Londoners on how life is impacted by TFL strikes and disruption

National World - LocalTV

We asked Londoners how their life is impacted when London Underground strikes take place.   The latest set of planned strikes were called off last minute.

Transcript

00:00 Obviously the underground strikes have just been cancelled, but in general how much does

00:04 the kind of strikes and rail disruption disrupt your life?

00:09 Yeah it is quite disruptive. I run a charity, I run a children's cancer charity, and it's

00:14 things like, while I definitely support workers' right to strike, it was when they decided

00:21 to hold a strike over the London Marathon weekend, which is the biggest earner for charities

00:26 like mine. So it definitely is disruptive in that way. I think that obviously the whole

00:34 working from home culture has made it I think a little bit more problematic for strikes

00:38 to have an impact on people, so that's what they were going for the whole week. So yeah

00:44 I think it is detrimental to businesses, it's detrimental to people who really need to get

00:51 to work, so it hurts other sort of minimum wage workers as well. So I don't really know

00:58 what the answer is, but I'm very glad it was called off at the last minute.

01:03 Not really. I don't use public transport much. I've got my Over 60 Oyster card now, so it's

01:09 free. So pretty much if I'm going around on the buses, which I don't really use, but I

01:14 do use the trains occasionally to go up to town, I think it's brilliant. I just tap my

01:17 little card, get on and it's free. The disruption hasn't disrupted me because I'm not a regular

01:22 user, I'm not a commuter, so it's not an issue I know much about. I don't have any grievance

01:29 yet. I'm sure those people that actually need the service regularly, and it has to be utterly

01:35 reliable, are probably fuming.

01:37 I mean I support anyone's right to strike. It doesn't affect me at all really. I mean

01:45 if and when it does, I just work around it. Yeah, I mean I travel all over London, but

01:50 I mean it's no big deal.

01:51 What do you do if there are underground strikes? Will you just rearrange your plans or will

01:56 you just get other modes of transport?

01:58 I just go to a regular rail line and walk usually, I mean, or get the bus. Yeah, I mean

02:05 hardly seems like a big deal really.

02:08 I think London is quite a convenient place for travel. I think it should be maintained

02:15 a bit better. I think the taxpayer does foot it quite a bit. As for me, finding it an inconvenience,

02:26 it can be because I travel to the north of England quite a lot. I've got family up there,

02:30 so I guess cancellations, having to change halfway through a journey maybe.

02:36 What do you find worse? Do you find the national rail more difficult or the London travel?

02:41 It teeters. It teeters between them. So for whatever money they say they're putting into

02:48 things for improvement, for paying other people, I think they could do a bit more in terms

02:56 of satisfying the employer, the employee and the traveller.

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