From the London Paper:
Commuters on the first route to get rid of the controversial bendy buses today declared: “Bring them back.”
Passengers on the 507 complained that the single-decker replacements were overcrowded and failed to provide enough seating.
One told of chaotic scenes when around 100 people crammed on to a Waterloo to Victoria bus during rush-hour.
Another, Andrew Cooper, 39, of Westminster, said: “There are hardly any seats. I’m not sure why they got rid of the bendy.”
Maureen Pullen, 48, of Winchester, said: “The bendy buses’ three doors allowed people to board much faster and brought down journey times.” Sine Msomi, 26, from Dulwich, said: “The bendy buses were a great way of getting around.” And Agnes Macharia, 32, of Peckham, said she was “sad to see them go”.
There won’t be much to show for the millions that will have to be spent on scrapping bendy buses: capacity will be reduced, more vehicles will be required and the roads won’t necessarily be safer.
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14 Comments
Surely to replace the capacity then should have been replaced with double deckers?
Even double-deckers had substantially less room for passengers than bendy buses.
I just hope they didn’t vote for Boris, in which case I have nothing to say but “We told you so.”
The campaign in London against bendy buses, orchestrated by the Evening Standard and the Tories, was ridiculous from the start.
Passengers were right to object to the use of these buses on long routes such as the 25 and 73, which travel a long way out from central London into the suburbs. But for routes such as the 507, a former “Red Arrow” route operating a short shuttle service within central London, such buses are ideal.
Objectors could never explain why bendy buses operate perfectly well in many continental cities. And in their clamour for double-deckers, they failed to accept that double-deckers are less suited to elderly or disabled passengers, or people carrying luggage or heavy shopping. As for Boris’s idea of bringing back the Routemaster bus, it is sentimental claptrap – it will never be implemented.
May I suggest two policies?
First, let’s stop using the infantile term “bendy bus” and use the grown-up term “articulated bus”. Otherwise we might as well start talking about “chuffa trains”.
Second, we should adopt the idea suggested by someone who once phoned in to Danny Baker’s show on BBC Radio London. When asked what single policy would you introduce if you were Mayor of London, he replied that he would insist that all bendy buses made a noise like a concertina when they went round corners.
@ Peter 1919 – the 521 that runs from Waterloo to London Bridge goes under the Strand Underpass and therefore couldn’t be replaced by a double-decker. If replaced by a smaller type of bus, I suspect the frequency of them would have to be at least doubled in order to move the same number of passengers.
You realise that the 90% of people who dont live in London just dont give a toss about this?
Population of London is about 13% of UK population and given that the Lib Dems don’t do Northern Ireland it’ll be a bit higher than that. Why not cover it, therefore, since it links into areas of media manipulation and fake campaigns (and sockpuppeting and astroturfing) that have universal validity in early 21st century online politics? If that’s not enough, the whole campaign was manufactured by Policy Exchange, which definitely has UK-wide implications given their influence at a high level in the Conservatives (and some Lib Dems aren’t far enough away from PX for my liking either). If anything, PX are more in favour at CCO than at City Hall these days, having been badly mauled in the early Boris power struggles.
Ahem. Can’t have double decks on Red Arrow routes, too slow boarding – that’s why they’ve always been high standing capacity single deckers since their introduction in the 1960s. If you think the 507 change was unpopular, at least they’ve provided a roughly equivalent service at the cost of a 29% reduction in seating capacity. Come the 38 changeover, which is the first time anyone’s ever tried to run that route as a one-person-operated double decker, we could see the tide really turn. As with so many bad policies, it’s hard for a grassroots campaign to oppose it before it happens (particularly with the media actively colluding with the policy), but as the evidence comes in it should become progressively easier, as with public opinion about urban motorways pre- and post-Westway.
Lived in London for 5 years, got on a bus twice. Was probably the slowest two journeys I ever took in my time there (including driving to Canary Wharf from Sutton in the rush hour.) Why bother when you’ve got the Tube, trains or (in South London) the trams?
Not all journeys are covered by tube. Zone 1 may have a density of tube stations, but Zone 1 is not the be-all and end all of London.
We stayed near Kew at new year, and the last part of the journey to the travellodge was easiest by Bus.
I think I’m echoing the article, by saying a variety of solutions are needed- articulated buses are good in certain circumstances, not appropriate in others. Tube is great where it goes where you want.
This is another example of where directly elected executive mayors gets you. Feel thankful that Boris got elected largely on silly but nearly harmless little things like this rather than things nastier and more dangerous.
it’s ridiculous boris johnson dosent get the route 436 or the route 12 that run from south london to central, and at rush hour (5pm) thoes busses are packed full of passengers he has no right to scrap the bendies which serve more than a usefull purpose. for boris johnson this is a personal vendetta & he has not botherd to even think about people who dont use cycles and depend on those bendies. mark my words this subject gets me so infuriated as i think after boris gets voted out the next mayor will reintroduce the bendie bus, or even now a more simpler soulution just keep the most vital bendy bus routes. thoes busses are being kept in storage but i cant see them being sold anytime soon (which is good so if their brought back into servis we wont have to spend a penny to do so). the fare dodging is a problem but it does happen on many other non – bendie routes (belive me as a 19 year old it does) but as people say why dont they reintroduce the conductor on all busses, becuase when they bring back the routemaster they must surely bring them back to right??. but also in my days of traveling to school on routemasters (36 & 12) even with a conductor people have, will and always continue to dodge the conductor (i know this contradicts with bringing them on the bendy bus routes). my final comments are i hope there will be a public show of support to bring back the buses that have been wrongfully critisised by cyclists & who eles…..no one that wernt anti – ken livingstone, and hopefully the people who use that bus the women who were pregnant, the men & women who took pushchairs on the bendies with ease (with two buggie spaces), the wheel chair users & most importantly the people who want to get from a to b in litte time.
Thanks Logan Emeric Sesay Keller
p.s thank you ken livingstone for taking this city forward am sorry for you to see it’s being taken backwards.
Boris Johnson , the Mr Bean of politics, has not made a case for the new double decker. For more comment see; http://save-the-bendy-bus.blogspot.com
wrongfully criticized by cyclists?
I don’t encounter bendy-buses often (they don’t seem to be on the routes I use, and actually only been on one once as a passenger.. btw as a severe sufferer from motion sickness, they back part is just as bad as the top of the double-decker) but the few times I had to try pass one on the bike, it was a very scary experience as they have no visibility on the rear part and take very wide corners!
I think the bendy bus should be put back on route 507