On 16 Sep, 15:50, Mizter T wrote:
On Sep 16, 3:05*pm, wrote:

On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 05:57:08 -0700 (PDT)
Mizter T wrote:
there has never been a consensus view amongst cyclists at large (or
indeed even 'militant cyclists', woteva they are) that bendy buses are
a bad thing. Some cyclists dislike them, some don't. Just because

I never said it was all cyclists, but there seems to be a vocal minority
on usenet and in the press who dislike them. I can't think of any other
group who whinge to much about bendies so I can only assume it was pressure
from these sorts of people that persuaded Boris to ditch them. Either that
or he just threw a dart at a list of potential election issues and Bendies was
where it landed.

More the latter me thinks. The notion that anty-bendy 'militant
cyclists' got the issue onto Boris's agenda is just a bit absurd.

There were however various rumblings of discontent about bendy buses
well before Boris came on the scene - it's more a case of him plugging
into that and stoking it. Boris also used bendies as a kind of symbol
of Livingstone's reign - Ken had after all introduced them (or rather
they were introduced under his watch, with his full backing), and as
you know he started to polarise people towards the end, so Team Bozza
played with associating 'evil bendies' with 'evil Ken'. Quite a lot of
the fuss about bendy buses seems to have taken place with people who
didn't use them though, for example the chittering-chattering classes
sometimes far from London, and encouraged by the likes of the Mail and
Telegraph etc, to the extent that their evilness became a given (at
least amongst some).

I had a few ludicrous conversations with non-Londoners who said things
like 'those bendy buses are detestable aren't they?' and then later 'I
bet you're glad Boris is getting rid of those buses', and then seemed
rather taken aback when I demurred from their comfortable little
consensus, and then a little aggravated when I cited my regular use of
them!

That said, I don't wish to pretend that there aren't Londoners who do
use them and do dislike them, *or indeed some bus-travelling Londoners
who actively avoid using them,

Dunno I'd actually go that far. If a 29 and 24 turned up at the same
time I'd get on the 24, but if a 29 turned up alone I'd get the 29.


for there are indeed such folk - MIG is
one such person, but I've got a couple of friends who detest them as
well, though their reasoning has never really seemed totally
satisfactory to me.

Anyhow, whilst I feel their usage on certain select routes is most
appropriate, I suspect their time might be up in London, and arguing
for them is perhaps something of a lost cause now. Just as long as
transport planners of the future realise that there's a whole lot more
to this story than the likely shorthand of 'the failed London bendy
experiment' might suggest - indeed. it's perhaps a useful study in the
interaction of politics and transport.

I suspect I'll use some bus routes rather less once they've been
debendified and journeys take longer.