LONDON — Prince Charles on the London tube! What’s next?
The heir to the British throne hopped aboard on Wednesday for what was reported to be his first trip on the London Underground in 27 years, accompanied by his wife, Camilla. Originally, the press reported it had been 33 years.
The occasion did not mark the scaling down of royal expenditure in an era of austerity — the couple arrived at London’s Farringdon Station by limousine — but rather the 150th anniversary of the launch of subterranean travel in the British capital.
London was the pioneer of underground transit, a method of cheap and speedy commuter transport that changed the face of the city and has since spread across the world.
You either like it or you endure it. Prince Charles and Camilla endured only a one-stop trip and who knows if they liked it.
Over the years, the subway systems of the world’s major cities have come almost to represent and reflect the local character.
Some Paris Metro trains purr silkily along on rubber wheels, while in New York subway travelers commute on thundering steel dragons between stations that often resemble something out of a post-Apocalypse movie.
In London, some stops reflect a fading Edwardian or modernist charm that is so valued that they are protected buildings. In Tokyo, the world’s most-used subway system is smart, bright, efficient and frequently overcrowded.
Moscow meanwhile delights in an over-the-top Soviet-era extravaganza that was built to display the glories of the Communist system.
To an extent, travelers get what they pay for. Some of New York’s subway stations may be crumbling and peeling, but you can get from one-end of the five boroughs to the other for $2.25.
In London, Prince Charles’ one-stop trip would have cost him £4.50, or $7. The good news is that, like other over-60s, he is entitled to a Freedom Pass — an access-all-areas swipe card that grants free access to the whole of the city’s transport system.
We would like to know what you think of your subway/Metro/underground. Let us know your subway experiences, whether from New York or Paris, Rio or Tehran. And tell which is your favorite. Happy travels.
Rendezvous’ editor, Marcus Mabry, a New Yorker who lives in London, in typically unsporting American fashion, demanded to get in the first word:
In London you often do not get what you pay for! Sections of lines close all the time — even during rush hour — because of “signal failure,” one of the most dreaded phrases for the London commuter. The others are “planned engineer works” — since, unlike New York, there is only one track and not an express and local track, whenever a Tube line needs repairs, which is all the time on London’s antediluvian system, the Underground simply closes a section of the line. The system is so overcrowded that it’s normal for high-traffic stations, like Holborn, to be temporarily closed during rush hour to allow the crowds to dissipate. The entire Underground shuts down on Christmas Day, which is nice for the workers but what about all the people who have no other way to get around — or who don’t observe Christmas? Have they never heard of Jews and Muslims?
My favorite metros are Berlin’s, built for a city twice the size, and Budapest’s, the Continent’s oldest.
But Harvey is right about how the subterranean ride reflects nature of its city. The Britons’ famous stiff upper lip allows them to take all this in stride. If the subway or the Metro were as unreliable as the Tube, the French and the Americans, given their penchant for complaining loudly, would revolt.
