On 03/01/2017 15:31, d wrote:
On Tue, 03 Jan 2017 07:18:22 -0600
wrote:
In article , d () wrote:

It does seem to be history repeating itself. Boris didn't like the
bendies
giving some spurious nonsense about them being a danger to cyclists
(or more likely because they were Kens idea) and now Kahn has decided
the roastmasters are a poor choice. Which to be fair, they are.

Speaking as a cyclist I hated the bendies. They were so long they were very
hard to navigate round and they kept cutting in on one.

So treat them like an HGV. Problem solved. They have them all over europe
without thousands of dead cyclists littering the roads. As someone who has
taken a pushchair on a double decker on number of occasions its a fecking
nightmare - half the bus is out of bounds. God knows what the disabled think of
the bloody things. Quite why we're so wedded to having 2 storey vehicles in
this country is anyones guess.

Wasn't the problem more (from my experience) that the road design in
London is unsuited to large numbers of such long vehicles - ie the
distance between traffic lights and other obstacles to road progress was
not a reasonable multiple of bendies long so if (when!) the service
bunched up or many routes served a road then they caused more congestion
than would reasonably be expected or presented an impediment to progress
- whether that be themselves, other motorists or pedestrians.

That, allied to their reputation as a "free bus" and the consequential
crush loading on certain services (25 anyone?), was what made them
undesirable than the supposed risk to cyclists (which was unproven) and
their flammability (which was fixed and never caused an injury anyway).

On Tue, 3 Jan 2017 16:11:43 +0000
Someone Somewhere wrote:
On 03/01/2017 15:31, d wrote:
So treat them like an HGV. Problem solved. They have them all over europe
without thousands of dead cyclists littering the roads. As someone who has
taken a pushchair on a double decker on number of occasions its a fecking
nightmare - half the bus is out of bounds. God knows what the disabled think
of
the bloody things. Quite why we're so wedded to having 2 storey vehicles in
this country is anyones guess.

Wasn't the problem more (from my experience) that the road design in
London is unsuited to large numbers of such long vehicles - ie the
distance between traffic lights and other obstacles to road progress was
not a reasonable multiple of bendies long so if (when!) the service
bunched up or many routes served a road then they caused more congestion
than would reasonably be expected or presented an impediment to progress
- whether that be themselves, other motorists or pedestrians.

Possibly. OTOH they carried ~150 passengers compared to about 80 on a DD and
they weren't close to being twice as long, so they carried more passengers per
metre of road space used.

That, allied to their reputation as a "free bus" and the consequential
crush loading on certain services (25 anyone?), was what made them

More random ticket inspections would have sorted that problem. You don't get
mass fare evasion on the gateless DLR because they do frequent checks. But of
course that means hiring people and TfL don't like doing that. Unless its for
management positions of course.

undesirable than the supposed risk to cyclists (which was unproven) and

Quite so. Just lots of lycra louts whining when they found out that riding up
the inside of an articulated vehicle turning left turned out to be a bad idea.
Who knew? (Well, everyone with some basic common sense which excludes a lot
of cyclists it seems).

their flammability (which was fixed and never caused an injury anyway).

And a lot of them ended up happily working in the heat in Malta. Ironic.

--
Spud

wrote:
On Tue, 3 Jan 2017 16:11:43 +0000
Someone Somewhere wrote:
On 03/01/2017 15:31, d wrote:
So treat them like an HGV. Problem solved. They have them all over europe
without thousands of dead cyclists littering the roads. As someone who has
taken a pushchair on a double decker on number of occasions its a fecking
nightmare - half the bus is out of bounds. God knows what the disabled think
of
the bloody things. Quite why we're so wedded to having 2 storey vehicles in
this country is anyones guess.

Wasn't the problem more (from my experience) that the road design in
London is unsuited to large numbers of such long vehicles - ie the
distance between traffic lights and other obstacles to road progress was
not a reasonable multiple of bendies long so if (when!) the service
bunched up or many routes served a road then they caused more congestion
than would reasonably be expected or presented an impediment to progress
- whether that be themselves, other motorists or pedestrians.

Possibly. OTOH they carried ~150 passengers compared to about 80 on a DD and
they weren't close to being twice as long, so they carried more passengers per
metre of road space used.

That, allied to their reputation as a "free bus" and the consequential
crush loading on certain services (25 anyone?), was what made them

More random ticket inspections would have sorted that problem. You don't get
mass fare evasion on the gateless DLR because they do frequent checks. But of
course that means hiring people and TfL don't like doing that. Unless its for
management positions of course.

undesirable than the supposed risk to cyclists (which was unproven) and

Quite so. Just lots of lycra louts whining when they found out that riding up
the inside of an articulated vehicle turning left turned out to be a bad idea.
Who knew? (Well, everyone with some basic common sense which excludes a lot
of cyclists it seems).

their flammability (which was fixed and never caused an injury anyway).

And a lot of them ended up happily working in the heat in Malta. Ironic.

Not happily. They had more fires and were soon taken off the road. They've
new been sent to somewhere hotter still: Sudan.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/trans...s-8788929.html

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles...o-sudan.507334

On 2017-01-03 17:01:14 +0000, Recliner said:

Not happily. They had more fires and were soon taken off the road. They've
new been sent to somewhere hotter still: Sudan.

Luton Airport also seem to have a number of them, with Arriva
interiors, and modified to have doors on both sides.

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

On Tue, 3 Jan 2017 17:01:14 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
wrote:
And a lot of them ended up happily working in the heat in Malta. Ironic.

Not happily. They had more fires and were soon taken off the road. They've
new been sent to somewhere hotter still: Sudan.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles...ses-to-be-ship
ed-to-sudan.507334http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140218/local/bend
-buses-to-be-shipped-to-sudan.507334

"Experts concluded that the fires were caused by the conditions the buses were
subjected to on Malta’s roads, as well as an element of poor maintenance."

I'm guessing the cooling wasn't designed for a hot country and coupled with
cheapskate maintenance and presumably no fix being applied before they were
shipped from London...

Running them in Africa, what could possibly go wrong? Still, the local islamist
nutters may see an opportunity there with self immolating buses.

--
Spud

On 04/01/2017 10:34, d wrote:
On Tue, 3 Jan 2017 17:01:14 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
wrote:
And a lot of them ended up happily working in the heat in Malta. Ironic.

Not happily. They had more fires and were soon taken off the road. They've
new been sent to somewhere hotter still: Sudan.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles...ses-to-be-ship
ed-to-sudan.507334http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140218/local/bend
-buses-to-be-shipped-to-sudan.507334

"Experts concluded that the fires were caused by the conditions the buses were
subjected to on Malta’s roads, as well as an element of poor maintenance."

I'm guessing the cooling wasn't designed for a hot country and coupled with
cheapskate maintenance and presumably no fix being applied before they were
shipped from London...

Running them in Africa, what could possibly go wrong? Still, the local islamist
nutters may see an opportunity there with self immolating buses.

I also note the following concluding line:

In offering the buses for sale, Transport Malta had laid down that they
cannot be returned to Malta’s roads, because of the congestion they caused.

So it's not just London where bendy buses are unwelcome due to congestion...

On Wed, 4 Jan 2017 12:10:33 +0000
Someone Somewhere wrote:
In offering the buses for sale, Transport Malta had laid down that they
cannot be returned to Malta’s roads, because of the congestion they caused.

So it's not just London where bendy buses are unwelcome due to congestion...

What causes more congestion, 2 double deckers or one bendy? I'm guessing you
don't visit Oxford street very often.

--
Spud

On 2017-01-04 12:36:37 +0000, d said:

What causes more congestion, 2 double deckers or one bendy? I'm guessing you
don't visit Oxford street very often.

Oxford Street's transport arrangement is a joke. In a civilised
country it'd have a single tram route and no taxis.

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

On 04/01/2017 12:36, d wrote:
On Wed, 4 Jan 2017 12:10:33 +0000
Someone Somewhere wrote:
In offering the buses for sale, Transport Malta had laid down that they
cannot be returned to Malta’s roads, because of the congestion they caused.

So it's not just London where bendy buses are unwelcome due to congestion...

What causes more congestion, 2 double deckers or one bendy? I'm guessing you
don't visit Oxford street very often.

Why would I? I'm a Londoner and we famously rarely visit the West End...

The sort of issue I was thinking of was around Brixton where there are
several pairings of lights that are about 1.5 bendies or 2 double
deckers apart - a single bendy is fine, but once two try to get through
either the arse end of one ends up blocking the lights/junction or
leaves a large gap in front which is rapidly filled by overtaking
marauding white vans and taxis preventing it making the progress it
could do and leading to congestion behind. From memory there were
similar issues in the Aldgate area.

Yes, HGVs can cause the same issue, but there are a lot more buses
around on certain roads than there are HGVs.

On 2017-01-03 16:11:43 +0000, Someone Somewhere said:

That, allied to their reputation as a "free bus"

I'm not clear why the Bozza bus, which has exactly the same operating
model, isn't also seen that way.

FWIW, the bendy could have been operated as "on at the front, off at
the back" the same as most London deckers. The method of revenue
protection has nothing to do with the type of bus.

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