tubechallenge.com

I've recently watched a series of videos on YouTube by "Geographer" about crossing Greater London on foot North-South without using roads.

His rules were:
* It is permissible to cross roads, provided the crossing is less than 50m (this allows diagonal crossings where footpaths etc aren't diagonally opposite each other).
* Canal towpaths aren't allowed but riverside paths are. It's also permissible to walk up streams themselves and crawl through culverts.
* It is not permitted to enter private gardens although communal gardens are allowed.
* Illegal acts such as trespassing on active Railway lines are not allowed.

Inspired by this, I've been wondering about the possibility of a west-east or east-west crossing.

I've added some extra rules of my own:

* The Thames Path is not permitted as that makes it too easy (although the route I have so far bends this a little).
* "Roads" includes pavements as per Geographer's n/s challenge however I am considering any part of the pavement separated from the road by a fence, raised flower bed, or other obstruction (but not a verge or line of trees), colonnade, or vertical displacement not to be part of the road).
* I do not intend to go crawling through sewers, scaling high fences/gates, or trespassing on school property.
* Walking "round the corner" of a building to enter/exit is allowed provided this does not exceed 50m.

So far I have identified a route from Kensington Gardens, through Hyde, Green and St James's Park to Trafalgar Square, then through Charing Cross station, over the Jubilee Bridge and via Jubilee Gardens (this is where I had to bend the Thames Path rule slightly, although I'm actually using it in the wrong direction!), Waterloo LU/Waterloo NR/Waterloo East/Southwark. Here things get a little hazy owing to building work currently going on, but from Princes Road I have a route via Tate Modern, back over the river and via St Paul's and the Barbican to Moorgate/Liverpool Street then round the top end of the station and down to Aldgate, thence Aldgate East and Whitechapel and with a bit of luck down to Mile End Park (where I have to bend the towpath rule slightly to get under a railway bridge) then up to Stratford and down the railway path to Beckton, where I have yet to find s route across Barking Creek and the other six miles to the boundary.

Similarly in West London I'm struggling to find much west of Kensington Gardens so far apart from a few possible bits in the Shepherds Bush area.

Given the length of the route (there seem to be a lot more N/S passages than E/W ones, making it very circuitous) I reckon it would take at least two days and given that the Emnankment entrance to Chating Cross station is only open from 7:30am to 9:30am I think it would be better to do the route E-W with an overnight stop in a hotel on the south bank.

Loads of races to do before any attempt, and I think one best done in June when the days are longer

BTW - what happens if you "tap in" and "tap out" at different entrances to a station without getting on a train?

I enjoyed following the video too, especially because he used a lot of routes/areas that I'm familiar with (on my occasional commutes from Walthamstow to Croydon).

That's a very interesting question you pose.... You're right that it's a lot less convenient of a route, and I suppose it becomes a question of how far must one stretch one's own rules.

I don't have the time to look at my own routeplanning at the mo, but I'd love to hear further thoughts you have!

If you tap in and out within five minutes at the same station, it charges you a maximum fare I believe - but I think it charges you some sort of normal fare if you take 5-30 minutes, although I'm not sure of the specifics. However, I would imagine that for Waterloo-Southwark and Embankment-CharingX it charges you a Zone 1 fare as if you'd taken the train?

More rule clarifications, which may or may not have been covered in the YouTube video and I forgot:
I assume a pedestrianised road counts as a road?
I would guess most of those little alleys, service roads, and loading areas that one finds in central London also count?
Do privately-owned loading bays, garages, etc count as roads? For example there's something that appears to be a road by all visual definitions between Little Somerset St and Mansell St in Aldgate, but probably isn't a road by all technical definitions (coords 51.51395307, -0.073968605). Forgive the slightly daft questions...

I'm not counting pedestrianised roads as roads, no.

With regards to alleys, service roads, etc, I'm working on the principle that if they have road markings, they're roads . Similarly if Google shows cars using it, it's a road.

In terms of the route itself, not much more progress. In the east, I've found a way of crossing Barking Creek and then the railway line beyond but get stuck almost immediately afterwards. There is another crossing of the creek a bit further south which can get me further east but it may involve walking 500m along a road without crossing it....

No more progress in the west.