Aurora Comms Blog

Musings from underground

Posted on 11. Feb, 2009 by phaedrus in News

As a regular tube user, I have always gained a modicum of gratification from most of my journeys on our capital’s subterranean train system. I derive aesthetic pleasure from the comprehensive linkage made available to London’s citizens and am usually provided with my daily fix of people-watching by my brief morning and evening travel stints. I have also come to realise that the sense of ease and relaxation that often washes over me on a less busy tube ride has a lot to do with being beyond the reach of mobile phone reception (although I imagine it won’t be long before technology robs me of this iota of communicative concealment).

However, aside from peace and ‘quiet’ and personal amusement, I do worry these days about the effects of tube travel on my health. Gone are the days of youthful reckless abandon and delusions of immortality and now I find myself obsessing over the interactions between my body and its environment.

Routine activities to which I am forced to subject my body become a particular topic of interest. Now that I have all but got over my irrational fear of tubular terrorism, I find imaginative new reasons to worry on the tube, such as the seeming certainty that I will contract the norovirus, the sight of a passenger in what is essentially a gas mask, or simply the absence of compassion from my fellow voyagers.

I have, of course, not started to vomit profusely, have learnt that cyclist-style facemasks (though slightly paranoid) simply block out airborne pollutants in tube tunnels as they do on exhaust-fume-filled roads and, more often than not, was offered a seat after hobbling onto the northern line on crutches. However, on the occasions when nobody obliged, my faith in humanity diminished as my blood bubbled with rage. Blood, it may be noted, that was being tainted with dust particles comprised largely of iron oxide from the infrastructure’s rails, brakes and wheels. As I took deep breaths to overcome the injustice of not being offered a seat, the composition of those breaths of not-so-fresh air did not occur to me.

Indeed, most of us are more concerned with the 2.7 million daily tube-goers with whom we share this ‘air’, and with the contaminants forthcoming from their bio-systems. Some people seem to think that coughing and sneezing is something to be shared in public, much to the dismay or anger of the health conscious among us. With no escape from the dust and germs circulating around your nostrils, the feet stamping on your twisted ankle or from the sweat patch pressed against your face, fear for one’s well-being infiltrates the mind on various levels. Travelling in close quarters with thousands of strangers can be more than just uncomfortable. Indeed, cramming people into carriages as is customary on the tube would not be legally permitted by animal transportation laws!

Due to the numbers of people who use the London Underground every day, and the associated potential adverse health and well-being effects, it represents a genuine health issue that requires innovation and an influx of public money. How about inserting trains with no seats (or very few seats for the disabled) at peak times? This would more than double the tube network’s capacity, surely making light work of the current demand for rush hour travel. It sounds crazy, but it just might work. What do you think?

Tags: camden