London Underground strikes blight rush hour as Sadiq ‘urges swift resolution’

Earlier Lime were pictured picking up its excess rental bikes in central London. But it doesn’t look like they got them all.

There is a sea of at least a hundred of them left parked in Little Newport Street near Leicester Square, drowning out the Chinese lanterns and blocking one of the main routes into Chinatown.

They can be seen blocking delivery entrances, fire exits and wheelchair drop-off access for people coming into the tourist area.

The photographer said the London Fire Brigade were ‘horrified’ by the sight.

We’re coming up closer to home time and, well, it’s not looking great this afternoon.

There’s severe delays across the entire London Underground network, with the exception of the Victoria line, which is currently facing minor delays.

Circle, Hammersmith and City and Waterloo and City are still showing as suspended, while the Piccadilly Line is part suspended, with TfL saying this is due to the strike action.

It might improve later on but just something to bear in mind for this evening when trying to get home.

GB News said its breakfast panelist Oscar Reddrop was delayed from the live programme this morning because of the Tube strike.

Reddrop, a former 10 Downing Street special adviser, said the strike is ‘horrific’ after rushing to his seat eventually despite being ‘a sweaty mess.’

Trains from London King’s Cross face delays after an earlier emergency incident near Peterborough.

Services are slowly recovering, but residual delays are expected until at least 2pm.

Here are the affected train operators and routes:

• Grand Central between London Kings Cross and Bradford Interchange / Sunderland
• Great Northern between London Kings Cross and Peterborough
• LNER between London Kings Cross and Lincoln / Doncaster / Bradford Forster Square / Skipton / Leeds / Harrogate / York / Middlesbrough / Newcastle / Berwick-upon-Tweed / Edinburgh / Aberdeen
• Thameslink between Horsham / London Kings Cross and Peterborough

People can breathe a sigh of relief now – the first strike has officially ended after 24 hours.

There may still be delays as drivers return to work, so worth keeping an eye out for journey updates.

Good news for those who are concerned about the Lime bikes being left strewn on the streets of London – they’re being removed and relocated by vans.

Metro spotted the vans out near Liverpool Street about an hour ago after the rows upon rows of bikes were abandoned this morning.

Small businesses havetold us they been left ‘stressed’ by the London Underground strike after it hit their profits.

Pasha Barbers, on Liverpool Street opposite the station, said their footfall and income has suffered so much that they had to let one barber go this morning.

Read more below here.

To add insult to injury this morning, it looks like there’s been an accident near Gloucester Road, in west London, this morning.

Commuters have told Metro a van and a motorbike are believed to have been involved in the collision during rush hour.

Emergency services are at the scene.

The road has now been reduced to just one lane, adding more pressure onto cars, taxis and buses during the strikes.

A spokesperson for the Met told Metro: ‘On Wednesday 22 April at 08.47hrs police were called to reports of a collision between a car and two mopeds on the junction of Cromwell Road and Ashburn Place, Kensington.

‘Officers attended the scene alongside the London Fire Brigade and London Ambulance Service. Paramedics treated the riders of the mopeds – two men both aged 18 – before taking them to hospital. Their injuries have since been assessed as non-life-threatening or life-changing.

‘No arrests were made. Enquiries continue and anyone with information that may assist police is asked to call 101 quoting CAD 1698/22APR.’

More bikes are pouring in quickly as people rush to work. One of them is commuter Manos Papadopoulos who says he has had a stressful journey and he is running late as he pulls in at Liverpool Street on a Lime bike shortly after 9am.

He told Metro: ‘I started from home at 7am, I live in Hendon. The train didn’t come, the bus didn’t come. I got to Euston eventually where I had to wait 20 minutes for the bike, and I’m late for 9am start at work.’

Isabelle Monteiro, 29, who works for a tech start up at Aldgate, says her journey has been ‘super easy’ travelling on the Overground from Wood Street.

‘I’m going to Aldgate. I usually would hop on the Hammersmith & City line for one stop. It is actually on for the bit that I’m on.

‘I got up a bit earlier today anyway just in case.’

When asked about the strike, she says: ‘They always announce everything well ahead of time. And at the end of the day if they just paid the people what they deserve to be paid then it wouldn’t cause so much disruption.

‘I think another group of professionals using collective action to get the wages and the safe working environment they need, I think it’s completely fine.

‘And it just highlights how much we rely on them, and how amazing the London transport take is.’

There was no picket line at Earls Court as the RMT had planned.

Similarly at Northfields on the Piccadilly line no one turned up to picket as the RMT planned.

At Acton Town on Tuesday there were less than a dozen workers on the picket line.

Earl’s Court station was open today and some services were running.

Although the Piccadilly line was shut the district line was operational.

Jess Winter, 33, who commutes to Acton Town on the district line, told Metro: ‘There have been delays but it’s been almost business as usual for me. The strike doesn’t seem to have brought everything to a halt.’

Petar, who only gave his first name, works for Greater Anglia.

He says he found the information about the Tube strike ‘confusing, and I work on the railways.’

He tells Metro: ‘I forgot about the strike and came to the station to find the shutters closed. So then I took a bus from South Woodford before changing to the Elizabeth line. The bus was so slow and packed, and the Elizabeth line felt overcrowded. They had to close the barriers with people still on the platform.’

He says the Liverpool Street station concourse, where he is working today, doesn’t feel busier than usual at rush hour.

Metro’s assistant editor (news) Rory McKeown altered his commute this morning to take advantage of the sunshine. Here’s what he had to say about it:

‘It felt like a typical early morning in London walking to the office from Charing Cross.  Bus shelters were fairly empty from The Strand through to Knightsbridge and High Street Kensington. 

‘Of course, it’s expected to get much busier as we approach rush hour, but it seems Londoners are opting for Lime bikes, cabs, or like me, a brisk stroll in the sunshine.’

James Pep, 31, an electrician, is waiting for a bike at Liverpool Street where he arrived on a train from north London.

He tells Metro: ‘It is disruption, but it is London and you just find a way around it.’

He says he doesn’t usually cycle but it is the quickest way for him to get to the job near Liverpool Street, adding that the ‘roads are too busy in London which is why I don’t usually like to cycle.’

‘I took a Greater Anglia train from Enfield to get here. Usually I’d take the Tube but the time it took was about the same, and now it looks I’ll be at work earlier, so it has worked out fine,’ he says.

When asked about how difficult it is to score an e-bike near the station, he says he is not worried as bikes are coming in steadily.

Some live pictures for you this morning from commuters.

At 6.30am, it was already looking extremely busy on the Mildmay Line from Clapham Junction, with every seat taken and some people standing.

Normally, these trains are fairly empty at this point of the day and you’re guaranteed a seat into central London.

Over in High Street Kensington station, which operates the District and Circle lines, the entrance was shut off completely at 7am this morning.

As members of Metro’s staff try to make their way into the office this morning, here’s the latest from Lucy Mapstone, our Assistant Editor (Entertainment).

‘Commuters at Victoria station were facing repeated tellings-off from staff when forming a huge queue at the bus stop, spilling out onto the road. Despite repeated calls to ‘get off the road and into the bus shelter’, passengers barely budged, seemingly too British and polite to push in front of each other and disrupt the order of the queue.’