Val Shawcross, Labour Chair of the Transport Committee, has spotted the issue with the 521 bus and the Strand underpass, reported by us on the 22nd July:
Val explains ‘Route 521 uses the Strand underpass, which is not high enough for double decker buses to use. TfL are therefore consulting on the use of single decker buses. As the 521 is a heavily used commuter route, this could spell very bad news for passengers indeed in terms of reduced capacity. The numbers of single decker buses needed to maintain current capacity would mean increased congestion and emissions – which is bad for all of us. And all this despite Boris claiming he wants to cut congestion and that the environment is a ‘number one priority’ for him.’
But what’s this?
Transport for London’s consultation on the future of these buses ends on October 3rd.
Hadn’t heard of that one. Must have been kept very quiet - I read all TfL’s PR, after all.
Tags: 5 Comments
5 responses so far ↓
On the TfL website at present no bus consultations are listed. So is it really a TfL consultation, or is it an LTW consultation (which don’t get announced on the web as far as I can see)?
And in my archives I found this report from 2002 (readiness for the congestion charge) which found says that boarding time was significantly reduced by bendy buses on the 507 and 521. Has this factor been taken into account for the ending of bendy-buses?
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/readiness-full.pdf
Actually, single deckers would be just as quick to board *if there are sufficient doors*. A lot depends on the exact design chosen, but they’re quicker than single door entry double deckers, which is why they were originally brought in on the Red Arrow routes (which is what the 507 and 521 are the remains of) in 1968. Essentially I expect them to try and go back to the status quo ante, which was of course before the massive rise in bus patronage for which the bendies were the obvious answer.
So even if they’re not bendy, they ought to be “all-door exit and entry”. Which is fine, unless you think that there’s a big problem with fare evasion.
Indeed, but fare evasion isn’t a problem on the 507/521, where it’s less than the average, or at least was in 2005.
Basically there are reasons to use single deckers even if you don’t use bendies. The only problem is that there aren’t a lot of rigid single deckers on busy London routes, they tend to be on smaller routes. There’ll have to be a sizeable buy of a new type of bus to replace the 28 bendies on those two routes. Something like the non-articulated Citaro would do, which has 32 seats and capacity for 74 standing. Cue Gilligan spitting out his porridge.
Two sizeable single deckers will therefore have a higher capacity than one bendy, but obviously take up rather more space and an extra driver.