I see Boris has ordered another 195 Boris buses before the end of his
mayoral term:
https://www.london.gov.uk/press-rele...rthern-ireland

The press release gives the strong impression that Boris is campaigning for
votes all over the UK...

On Tue, 01 Mar 2016 22:02:22 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:

On Mon, 29 Feb 2016 17:11:18 -0000 (UTC), Recliner
wrote:

I see Boris has ordered another 195 Boris buses before the end of his
mayoral term:
https://www.london.gov.uk/press-rele...rthern-ireland

The press release gives the strong impression that Boris is campaigning for
votes all over the UK...

Monstrous waste of money and a particularly grotesque decision in his
final weeks in office. Let's hope whoever is Mayor next cancels the
order.

Will you get to see bendy buses on the streets of London again?

--
jhk

On Wed, 02 Mar 2016 23:27:16 +0000
Paul Corfield wrote:
On Wed, 02 Mar 2016 22:45:13 +0100, Jarle Hammen Knudsen
Will you get to see bendy buses on the streets of London again?

Doubtful and to be honest it's not important.

That depends on who you are. Bendy buses were a lot friendlier to the disabled
and people with pushchairs than any sort of double decker. Something the
europeans - and Ken Livingstone for all his other faults - seem to have grasped
but completely sailed past Boris. Or he didn't give a **** being too busy
stroking his ego creating his "legacy".

campaign) knows that too. Hence all the focus on attacking that
particular policy and deliberate vagueness about Zac Goldsmith's own
policy on fares.

Goldsmith is the definition of vague. Frankly its a **** poor show from all
the main parties. You'd think they were putting forward candidates for the
major of bognor regis, not western europes largest and richest city.

Unfortunately I think we are going to see the partial destruction of
Central London's bus network off the back of pedestrianising Oxford

Something needs to be done about Oxford street. The river of virtually empty
red buses crawling along in both directions at 10mph no matter what time of
day means something is seriously broken.

St. All the candidates support it and believe Crossrail will be some
sort of cure all. They are wrong. It has also been reported that TfL
have apparently decided that Central London is no longer a priority
for investment so what money there is will go to the suburbs and
capacity will be lost in Zone 1. Oddly I can't recall where the
public were asked if they supported this fundamental change in policy.

Suburbs? They're going beyond that. They want to hoover up some of the
services into rural kent & surrey too. Why politicians think slapping an
Overground roundal on a 375 will suddenly cure all the signal failures and
train issues is anyones guess.

--
Spud

On 2016-03-03 10:22:00 +0000, d said:

Something needs to be done about Oxford street. The river of virtually empty
red buses crawling along in both directions at 10mph no matter what time of
day means something is seriously broken.

If the buses have to stay, banning taxis and pedicabs would be a start.
The black cab is the biggest form of disruption to the bus network of
central London going. They stop where they like and cause significant
delay.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

On Thu, 3 Mar 2016 10:31:17 +0000
Neil Williams wrote:
On 2016-03-03 10:22:00 +0000, d said:

Something needs to be done about Oxford street. The river of virtually empty
red buses crawling along in both directions at 10mph no matter what time of
day means something is seriously broken.

If the buses have to stay, banning taxis and pedicabs would be a start.
The black cab is the biggest form of disruption to the bus network of
central London going. They stop where they like and cause significant
delay.

They certainly can be cavalier with the rules of the road. Whether they're have
a big effect on buses on oxford street I don't know. I suspect the main issue
is the sheer number of buses themselves. Far too many routes going down one
street.

--
Spud

On 2016-03-03 10:53:48 +0000, d said:

They certainly can be cavalier with the rules of the road. Whether they're have
a big effect on buses on oxford street I don't know. I suspect the main issue
is the sheer number of buses themselves. Far too many routes going down one
street.

Agreed there. The other aspect of the German approach is that there
are very rarely duplications of routes.

People happily change trains on the Tube, it's normal practice, even
though they have to walk far further than between two adjacent bus
stops when they do. If we packed in the archaic practice of
deprecating the changing of buses by charging a double fare when you
do, we could design a central London bus network that complemented the
Tube and was comprehensive and simple to understand.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

On 2016-03-02 23:27:16 +0000, Paul Corfield said:

Unfortunately I think we are going to see the partial destruction of
Central London's bus network off the back of pedestrianising Oxford
St. All the candidates support it and believe Crossrail will be some
sort of cure all. They are wrong. It has also been reported that TfL
have apparently decided that Central London is no longer a priority
for investment so what money there is will go to the suburbs and
capacity will be lost in Zone 1. Oddly I can't recall where the
public were asked if they supported this fundamental change in policy.

I'm afraid I agree with the proposal - Oxford St is at times a horrible
place to be, and it would be much nicer if it was pedestrianised. I'd
cope with a tram running up and down every 5-10 minutes, but other than
that it is the epitome of the oppressive feel of much of London caused
by the predominance of large, often aggressively-driven vehicles.
Though I'd admit that builders' lorries are far worse.

Along similar lines, I don't get the Edinburgh hate for the tram
network idea (other than its appalling project mismanagement). Princes
St is oppressive with the number of buses running up and down it at all
times of day. I like Lothian as an operator, but it really isn't
becoming of a European capital city in 2016.

I also, as you're aware, agree with the idea that the primary purpose
of buses should be to run outside central London taking people to/from
railway stations. I do accept that some parallel running is needed,
but that should be limited to where capacity on the rail network is
inadequate.

I also don't like the "first and second class" nature of bus vs Tube.
It should be one fare set for a journey on TfL, regardless of what mode
or combinations thereof are used. If that causes certain groups
economic difficulties, then a concessionary scheme for travel on the
whole network, not just buses, needs to be looked at.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

On Thu, 3 Mar 2016 10:24:28 +0000
Neil Williams wrote:
Along similar lines, I don't get the Edinburgh hate for the tram
network idea (other than its appalling project mismanagement). Princes
St is oppressive with the number of buses running up and down it at all
times of day. I like Lothian as an operator, but it really isn't
becoming of a European capital city in 2016.

The scots love to moan. Edinburgh could do with a proper metro, never mind
a tram.

I also don't like the "first and second class" nature of bus vs Tube.
It should be one fare set for a journey on TfL, regardless of what mode
or combinations thereof are used. If that causes certain groups

Which unless you start zoning the buses would mean a flat fare on the tube
which I've advocated for years.

--
Spud

On 2016-03-03 10:52:27 +0000, d said:

Which unless you start zoning the buses would mean a flat fare on the tube
which I've advocated for years.

It'd probably be easier to flatten the Tube fares a bit than to remove
Zones entirely because of the issue of places like Amersham. But you
could go to say 3 or even 2 rather than 6 zones, which is how Hamburg
mostly was before the Verbundtarif area expanded (the new area would be
the equivalent of London fares applying throughout the South East and
thus does need more zoning).

Looking at a map I can see that having zones 1-4 as the "City Zone",
5-6 as "City Plus Zone" and 7-9 as "Country Zone" would probably do it
in terms of the number of graduations of fare actually needed.

The effect of that on buses would be negligible even if the lower of
the fares always applied for a bus-only journey, because who on earth
takes the bus from Amersham to central London?

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

On 03/03/2016 10:24, Neil Williams wrote:
On 2016-03-02 23:27:16 +0000, Paul Corfield said:

Unfortunately I think we are going to see the partial destruction of
Central London's bus network off the back of pedestrianising Oxford
St. All the candidates support it and believe Crossrail will be some
sort of cure all. They are wrong. It has also been reported that TfL
have apparently decided that Central London is no longer a priority
for investment so what money there is will go to the suburbs and
capacity will be lost in Zone 1. Oddly I can't recall where the
public were asked if they supported this fundamental change in policy.

I'm afraid I agree with the proposal - Oxford St is at times a horrible
place to be, and it would be much nicer if it was pedestrianised. I'd
cope with a tram running up and down every 5-10 minutes, but other than
that it is the epitome of the oppressive feel of much of London caused
by the predominance of large, often aggressively-driven vehicles. Though
I'd admit that builders' lorries are far worse.

Along similar lines, I don't get the Edinburgh hate for the tram network
idea (other than its appalling project mismanagement). Princes St is
oppressive with the number of buses running up and down it at all times
of day. I like Lothian as an operator, but it really isn't becoming of
a European capital city in 2016.

The implementation of Edinburgh Trams was a nightmare in the city centre
(even worse for Leith Walk as they had all the disruption of utilty
works but ended up with no tram service)

The whole thing was mired in partisan party-politics from the start -
it's political poison in Edinburgh now

We also seem to have bought the slowest trams on the planet. Compared
with trams I've experienced in Vienna, Prague, Darmstadt, Croydon and
Nottingham they tippy-toe through the city centre. This, combined with
their length (significanltly longer than say Croydon) means they can
cause a noticeable blocking and delay at junctions (although the popular
perception and reporting of this is wildly exaggerated)

Edinburgh's city centre road layout doesn't lend itself well to NOT
running almost everything along Princes Street or George Street.
The key routes into the city centre all converge at opposite ends of the
New Town. There are not many East-West and North-South through routes.
You could run more buses on George Street but I think you'd end up with
2 streets full of buses with poor interchange



I also, as you're aware, agree with the idea that the primary purpose of
buses should be to run outside central London taking people to/from
railway stations. I do accept that some parallel running is needed, but
that should be limited to where capacity on the rail network is inadequate.

I also don't like the "first and second class" nature of bus vs Tube. It
should be one fare set for a journey on TfL, regardless of what mode or
combinations thereof are used. If that causes certain groups economic
difficulties, then a concessionary scheme for travel on the whole
network, not just buses, needs to be looked at.

Neil