Beyond Watford and back

I should have known better than to head North up the M1 on a Saturday in August. The world and his wife had clearly set out several hours before me and I was still trundling at 40mph or worse round the M25 at the point in time when I should have been rounding the corner to my final destination.

By Woburn, coffee was beckoning and I pulled in to the service area for a brief interlude. The car park was a sea of caravans, trailer tents and scout mini buses, bikers in leather and families with small kids eating ice creams, dad in shorts, the office already far away.

On the way back I must have encountered all those returning after last week's rain. I detoured through Watford and promptly joined the queue of cars waiting patiently for the football ground to disgorge its endless stream of fans, purposefully striding along, it seemed, in their yellow supporters' T-shirts. Whole families, kids in tow, teenagers, best mates, they were all there. As I passed on through Northwood and Ruislip, an occasional pair were exquisitely dressed with boutique carriers in hand, back from a day out in the West End perhaps. Others, more nondescriptly attired, were struggling home from the weekly shop and there were teenagers let loose for the holidays, more interested in their friends, maybe, than where they were heading.

I wonder how many of the people crawling round London's outskirts would have gone by train if our transport system were more integrated. I remember travelling to Toronto in the 70s and being amazed that interchange stations for city buses were undercover and warm. You could hop on and off buses as many times as you liked before the expiry time of your ticket. Thirty years later, even central London doesn't match that kind of experience, though the Oyster card has improved life for regular travellers. Anyone with more than a light suitcase to carry is still distinctly unwelcome though, as steep steps sometimes form impenetrable barriers with not a lift or escalator in sight. The M25 carries cars, but why wasn't it built with a railway alongside, linking effectively with frequent bus and train services from en-route stations, along spokes leading in and out of the city and to airports?

I actually enjoyed my return journey yesterday. Its slow pace provided a fascinating diversion as I stopped at countless sets of traffic lights, watching the melée of people making their way home after a Saturday out. As a mere onlooker though, I was all too aware that I added to congestion on streets where I didn't need to be.