On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 10:59:02PM +0100, Neil Williams wrote:

The issue is that the UK doesn't invest in its city rail
infrastructure enough[1].

[1] Of course, London has other issues, and providing capacity on the
ageing Tube is hard. But were it a German city, I'm convinced it
would have had several more Thameslinks, Crossrails and possibly even
some trams by now.

Yes, Germany has the great advantage of having been bombed back to the
stone age, so its buildings and other infrastructure have, to a much
larger extent than the UK's, been planned for an age of high population
and mass transit. Germany also has the advantage of being a later
adopter than the UK, so had more chance to learn from our mistakes.

--
David Cantrell | London Perl Mongers Deputy Chief Heretic

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands,
hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -- H. L. Mencken

On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 08:13:04PM +0100, Paul Corfield wrote:

Still waiting to see the proposals for the 73 but the scale of
conversions on the 25 and 29 are huge. The 38's conversion is
completely over the top - the number of buses running round with very
few passengers is nuts. There must have been 6 or possibly 7 deckers in
the bay at Victoria Bus Station at lunchtime. It was never like that
with Routemaster operation

Yes, it was, occasionally. And it was very common to have 4 waiting
there.

and even allowing for patronage growth I
really struggle to see how the level of service on the 38 can be
justified.

It can if you try getting a 38 from Piccadilly Circus to Victoria during
the evening peak.

--
David Cantrell | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

Us Germans take our humour very seriously
-- German cultural attache talking to the Today Programme,
about the German supposed lack of a sense of humour, 29 Aug 2001

On Fri, 17 Sep 2010 11:09:28 +0100
David Cantrell wrote:
That's because you've not been paying attention whenever I (and others)
have pointed out that bendy buses block junctions, holding up other
buses, and a few other problems too.

I'm afraid my attention wanders when I read nonsense.

B2003

On Fri, 17 Sep 2010 11:32:41 +0100
David Cantrell wrote:
Yes, Germany has the great advantage of having been bombed back to the
stone age, so its buildings and other infrastructure have, to a much
larger extent than the UK's, been planned for an age of high population
and mass transit. Germany also has the advantage of being a later
adopter than the UK, so had more chance to learn from our mistakes.

London didn't exactly escape damage in the blitz you know. A lot of the
centre and docklands was wiped out. But in true british fashion most of the
streets were just rebuilt along the old routes and to the same dimensions
instead of taking a long term view.

B2003

On 17 Sep, 12:23, wrote:

London didn't exactly escape damage in the blitz you know. A lot of the
centre and docklands was wiped out. But in true british fashion most of the
streets were just rebuilt along the old routes and to the same dimensions
instead of taking a long term view.

Though this, being above ground, doesn't have all that much influence
on the building of underground railways. And trams for narrow streets
exist.

It is merely conservatism and a lack of willingness to spend money
where it is needed, instead spending it on pet projects that aren't.

Neil

David Cantrell wrote:

Yes, Germany has the great advantage of having been bombed back to the
stone age


I feel sure that any Germans who personally suffered from the
relentless (and apparently rather pointless) destruction of civilian
life during WW2 by RAF and USAF bombs, or whose families were
devastated by it, will be touched by your sympathetic approach to
their plight.

On 17 Sep, 09:47, wrote:
On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 20:13:04 +0100

Paul Corfield wrote:
There is already far more than a couple of million quids worth of bendy
buses lying around. *There is more than that in Ash Grove garage after
the 38 converted. *I don't know where the London General buses went but
only a few have ended up in service elsewhere so they must be in store.

Can someone explain whether the type of bus to be used can actually be
dictated by the mayor given that the routes are run by private companies?

Is there clause in their contracts with TfL saying that you will use the
types of buses we tell you to, or is it more a case of dark hints of contracts
not being renewed if you don't do as we tell you?

If its the latter couldn't all the companies have just given boris 2 fingers
and carried on running the bendies, daring him to sack the the lot of them and
find new ones with enough experience to run all the routes in a city as large
as London?

B2003

I don't like bendys because they are socialist and I am a Tory. Go
figure.

Alternatively, why don't we all stop letting that little pus-rag, the
Standard, rewrite both history and all our opinions?

On Fri, 17 Sep 2010 13:44:28 +0100
Bruce wrote:
David Cantrell wrote:

Yes, Germany has the great advantage of having been bombed back to the
stone age


I feel sure that any Germans who personally suffered from the
relentless (and apparently rather pointless) destruction of civilian
life during WW2 by RAF and USAF bombs, or whose families were
devastated by it, will be touched by your sympathetic approach to
their plight.

I feel sure all the people the germans murdered in a war which they started
and which was supported by most of the population will be touched by your
sympathy for germanys citizens.

B2003

In message , d
writes
We're all pedestrians and I can count on 1 hand the number of times I saw a
bendy bus blocking a crossing in all the years I worked in central london.

But I often see them block junctions, when a bus of regular size would
not. Thus the cause a lot more traffic congestion.

I'm a cyclist, sometimes, but I don't object to bendy-buses because of
their effect on cyclist, but because of what they do to the other
traffic on the road, e.g. holding up buses on intersecting routes.


--
Clive Page

On 16 Sep, 23:02, Paul Corfield wrote:
Lots and lots of bus orders are being delayed already. A great big bow
wave is being created in order to keep costs down in the short term. If
the TfL budget is clobbered come 20th October then I really think full
scale roll out of up to 600 NB4Ls is very unlikely. It would cost tens
of millions of pounds just in capital cost never mind the operating
costs and risks. *If there was any discretionary expenditure I suspect
Boris would go for an expansion of the cycle hire scheme in preference
to NB4Ls. Just my wild guess.


Looking through the TfL projects approvals list, cycle hire extension
is still in there (although the cost has changed from £81.7m to
'commercially confidential'. New Bus For London has not appeared in
recent lists, presumably because the £11.4m already assigned is
sufficient. I conclude from this that there are no concrete plans to
invest TfL money in a rollout yet, regardless of what the hapless
Kulveer Ranger says - given the increasingly tight control on the
purse strings being made by the Commissioner (itself as clear a
warning as you like over the way things are going) the chances of the
tens of millions needed to subsidise recalcitrant operators to run the
things being hidden away are zero.

One other thing - the design will apparently be owned by TfL, possibly
avoiding the state aid/competition issue where other bus manufacturers
would legitimately have a case for suing TfL for excluding them from
the market by first funding Wrightbus to develop the NB4L, then
rigging bus tenders to require a single bus design.

I prefer ADL products, anyway - the new Eclipses on the 237 are
surprisingly horrible.

Tom