Boris Watch

I’ve been a bit remiss in posting various researches that have appeared on other forums, so I’m going to put them here in a big lump.  First off, Red Arrow bus types and capacities over time:
Bus    Seats    Stands    Total    %sts    %stnds    stnds/sts ratio
MBS    25    48    73    34%    66%    1.92
N/nal2    28    46    74    38%    62%    1.64
CitaroG    [...]

A brief round up of online reaction to the 521 debendification over the weekend.  Notably less pro-Boris cheerleading this time round:

DJDarkside: Since when did they scrap the 521 bendy bus from London Bridge? These singleton ones are not cool.

jamiebarry: Well done Boris, replacing the 521 bendy bus with a single decker bus WITH HARDLY ANY [...]

A post worth quoting in its entirety from the Skyscraper City Forums:
–
Red shows districts in local authorities that voted for Ken Livingstone.
Blue shows districts in local authorities that voted for Boris Johnson.
12: Dulwich – Peckham – Walworth – Elephant & Castle – Oxford St
18: Sudbury – Wembley – Harlesden – Paddington – Euston
25: Ilford – [...]

Andrew Gilligan, writing as kennite, ross281, etc., opined that the reason for his hatred of bendy buses was all about the seating capacity:
With only 2,009 seats available in the peak hour, as against 3,960 under the old Routemaster regime,the “new 73” was not better from every angle at all (PX, 2005, as himself)
And because the [...]

Boris has finally grasped what we’ve been saying for a while – sticking to a contract expiry timetable for bendy replacement means 100 or so bendies in service in May 2012, likely more than any species of Routemaster and thus highly politically damaging.  Naturally no stone must be left unturned and no pound unspent to [...]

Boris in a strangely missing press release salvaged from the Google Cache (and saved, in case of shenanigans):
Nine bendy buses running the Waterloo to Victoria route are the first to be replaced. The Mayor also announced that the entire fleet of 396 buses will have left the capital by the end of 2011, four years [...]

Naturally, when Boris’s people embargoed the staggering news that he’s appearing in Eastenders (we weren’t included in an embargo, being Beyond Civilisation in blog terms) we cynical sods wondered if he was burying anything.  So far nothing’s come to light, but there are two things this week that might use a diversion.  First off, the [...]

A few more things from the Routermater trainwreck to add to the pile:

There’s now a requirement to cover up the gap at the back.  This is known to the sane majority of transport observers as a ‘door’.  Nearly 100% of buses have them already, I understand.
Apparently the conductor is now not a conductor, as there [...]

While I was away, the Evening Same Old Low Standard picked up on the imminent debendifications of the 507 and 521 documented here over the past few months, after the 31 spare vehicles were put up for sale.  Keith Ludeman of Go-Ahead, the large bus conglomerate which runs the London General company is also quoted [...]

A serial-hybrid bendy with hub-mounted motors, expected to enter service in late 2009.  B-b-b-but we keep being told that only Boris can save the planet with his new Routemaster. and now the Germans are ahead of us?  Schweinhund!
The support of politicians and the public sector in the form of subsidies is required to make the [...]