Boris’s latest attempt not to answer the Shawcross Question is too funny:
Do you regret falsely claiming that bendy buses “wipe out cyclists, there are many cyclists killed every year by them”? – Valerie Shawcross
I think it is odd that there are still defenders of a bus that is more polluting, more dangerous to cyclists and lost £12m in fare evasion last year.
Boriswatchers should note the following:
- No attempt is made to treat a perfectly reasonable question in a reasonable manner. I’ve seen him give better answers to Barnbrook.
- The natural assumption in the answer is that there are some mysterious ‘defenders’ of a bus rather than this being an attempt to discover why Boris has such a personal aversion to a particular shape of vehicle that he’s willing to lie about it and childishly refuse to admit it when challenged.
Three direct bits of dishonesty:
- First off, the bus is only more polluting if you compare it against vehicles available now. Therefore replacing them with more modern bendies would be the least polluting alternative of the three on offer, as well as the second cheapest. There are other routes with more polluting buses that could usefully use an injection of cash, say to buy hybrids. Instead, of course, Boris is effectively spending £70m to allow more cars into central London. So he can’t pose as Mr. Green, can he? In any case, he’s making a virtue out of European emissions standards legislation here, which is not something we usually expect from him. Hey, why not put the money the money into trialling that new hybrid bendy Mercedes were pushing?
- Secondly, the danger to cyclists from bendy buses is, as we’ve seen, negligible compared to HGVs. Boris, of course, is quite happy to let 30,000 vehicles into London’s WEZ and has cut back on the London Cycle Network, scrapped the Parliament Square scheme (which is described by TfL as dangerous to cyclists), allowed motorbikes into bus lanes and has shown so little interest in the views of the cycle groups that they’re getting increasingly concerned with his attitude. Off the back of that, it takes real rhino hide to pose as the cyclist’s safety champion. Get real, chummy.
- Lastly, I can’t believe they’re still using the fare evasion one. Listen up – there’s fare evasion on conventional buses, too, so you don’t magically get £12m back in your pocket annually by scrapping bendies, even if the scrapping wasn’t drawn out over six years. If reducing fare evasion was really behind the policy, you’d prioritise the routes with the *most* fare evasion, not the *least*. Since Boris is indeed debendifying the routes with the least fare evasion first (507 and 521), his reasoning does not include reducing fare evasion, but is just about meeting a manifesto commitment in the least expensive way. The only route of the first three that might see an appreciable reduction in fare evasion, the 38, is actually being delayed, presumably because there’s a lot of work involved in debendifying a route which involves moving to the highest PVR in London and someone funding 70+ new vehicles during a credit crunch. If Boris wants to reduce fare evasion*, I suggest he looks at extending London Overground, where, although fare evasion is still higher than the buses, it’s reduced massively since they were brought under TfL control. In any case, fare evasion on bendies was reducing, and its contribution to overall fare evasion is small.
Against this backdrop, our story that bendy buses are actually rather better value for money than the alternative has finally made the mainstream. What’s amazing is that it’s in the Evening Standard, it’s using original journalistic research and it isn’t done by leading bendy jihadist Andrew Gilligan. They even published my comment, complete with none-too-subtle dig at the previous fact-free orthodoxy. Wonders never cease.
The story comes from perusing Arriva’s annual report, which contains this nugget:
In 2008, year-on-year mileage growth of five per cent was achieved. An excellent level of contract retention was maintained for all work retendered in 2008. In particular, we were pleased to retain the high profile route 38, on which the substitution of double deckers for articulated buses has added 24 per cent to the contracted mileage.
In other words, this particular bus company is doing nicely out of debendification, and Boris is now officially implementing a policy that takes money out of public transport and boosts the profits of private bus companies. The Standard goes so far as to translate the 24% rise in mileage to a 24% rise in fees, which is stretching it a little – our figures put the 38 bendy premium at 21% – but obviously there’s a reduction in off-peak capacity to be taken into account. There’s evidence to suggest that the retender price for bendies was based on a higher mileage than the current contract, and thus a higher cost (and a higher capacity), which may be where the difference comes in.
All in all, this suggests a Mayor so desperate to avoid having to defend his policy on the merits that he’s resorting to the old campaign slogans and hoping no one picks him on up them. Fat chance. The rules of the game have changed, Mr. Mayor.
* Fare evasion by mode is suggested at here and here. Summary: bus fare evasion rates reduced from 3.9% in 2007 to 3.19% and then 2.8% in the most recent statistics. A lot of that reduction seems to have come from reducing evasion rates on bendy buses (9.4% to 8.6%), although it’s still higher than OPO buses. This probably needs its own post (not least because Richard Tracey’s got interested in it), although it’s been obvious for a while that debendification doesn’t remotely pay for itself from reducing fare evasion.
Tags: 19 Comments
19 responses so far ↓
What a maggot.
That’s a good way to encourage cycling, telling cyclists that bendy buses are dangerous with no evidence whatsoever to back up this claim…
It was quite interesting to see the (entirely unscientific) survey results of last night’s PQT audience regarding bendies – 2/3 in favour of ditching them.
Bit of an uphill struggle ahead if we need to convince the people of Greater London that bendies are actually appropriate on some routes…
I wonder how many of the audience who voted on bendies have ever actually used one?
True Helen, but if a policy to keep bendies is to ever be viable, even those who don’t use them need to be convinced of their benefits…
I’d love them to bendify some of the routes near me – the buses are always crammed on the ground floor with people making 3-4 stop hops, and empty on top.
[...] it’s the weekend, and without wanting to overshadow any of the proper posts below, here’s a caption competition featuring a screen capture from this evening’s BBC [...]
[...] once thought bendy buses kill cyclists. Boris now thinks they’re ‘more dangerous‘ to cyclists. Boris (and driver and motorcyclist Kulveer Ranger, who’s seemingly much [...]
Funny how our Val isn’t so worked up about Ken’s assertion that more people were killed on Routemasters, which turned out to be, er, untrue.
Moreover, the de-bendification was in Boris 2008 manifesto.
The de-Routemasterisation was not in Ken’s 2004 manifesto.
The upshot is that the de-bendification has democracy behind it.
newsed1: Would you like to hazard a guess as to how many people voted for Boris because they agreed with the contents of his entire manifesto which they had read from cover to cover, and how many voted for him because he wasn’t Ken Livingstone and had a chance of winning?
I’m not convinced there’s much of a genuine eagerness among the general public for any of Boris’s policies, which is why I’m glad consultations exist to test his policies out and find out whether democracy really is behind them.
Shame he’s not having one for bus passengers to give him feedback on what they think of bendies, isn’t it? Almost as if he thinks democracy *doesn’t* support his policy.
“Would you like to hazard a guess as to how many people voted for Boris because they agreed with the contents of his entire manifesto which they had read from cover to cover,”
That’s rather patronizing of you to second guess why people voted as they did. They voted for reasons that are none of your business. The only pertinent fact about the election is that Boris Johnson won.
Good.
“which is why I’m glad consultations exist to test his policies out and find out whether democracy really is behind them.”
Me too. Goodbye western extension of the congestion charge.
“Shame he’s not having one for bus passengers to give him feedback on what they think of bendies, isn’t it?”
Not really. The people who subsidize bus travel through their taxes (including the CC tax), have an opinion too. Happily democracy is more than just listening to people who agree with you — as the rest of Labour Party is going to find out real soon.
newsed1 made substantive points both here and elsewhere. I note you didn’t want to address any of them.
I’m not sure why it’s more patronising for *me* to second-guess people’s motivation for voting than it is for newsed1 to do so. Oh, wait, yes I am – it’s because you agree with him and disagree with me.
As has been done to death elsewhere the statistically representative part (i.e. not the bit made up of those sufficiently riled to bother seeking out a survey) of the consultation on the western CC extension showed slightly more people wanting to retain it in some form than to abolish it, but that doesn’t fit the narrative so is being ignored – democracy in action, eh?
Are you seriously saying the opinions about buses of non-bus users should not be given less weight than those of bus users just because they subsidise them? That’s quite a weird point of view in my opinion but it’s yours and you’re sticking with it so I won’t continue with that argument.
I haven’t addressed ’substantive points’ (other than, er, the one I have addressed, about democracy) because I don’t know one way or another about their truth and I prefer not to wade in to discussing things I don’t know about, particularly not when the internet is full of people who do know about them and could turn up at any moment and provide far better discussion of them. Would you rather I just wrote any old rubbish for the sake of having a raging argument?
“As has been done to death elsewhere the statistically representative part (i.e. not the bit made up of those sufficiently riled to bother seeking out a survey) of the consultation on the western CC extension showed slightly more people wanting to retain it in some form than to abolish it, but that doesn’t fit the narrative so is being ignored – democracy in action, eh?”
For as long as the dreary lefty lobby indulges in this incredibly boring spin, they won’t deserve to be taken seriously. You are quoting the “attitudinal survey”. The consultation — which I think is what we were talking about — was overwhelmingly against the extension. This disingenuous nonsense that the consultation must have been somehow skewed by car-loving militant headcases (or something), is entirely fallacious. For one, part of the purpose of the consultation is to elicit strong views, and for two — what is the logical basis for assuming there are more car-LOVING headcases than car-HATING headcases (like the one who introduced the CC tax), other than their numbers are representative of the general population?
“Are you seriously saying the opinions about buses of non-bus users should not be given less weight than those of bus users just because they subsidise them? That’s quite a weird point of view in my opinion but it’s yours and you’re sticking with it so I won’t continue with that argument.”
Not only do they subsidize them, they share the road with them.
I was saying everyone’s opinion should be heard. I think you were arguing for a consultation of only bus users, or of just your friends or or or ee-or.
“Would you rather I just wrote any old rubbish for the sake of having a raging argument?”
You can write any old rubbish, or even your own preferred brand of rubbish, but I think you, and the authors of this blog, would serve their cause more effectively if you’d quit the dreary, self-important, student politics, posturing and grandstanding, and revert to honest debate.
I can’t understand you dreary right-wingers, AppealingofEaling.
Aside from the (surprising?) fact that if you pitch a consultation to try and get one side of the argument, the response will be skewed that way (as indicated by the representative referendum part of the consultation), I thought you guys believed in markets.
To play devils advocate a moment, road space is currently allocated by queuing. Isn’t that how the old Soviet republics used to distribute goods? In the 1980s and 1990s we were always told by right-wingers that we can’t have efficiency without putting the right price on things and giving people the right incentives. Yes, some people lose, but a small price to pay for efficiency – the economy as a whole gains.
Why is road space a special case that you believe should be allocated by queuing?
Or should we extend these new “right-wing” principles to utilities, housing, food and other areas of the economy too, renationalise a lot of the economy and reverse Thatcher’s reforms?
“I can’t understand…..”
Yes, that would be self-evident.
“Aside from the (surprising?) fact that if you pitch a consultation”
How and when was that done? Be specific.
“To play devils advocate a moment…
…do spare us please
“…road space is currently allocated by queuing. Isn’t that how the old Soviet republics used to distribute goods?”
Profound.
When bus users start paying, in their fares, the full cost of their bus service, instead of being subsidized by the very people with whom they compete for “road space”, then we can discuss premium access to the roads. As it is, bus users ALREADY enjoy privileged access to the roads — bus lanes.
By your argument, they should be paying more for that. But they don’t.
And they’re still ungrateful.
AppealingofEaling,
I see – so you’d agree with road pricing if bus users had to pay higher bus fares?
“I see – so you’d agree with road pricing if bus users had to pay higher bus fares?”
I wouldn’t rule it out — if there was definitely a demonstrable need for it, and if all road users would be treated fairly and equally.
Comrade Kenski used transport policy to inflict a wretched social engineering programme on ordinary Londoners — punishing one type of unsuspecting road user to reward another. Now, I know lefties just can’t help themselves from nannying and bossing and interfering and making lots of dumb rules for OTHER people to follow, but these are not the things that made our city great.
Appealing,
Nice to see such a principled attitude. BTW what do you think will happen if you stop subsidising buses? Lower frequency services and unprofitable (i.e. suburban and night bus) services get cut. More cars on the road. And you might struggle to fund the bendy jihad, especially with all the other revenue that the Mayor has chosen to let go.
Enjoy your car-choked Kensington, and the fun of gridlock conditions and additional air pollution that comes with an additional 40,000 cars travelling in the zone every day (p19 http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/sixth-annual-impacts-monitoring-report-2008-07.pdf). Or do you think an additional 40,000 cars might reduce congestion? Or everything will be ok if you just stopped subsidising buses and made pedestrians run across the road?
Appealing,
Nice to see such a principled attitude. BTW what do you think will happen if you stop subsidising buses? Lower frequency services and unprofitable (i.e. suburban and night bus) services get cut. More cars on the road. And you might struggle to fund the bendy jihad, especially with all the other revenue that the Mayor has chosen to let go.
Enjoy your car-choked Kensington, and the fun of gridlock conditions and additional air pollution that comes with an additional 40,000 cars travelling in the zone every day (p19 from the TfL 6th Annual Monitoring report. Or do you think an additional 40,000 cars might reduce congestion? Or everything will be ok if you just stopped subsidising buses and made pedestrians run across the road?
I am from zurich ( so pls apologize my bad english) and last since i visited my relatives in london and stay theyre for a few days. im a great fan of london transport specially the underground… with regret i followed the discusions about the bendy buses, that you dont seem to like very much, well let my just tell you my opinion; offcourse one can not see as much of the city as in the dobbledeckers, and they may be dangerous for cyclists… probably its because you are not use to them in london, offcourse they should not be driven backwards, for example in depots… well all over europe theyre used succesfully, and in zurich and also geneva and several german citys we eaven have electric double bendy-buses, named ‘light tram’ lock here;
http://www.hess-ag.ch/index.php?id=260
Cyclist killed by bendy bus
http://crapwalthamforest.blogspot.com/2009/12/cyclist-killed-by-bendy-bus.html
http://www.birminghammail.net/news/birmingham-news/2009/12/09/cyclist-dies-after-being-trapped-under-bus-in-birmingham-city-centre-97319-25356204/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/8405460.stm