Post by Christopher J on Jul 4, 2006 1:24:42 GMT
I've just read this BBC News Report and it is very alarming!
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5143388.stm
Parts of London's Tube network could be shut down on very hot days to prevent "loss of life", the mayor has warned.
As temperatures inside carriages rose to well above 30C on Monday, Ken Livingstone admitted climate change may force drastic measures in the future.
A groundwater cooling system to combat hot weather is currently being tested.
Mr Livingstone said: "We might face, in a few years time, having to shut some Tube lines on particularly hot days just because it won't be safe."
He added: "You reach a point where the underground will become literally intolerable and you could face the prospect of loss of life."
Trapped passengers
Engineers are working on a concept of taking ground water up through stations to cool them and using the heat to power homes and offices above and bring the temperature down.
Mr Livingstone said it was a race against time and the authorities would have to think about closures "if the temperature goes up faster than we fear it's going to".
Last month about 1,000 passengers were trapped for nearly two hours when three trains were held up in a tunnel.
London Underground said there were no plans to close any Tube Lines during the summer.
It's a sad and frightening thought to know that it may have to come to this, and that at the moment there’s nothing we can really do effectively to prevent the heat.
If we think about this, it will mean that people will need to find different modes of transport over affected routes, and if we cast our minds back to last year, I believe that the top deck of a double decker bus came first place as the hottest place to be found in London - and I wouldn’t be surprised if it came first place again this year.
So then there would be the problem of buses being cram packed to bursting point with passengers off the tube and onto a hot bus, which will just be as worse as the tube in a sense.
Or it will mean people will turn to their cars for transport, which will produce more fumes which will pollute the atmosphere and cause a more knock on affect to Global Warming, which will heat the planet up even more!
We can’t win!
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5143388.stm
Parts of London's Tube network could be shut down on very hot days to prevent "loss of life", the mayor has warned.
As temperatures inside carriages rose to well above 30C on Monday, Ken Livingstone admitted climate change may force drastic measures in the future.
A groundwater cooling system to combat hot weather is currently being tested.
Mr Livingstone said: "We might face, in a few years time, having to shut some Tube lines on particularly hot days just because it won't be safe."
He added: "You reach a point where the underground will become literally intolerable and you could face the prospect of loss of life."
Trapped passengers
Engineers are working on a concept of taking ground water up through stations to cool them and using the heat to power homes and offices above and bring the temperature down.
Mr Livingstone said it was a race against time and the authorities would have to think about closures "if the temperature goes up faster than we fear it's going to".
Last month about 1,000 passengers were trapped for nearly two hours when three trains were held up in a tunnel.
London Underground said there were no plans to close any Tube Lines during the summer.
It's a sad and frightening thought to know that it may have to come to this, and that at the moment there’s nothing we can really do effectively to prevent the heat.
If we think about this, it will mean that people will need to find different modes of transport over affected routes, and if we cast our minds back to last year, I believe that the top deck of a double decker bus came first place as the hottest place to be found in London - and I wouldn’t be surprised if it came first place again this year.
So then there would be the problem of buses being cram packed to bursting point with passengers off the tube and onto a hot bus, which will just be as worse as the tube in a sense.
Or it will mean people will turn to their cars for transport, which will produce more fumes which will pollute the atmosphere and cause a more knock on affect to Global Warming, which will heat the planet up even more!
We can’t win!
