Reading Roars!

You probably got bored of hearing the phrase “adverse weather conditions” about two weeks ago, but the snow’s effect is still being felt. Market Place in central Reading is closed to all traffic this morning as a couple of impressively-sized potholes have opened up. It’s the freezing and thawing of water that does it, y’know.

Lots of buses are running on diversion. This is likely to continue for the rest of the day – more information is available from Reading Buses. We walked past this morning and several people were hard at work repairing the damage (that’s not a sarcastic comment – they really seemed to be cracking on with it).

The relative piece and quiet without traffic got us thinking though. With Market Place closed, it’d be the ideal place for a, er, market. We’ve seen a temporary one spring up there a couple of times, but why not follow Oxford Street’s lead, close it to traffic once or twice a year and let pedestrians take over. Christmas market, anyone? (Image: Market Place, this morning.)

We’ve been admiring the snow coming down all evening, and decided to venture out to see what it’s like out there. We’re just back from a half-hour stroll in the neighbourhood.

Here’s the good news: there’s no gridlock. In fact there’s virtually no traffic of any kind whatsoever. Here’s the other good news: you probably won’t be going to work tomorrow. There’s at least three inches on the ground round here (or maybe more) and it’s still coming down, albeit a little slower than before.

They say pictures speak louder than words, so here you go. Click the photos to see ‘em big. And if you possibly can, get out there and enjoy it tomorrow!

Updated: Flickr user James **What You Saw** has uploaded a few good ones of the Oxford Road.

Larger versions on Flickr. Please don’t use these images without asking.

The last time it snowed

If there’s any accuracy at all to modern weather forecasting, it seems highly likely Reading could be hit by snow later today.

From a glance of the main weather websites, we reckon it’ll start late afternoon or early evening, but as we’re not known for our metereological prowess, you might want to play things safe and plan for it happening earlier.

The last time snow fell it caused total gridlock (as well as isolated outbreaks of something called ‘community spirit’, with drivers and residents helping each other out), so it could be wise to leave work a little earlier than normal today.

Though hang on, don’t all go at once – that’s one of the things which clogged everything up in December.

For more details, keep an eye on BBC Berkshire (they’re bound to have a selection of pretty pictures too) and the getreading website. You might also want to track the #rdg hashtag on Twitter – there was a lot of useful information on there last time. Know any other good information sources? Please drop us a note in the comments.

Finally, don’t panic and/or freak out. We’re quite excited by the twin possibilities of snowman building and getting the day off, and are considering organising a mass snowball fight if we do get a good covering. Anyone up for it?

(It might not happen, of course, in which case all the dire warnings will look a little silly. But if you are of a nervous disposition, probably best not to look at this map which, we reckon, has Reading just inside the bright red section. Brrr!)

I mentioned in a previous post last week’s Reading Borough Council Scrutiny Panel meeting with First Great Western and Network Rail.  I have to do the right thing and confess that I wasn’t present on the occasion, simply because I work in London and wasn’t able to get back to Reading in time (my fault, not the trains).

I’m disappointed with myself, despite sharing my thoughts on the trains prior to the meeting with the indefatigable Cllr Daisy Benson, who impressed me during the first scrutiny of FGW’s performance a year ago. 

From what I’ve read and heard, the meeting went well, with highlights as follows:

• FGW plan to add 80 extra seats to 54 trains to cut overcrowding
• FGW plan a £4m staff development programme
• the creation of a Reading rail user group was suggested to improve dialogue between customers and FGW (this was proposed, as I understand it, by Cllr Gareth Epps).  Count me in.
• FGW plan the introduction of more recycling facilities at Reading and Old Oak Common depots (in response to a question by Daisy)

More on these actions can be read in the following accounts of the meeting:

• Holding FGW to account: one year on (Daisy Benson)
• Rail services ‘back on track’ says FGW boss (getreading)

I was pretty stunned to read that Network Rail bosses are to receive six-figure bonuses.  I don’t like seeing executives rewarded for failure anyway, but this really stung.  The UK rail travel experience is often unpleasant and horrendously expensive.

Fortunately, if you feel similarly frustrated, you can have your say this coming Tuesday evening, as Network Rail and First Great Western’s managing director will be in Reading and taking questions from the public.  The event is a Reading Borough Council Scrutiny Panel meeting, held at 7pm in the Council Chamber, Civic Offices.  

What might FGW and NR expect?  Here are just 5 issues (emboldened), taken from Twitter (and no, I didn’t write these):

• My #fgw train looks like it’s going to be 30 mins late. Which means two train-loads of passengers in one train. Joy!
• The #FGW website sucks balls. Oh and so does the CrossCountry one. It’s amazing how difficult it is to buy train tickets.
• #fgw providing another filthy overcrowded service from Reading (17:57). Sitting in 1st class with a cattle-class ticket as revenge.
• Oh God no AC on train D: Worst Late Western I hate you. #fgw #firstgreatwestern #worstlatewestern

It’s worth stressing that these opportunities don’t happen very often.  The last scrutiny meeting with FGW was almost exactly one year ago.  FGW then gave us buzzword-heavy presentations and passionate words were spoken from the audience. 

Whether you feel angry about FGW services or simply love a good game of bullshit bingo, Tuesday night promises to be special.

I was somewhat dismayed, to say the least, to see my First Great Western (FGW) Reading-Paddington ticket all of a sudden jump last week to nearly £400 per month, thanks to their removal of a 10% discount for poor performance .  This follows a January 6% fare rise.  

According to the Reading Chronicle report, FGW’s spokesperson said:

We’ve still got much to do but we’re pleased we are now delivering a service much closer to what our customers want on a regular basis.

Not close enough.  It’s really not close at all.  Lib Dem Gareth Epps summed up customer feeling more accurately by saying:

Reading commuters already pay some of the highest fares per mile in the world, so to reduce the discount it should rightly be paying for poor performance is arrogance of the highest order.

Paul Smith goes further, with his colourful (but reasonable) analysis of the situation on the brilliant site Bitter Wallet:

They’re ready to start punching strangers in the back of the head, partly because they can’t sit down during their commute and have to stand like shitty-arsed cattle for hours on end, but mostly because they’re paying through the nose to do so; their season ticket prices have jumped up in price, and not by just a few quid, either.

Reading is the latest town to get The Guardian’s “Let’s move to…” treatment.  A new location is examined every Saturday as part of the paper’s Money section, with Reading featured in today’s edition.

So what did Tom Dyckhoff say?

Fortunately, the “What’s going for it” bit is four times the size of “The case against”.  On the positive side, the abbey grounds are mentioned (fortunately it wasn’t mentioned that these have been temporarily closed off), the countryside (not technically Reading, but nevermind) gets a thumbs up, as do John Lewis and Waitrose (eh?).

Against, it’s the usual story.  ”Pig ugly”.  Harsh.  There are far uglier towns than Reading (I shall not name them).  Is the Thames Promenade ugly?  Is our town’s Victorian architecture ugly?  Forbury Gardens: ugly?  Is Prospect Park a bit of an eyesore?  There is a lot of concrete in Reading, but many other UK towns have this problem.  London is not all shiny squares and pretty palaces.

“Traffic and parking both chronic”.  Yes.  Can’t argue with that.

“The cultural scene sags.”  Ouch.  That’s unfair.  Reading Festival, new Heavenly Planet festival, South Street, RISC, Hexagon… are these not “cultural”?  A new music festival is hardly evidence of a sagging cultural scene.

Anyway, read the report and have your say (I have).

A quick word of warning: if you are approaching the IDR/Duke St/London St junction by road tonight or tomorrow morning, you may encounter broken traffic lights.

This evening, I saw the aftermath of a collision between a taxi and a police van.  Thankfully, no one appeared hurt, but the traffic lights took a bit of a knock.  Ice, now all melted away, had nothing to do with it.

Sadly, there have been previous crashes in the same spot.

The story of the moment is the snow/sleet/ice we have been getting.  

Councils across the land have been getting a bit of stick for not preparing for the heavy snow showers.  I think it’s fair to say that we as individuals should have anticipated this better.  Responses to less moderate winter weather in the past have been less than great.  

Here are several teeth-gritting tweets I found:

• MORE SNOW in Berks! Nothing at 4am , 6am huge crashes of thunder and then snow falling fast, be careful on the roads – shortage of grit
• Only in Britain will they ‘forget’ to grit a major motorway (M4). Snow? Where did that come from? Amazing!
• Council didn’t grit last night. Only 4x4s could get up the hill to leave my area this morning. Stupid lazy two-bit penny-pinching council!
•  Only in the UK would you get a council who fail to grit half the roads…muppets!

I’m told that some snow (of the precipitation kind) is expected to arrive tomorrow in the UK. 

I like snow.  Most of us do, I suspect.  I no longer build snowmen (snowpeople?) or chuck snowballs, but I do like swirling snow showers, wintry landscapes and the scrunchy sound that is made when you walk on fresh snow.

I am a little bit nervous, however, about the impact the snow will have on our fragile transport system.  President Obama last week had a dig at Washington for closing schools because of “some ice”.  We, too, have an inability to cope with more extreme winter conditions, it seems, and that’s snow joke.  

If you are as interested as I am in, er, snow, and where it might be striking next, you can follow a snow trend that has emerged on Twitter.  The trending tag to use is #uksnow (check this page).  The last I checked, Karen Blakeman of Caversham tweeted “nothing happening in Caversham. Very cold but still lots of clear sky. “.  Isn’t Twitter wonderful?