Today marks my first tube ride. I was initially terrified of the tube. Being a college student without a car, public transit itself isn’t new to me. But a couple stories underground? Um, no thank you. However the tube is one of the quickest ways to get to your destination, because cars, stoplights, and potential speeding tickets aren’t interfering. So in attempting to get to Abbey Road for an iconic OH-IO before dark, the tube was my best bet.
Finding the tube stop was relatively easy, nearly all maps include them, and the icon is displayed clearly above and around the stations that lead underground. Once we descended and tapped in, we were surrounded by visuals directing us right away. Wherever you need to go you can find directions to within seconds. Because everyone pays before making their way to the tube itself, boarding and exiting happens within seconds (this was an incredible shift from taking the COTA throughout Columbus). The tubes are well lit, and seem to be well taken care of. The sides have large windows, so when entering a new station, it was obvious where we were because the walls are covered with the station name. Even transferring to a different line was an easy process.
I was surprised how much I took to the tube within the first few minutes of being introduced to it. It made some really scary sounds, and didn’t always seem entirely stable, but I’ll put my trust into the engineers that designed it. The best part was that I got my OH-IO in the middle of Abbey Road- despite a lot of honking cars.
Great comparison of your existing experiences with Columbus public transport and the potential of a great transportation system in London. All the finessing of the graphics, wayfinding/signs, maps and architecture over many years have established the Tube as one of the premiere transportation systems in the world. The sounds (mainly when straight trains are going around curves) and the pollution are certainly disadvantages but a small trade off for the many advantages-Aimee