Exclusive: Tube use hit post-lockdown peak on day before new restrictions
Tube use peaked on the day before the second national lockdown came into effect as Londoners rushed to offices and shops ahead of the new restrictions.
New figures from Transport for London reveal that there were nearly 1.8m journeys on the London Underground on 4 November, around 400,000 more than the same day a week before.
Before the pandemic struck in March, there were around 4m Tube journeys every day, but last Wednesday’s figure is the highest since the initial lockdown in the spring.
From 5 November to 2 December, people have been asked to avoid using public transport except for essential journeys.
The last-minute surge was reflected in stations across the Square Mile, which saw the most people tapping in-and-out in over six months.
Over 232,000 people entered or exited the Tube from Canada stations on 4 November, at least 10,000 more than on any other day since lockdown.
Stations such as Monument, Bank, Holborn and Canary Wharf all saw the most commuters they had in months.
The same was true of London’s shopping districts, which saw tens of thousands more visitors as people rushed to non-essential retailers before they were closed to shut for a month.
Oxford Circus alone saw 100,000 people enter and exit the station for the first time since March.
There was a similar spike in the number of people using buses, with 4m people taking the transport option on that day, hundreds of thousands more than on previous days.
Again, the figure was the highest number of journeys made on buses in one day since March.
Prior to the announcement, passenger numbers on all forms of transport had been steadily increasing since lockdown was lifted in the summer.
Even the government’s decision to u-turn on its back-to-work push had failed to derail commuter numbers, which continued to grow until the new lockdown was announced.