Full gory details here and here:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *SNORT* *TEASPRAY*
It looks like it’s been in a crash (‘An asymmetric design for the front-end completes the futuristic look’ as the furiously spinning GLA press team would have us believe), has a massive grille spoiling one side (hybrids need lots of cooling grilles for batteries, motors and things, the design challenge on a hybrid is making them part of a coherent whole, not slapping them in where the ‘futuristic’ design wonks leave space).
“I expect to eventually have hundreds of these on London’s roads, and for cities around the globe to be beside themselves with envy”
For envy read laughter. This whole story is a triumph of puff over substance that makes even the ArcelorMittal Orbit seem like a sensible piece of cityscape. We’ve got an expensive bus that looks like an inexpensive bus disguised with some cheap bits of design – the glass staircase, the slashed front that’s supposed to remind us of the vanished RM bonnet like the carved stone triglyph on a Greek temple but actually makes the front end look lopsided and the bus look like a Tellytubby after a stroke. Futuristic stuff.
Whatever it is, it’s not a Routemaster. Watch the press lap it up.
Update: More reaction coming in:
- Tory Troll
- Ross Lydall at the Standard (with a not-particularly-robust point)
- 853 say it ain’t no Routemaster
- Pippa Crerar with the official Standard response
- London Reconnections
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*This* is a Routemaster: http://www.eyerevolution.co.uk/blog/routemaster-bus-virtual-tours/
The sound of engine, the upholstery, the old AEC enamelled plaques – the open platform was the least of its attraction.
Oh god, I feel dirty just for saying this, as I hate the whole concept in every way imagineable, and feel it’s an utterly pointless waste of taxpayers money, and I so wanted to be able to snort with derision at the design…but
(whispers) i quite like it
doesn’t change anything though. a nice looking pointless watse of money is still a waste of money.
The bus on the right reminds me of this design: http://www.entertainmentcargo.com/form-busneeds.html
This bus looks considerably longer than the current double deckers. Extra space has obviously been made for 2 (2?!) staircases and slightly increased capacity (10 extra seats).
Boris, as a cyclist, should realise that extra-long vehicles such as this are one of the worst hazards for cyclists in London. I’m sure London’s other road users will also have something to say about the enlarged buses taking up so much more room on the precious little space available on the city’s streets.
David Brown MD Surface Transport “Categorically so, you will never see anything like this amy where else in the world.”
A telling comment?
I thought propoganda of the sort in the borismaster video was supposedly a left wing thing? Was it not telling that Boris himself was not in the video?
Was hoping to see him laid across the bus in nothing but a bikini!
I can imagine him telling the designers “just get it finished I don’t care how it looks” and then realising what a heap of junk it had turned into.
Reminds me of Homer Simpson’s attempt at designing a car http://motortorque.askaprice.com/images/features/428-288/Homer-Simpson-car-21638.jpg
From The First Post:
Jesus Christ, what an aesthetic shitpile. Somebody badly needs to look up “facadism” and “ornament is crime”. Let’s get this clear – it has a door, not an open platform, so you can’t hop on and off – it’s purely ornamental – and it has an upper deck and stairs so it has rather less capacity, worse accessibility, and slower loading times.
Boris’s bullshit nostalgia is going to be imposed painfully on the public for the next x years by the deliberate handicaps imposed on the design. It’s the politics of architecture, all right…
[...] Swinging London rose-tinted spectacles through which the Mayor of London has been urging us to view the latest model of open-platform omnibus. A rifle through the multitudinous volumes of Hansard reveals the realities of travel when such [...]
Yes, I cannot wait to see these monsters on the roads. Here are my first initial design failures.
There are no ‘up’ or ‘down’ stairs – but noticeably there is not enough room to do both simultaneously. At least on a single stair double decker people tend to go down before the bus stops and up onlyonce it starts moving again. A choice for the passenger is likely to result in chaotic scenes.
There is also a slight problem with having 3 doors, but I presume only 1 driver (and no conductor) – this is that it’s hard enough for drivers to see the middle doors on current buses – for ticket jumpers, old people and buggies which become trapped and slow people who don’t get off before the doors close prematurely (to stop the ticket jumpers getting on) . Now will this problem be better – or worse with more doors?
The glass ‘swipe’ at the front actually makes it harder to view – this is the same reason why my cat is black and white across the face and why two tone cars carry a higher insurance premium (because braking the sillouhette is mothers natures
way of hiding it’s creatures)
“An open platform at the rear, shared with the Routemaster of old, which can be closed off at quiet times and which allows the reinstatement of a hop-on hop-off service”
Is this even true?….and who is deciding when the ‘quiet times’ are?
BEst of all it claims to have capacity for 87 – but how many of these are standing? It’s a shame that the promotional video omits going inside the bus, but from the shaded cut outs you can see there are less seats on the top deck – and even less on the bottom (those stairs take up a lot of room). Presuming there are no standing upstairs – then it seems TFL are ‘playing’ with the capacity of this bus.
Apart from the swirly lines and the back end which looks like a pendolino – isn’t it just one of these with an extra door?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/London_Bus_route_452.jpg
Never mind however – I seem to have stumbled across this website which shows a sneak preview of the inside (and what a preview!)
Does anyone speak Spanish (or is it Italian)? – Are they saying “Those stoopid Engleesh have let their bufoom clown mayor design a new bus – how did we ever let them build an empire!”
http://www.autoalias.com/london-bus-la-propuesta-multifuncional-de-hugh-frost/
[...] under the seats on the bendy buses. The group rights agenda. But the interesting thing about the Borisbus is that in a sense, it bears Dean Godson and Andy Gilligan out – design and architecture are, [...]