Riding the Underground

Since the summer’s started I haven’t been using the Tube, London’s metro system, preferring to cycle around the city. It’s actually turned out to be a lot quicker to get around, and I’ve also got (slightly) fitter. I was speaking to my sister about the public transport network, and she’s noticed quite a change in people using the system. Before 7/7 most people preferred to keep to themselves on the Tube, reading, listening to music, staring into space or whatever. It was quite unusual to have a conversation with a stranger. Now though, people are a lot more wary, taking in their surroundings and being a lot more observant of unattended baggage and the like. There’s also been some hostility towards Asian men, especially those carrying a big bag. Some commuters have shouted abuse at them and others have not boarded a carriage with a brown guy, preferring to wait for the next train. I can kind of sympathise with them (most people would, if they’d seen fifty people killed and a further seven hundred injured earlier that month), but it’s brought about what one person has called a path towards ‘a racially segregated form of transport’. I doubt that will last, but it’ll be a travesty whilst it does.