■ THE CRUSH AT RUSH HOUR IS WELL AND TRULY BACK
JOURNEYS ON RAIL AND ROAD BOUNCE BACK AS UK RETURNS TO WORK
COMMUTERS crowded on to a platform at rush hour yesterday as the rails and roads enjoyed their busiest week since the start of the pandemic.
Photographs showed hordes of passengers heading to work via Clapham Junction at 7.45am, with the UK’s most-used interchange station back to its normal hectic self.
It came after road traffic reached pre-Covid crisis levels for the first time in 18 months on Monday, according to Department for Transport figures.
And demand for buses outside London reached a record 69 per cent of pre-virus levels on the same day.
That was a rise from 58 per cent on August 23, the previous Monday that was not a bank holiday. Provisional data also showed mainline trains ran at 60 per cent of capacity, but the DfT called that an underestimate.
In the capital, London Underground use reached 50 per cent of pre-virus levels and bus journeys ran at 71 per cent of capacity. The Tube yesterday enjoyed its busiest morning rush hour since March 2020 for the third day in a row. A total of 1.1million Oyster and contactless ‘taps’ were recorded up to 10am – up 18 per cent on last week. Meanwhile, public transport campaigners have urged the government to encourage more people to go back to buses and trains to prevent road congestion and help tackle climate change.
The scenes of normality returning to public transport came as 38,975 new Covid infections were recorded and the death toll rose by 191 to 133,674. That compares with 35,693 cases and 207 deaths the previous Wednesday.