprise, it was not the horror that I thought it would be.
Part of the reason for my enjoyment was that there is a website called "Transport for London" which has a cycling section, which up to a few weeks ago, would allow you to use an interactive map to get from A to B using quiet back streets and cycle paths. This could be downloaded as a PDF file. A longish route necessitated a number of A4 pages (the longer the more pages) but it was really helpful and made for a very easy trip. The route was marked as a continuous line on the relevant streets and was really easy to follow.
Imagine my consternation when, last Saturday, I went to the same website to get a route map between central London and Greenwich and found that all it would give me was a single map of the entire route on half a page of A4, and a list of the streets and roads I had to follow. I tried to follow this route but I got lost on at least two occasions and without my London A-Z it would have been a lot worse. It took me two hours to travel 8 miles, because I had to stop constantly to check the route. The problem was that the list of streets was not completely continuous - on one occasion I ended going up the right street but in the wrong direction. Anyone who has ever used an A-Z map will know how tiny the print is on the maps outside the central area and even though the sun was shining, I found it difficult to read and interpret.
I emailed TfL but I have received no reply. I asked them to reinstate the detailed PDF maps, but I'm still waiting! Anyone else ever have this experience?