Not so capital

Marcus Cotswell

You're right about the general principle here - the traffic has really snarled up again now everybody has adapted to the congestion charge, and taxis are ludicrously overpriced (because they are protected from external competition and prevented from competing among themselves).

In this instance, though, it really does serve you right for not walking - it's only about a mile and a half from Marble Arch to Soho!

You'd only have been about five minutes late assuming you walk at a reasonable pace - although admittedly most London pedestrians (and not just the tourists by any means) seem to be entirely ignorant of basic rules of etiquette such as looking where they are going, not walking four abreast, etc. so I can understand that is also a frustrating experience.

Water

The prices I don't mind. Hailing a cab on the other hand, with sunlight shining into your eyes, isn't the easiest of tasks (especially when the taxi signs are orange).

Fraser

Greek Street from Marble Arch is about 1.2 miles,and could easily be walked in twenty minutes. If everyone wasn't taking pointless taxi journeys then central London wouldn't be quite so clogged up.

soobrickay

Instead of wasting your/your employer's money on a taxi, why don't you use your common sense and take the tube next time? The Central line is very reliable in the middle of the day - certainly far more reliable than trying to drive through the heart of London - and would have taken you the three stops to Tottenham Court Road in no more than 10 minutes.

Marcus Cotswell

The other option would have been to go 3 stops on the Central Line to Tottenham Court Road and then it's a matter of yards to Greek Street. No sympathy!

Chuck Unsworth

A lot cheaper on the Central Line - and about twelve minutes journey time including a short walk from Tottenham Court Road to Greek Street. Still a better view of the damsels from the cab window, I suppose. Maybe you do get what you pay for, after all.

Danvers

I work in the City and when I have to go out for meetings, I can take a taxi and claim the expense back, however, when going to the west end around lunch time I am increasingly taking the tube as otherwise you have a similar experience of moving very slowly and arriving at least 20 minutes late. Marble Arch to Greek Street is what, 3 or 4 stops on the Central line and a three minute walk from Tottenham Court Road? 10 minutes max!

PS No way is it 2.4 miles - 2.4km maybe....

J H Holloway

Hmm. Nobody has got to the point.
The C-Charge promised 'traffic flowing like in the school holidays'. It didn't deliver, because any advantages were cancelled out by Livingstone's and TFL's policy of reducing traffic space/cutting off junctions and adding lots of mis-timed traffic lights.

I have just returned from lunch in Lancaster Gate with the CEO of Fiat and walked to Marble Arch. Christ, the pollution (ie Nitrogen Dioxides and diesel particulates) is bad in central, and much worse than when stopped working there in 2003. I never get watering eyes and sneezing fits, but today...

James, you might reflect on Livingstone's legacy. A very poor C-charge system which consumes all its paid income in admin, air quality which is well in breech of EU regs, the most expensive taxis in the world (worse than Tokyo) and surface public transport that is the dirtiest/most polluting in the developed world.

Every wondered why Tokyo and HK taxis run on gas? Or the buses in Turin and San Diego run on gas? Or why the German Taxi fleet is switching to natural gas? Or why Beijing ordered a 1000 gas-powered buses in time for the Olympics?

Anyway, there's a big change a-coming in taxi land, and I hope Boris re-configures the whole Black cab system, hugely boosting the numbers and providing the kind of Hong Kong-style 'anywhere for a fiver'.

Cabbies should realise that more cabs and lower fares will mean much more business.

At the moment it's £1 on the bus or £13 in cab. That's what's known as a gap in the market....

Thomas R.K. Fry

Defences must be leapt to. There seems comments seem to be a combination of ignorance and dreadful mathematics.
Anyone with a watch and access to google earth can work out how fast they walk. I'm one of the fastest walkers I know and I go at just under 4 miles an hour. Anything faster than that is a run (I walk faster than most joggers jog, they seem terribly miserable when I stroll past them).
Now 2.4 miles in fifteen minutes would be 9.6 miles per hour. No one walks at 9.6 miles per hour. That's running. Not walking. Anyone silly enough to question this should cruise around in their car at 10 miles per hour and see how many pedestrians are overtaking them.
Secondly, anyone who has ever nearly missed an appointment because a tube is running late will know that arriving on the tube platform is quite different from being on the surface. It takes about five minutes at Tottenham Court Road and I would say the same about Marble Arch (although I can't remember the station layout perfectly). Combine this with the wait for the train to arrive and your fifteen minutes is nearly up and you've still got to get to Greek Street. (All this assumes that James was conducting his interview at the entrance to Marble Arch tube station). It is for this reason that it's almost never worth taking the tube for a couple of stops.

So the only answer is, or should be, a taxi.

Mathematics and basic knowledge of London transport before commenting in future. It seems that none of you have used either the tube or your feet before, which makes me wonder how you get around.

kinglear

Ah - MORNINGTON CRESCENT!

JohnT

James, you wazzock! No one gets a taxi - or a bus - from Marble Arch to Greek Street. Walk fast, or get the very rapid Central Line.

Honestly, paper bag, how to get out of...

Ann

Agreed. Come on, I am probably a lot older than you but wouldn't think twice about walking from Marble Arch to Greek Street (unless you are disabled, in which case my apologies).

Dave B

Time to consider cycling perhaps?

MatthewL

I'd have taken a cab. I don't like the tube and walking is a sport, not a serious form of transport.

Max Kaye

James - looks to me that you've scored an own goal. You should have invented a plausible reason for the taxi: heavy packages; maiden aunt; old war injury...

Fraser

It's clear now, your taxi driver drove 2.4 miles which took 25 minutes. You were had.

Alf Tupper

J H Holloway.

All that air pollution you had to endure? Good deal of it I should think was Fiat derived. Hope you told the big mister.

BTW you London Johnnies, it was a bugger getting home from Otley tonight, so much distraction from the Lapwings and the idiot Pheasants just lately.

Then to cap it all, there's all this decent beer to shift.

Toodle pip.

LS

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=&saddr=Marble+Arch,+Westminster,+London,+United+Kingdom&daddr=Greek+St,+London+W1D,+United+Kingdom&mra=pe&mrcr=0&sll=52.656394,-1.549072&sspn=4.058819,10.283203&ie=UTF8&z=15

The car route is listed as 2.3 miles but it's much less on foot.

Brian

Take a bus or walk.

John W

Get off your arse and walk it.

90% of people who live in our fine city don't even know its geography so reliant are they on tube and taxi.

Don't catch the bus though, you might get stabbed.

Chuck Unsworth

@ Thomas R.K. Fry

Waiting time for empty cab?

Actually one can easily get from the entrance to the platform at Marble Arch within about two minutes.