Boris admits bendy-buses are safe - but he'll axe them anyway
 

On Oct 22, 12:23*am, wrote:
"Serious incidents are defined by TfL as those where a cyclist may
have required treatment, including in hospital. There was one serious
incident involving a cyclist in each of the years 2005/06 and 2006/07,
and two in 2007/08."

http://www.london.gov.uk/assembly/as...t15/minutes/wr
itten_answers.pdf

In other words, the data collated by TfL and accepted by the mayor
clearly shows that bendy buses are not dangerous for cyclists.

Those figures read dangerous to me. How many bendies are there and how
many accidents involving other buses are there, and how many of them are
there?

Hmm. There were 819 serious cyclist accidents in 07/08, so bendies are
responsible for a whopping 0.25% of the total.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa...les/article.do

Breaking accident rates down into bendies versus regular buses doesn't
really make sense, as a) the figures are so low they'll be massively
skewed by noise and b) bendies are used on the busiest routes in the
centre of town.

I hate bendies because they are just too long to mix with other traffic.

Based on what evidence?

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

Boris admits bendy-buses are safe - but he'll axe them anyway
 

On 22 Oct, 00:08, John B wrote:
I'm deeply sceptical, although it's possible that the people you spoke
to were idiots. In real life, bendies provide a much better service
than other buses on a given route.

He did say they "weren't very popular". What he didn't say was whether
those same people thought replacing them with normal double deckers
would fix anything.

U

Boris admits bendy-buses are safe - but he'll axe them anyway
 

On Oct 22, 12:38*am, Mr Thant
wrote:
I'm deeply sceptical, although it's possible that the people you spoke
to were idiots. In real life, bendies provide a much better service
than other buses on a given route.

He did say they "weren't very popular". What he didn't say was whether
those same people thought replacing them with normal double deckers
would fix anything.

Fair point, although 'popular' only has any relevance at all when
compared to plausible alternatives (so if bendies weren't very popular
compared to, say, gold-plated Rolls-Royces, or double deckers that
weren't rammed so full you'd need to wait for three to pass before you
could get on one, then that's entirely irrelevant).

I lived in Finsbury Park when the 29 got bendified. It went from being
a route where you'd have two or more double deckers go past you in the
morning too full to stop, to a bus which - although always well-
loaded, and relatively rarely endowed with many seats - you could
still always get on. Compared to that fact, none of the other criteria
matter in the slightest.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

Boris admits bendy-buses are safe - but he'll axe them anyway
 

On 22 Oct, 00:47, John B wrote:
Fair point, although 'popular' only has any relevance at all when
compared to plausible alternatives

Well the comparison point is the non-bendy routes that people use,
which generally are more pleasant. The mistake is to think that the
bendy routes would suddenly be more pleasant if only they were
converted to double decker, which as you say, is not the case.

U

Boris admits bendy-buses are safe - but he'll axe them anyway
 

In article
,
(John B) wrote:

I hate bendies because they are just too long to mix with other
traffic.

Based on what evidence?

Trying to get along Euston Road from King's Cross station to turn left
into Judd Street before and after the 73 became a bendy route. Observation
of the Cambridge Circus junction.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Boris admits bendy-buses are safe - but he'll axe them anyway
 

On Oct 22, 1:13*am, wrote:
In article
,

(John B) wrote:
I hate bendies because they are just too long to mix with other
traffic.

Based on what evidence?

Trying to get along Euston Road from King's Cross station to turn left
into Judd Street before and after the 73 became a bendy route. Observation
of the Cambridge Circus junction.

And experience of a whole load of other blocked junctions, blocked
crossings and uncomfortable journeys.

I don't understand why people's dislike, based on personal experience,
requires statistical evidence (any more than my dislike of brussels
sprouts requires statistical evidence) or should be bizarrely
dismissed as the product some kind of dodgy campaign.

(No doubt if Boris ever mentions Pendolinos, it will retrospectively
explain my hatred of them from the first time I travelled in one.)

Boris admits bendy-buses are safe - but he'll axe them anyway
 

On Oct 22, 8:20*am, MIG wrote:
On Oct 22, 1:13*am, wrote:

In article
,

(John B) wrote:
I hate bendies because they are just too long to mix with other
traffic.

Based on what evidence?

Trying to get along Euston Road from King's Cross station to turn left
into Judd Street before and after the 73 became a bendy route. Observation
of the Cambridge Circus junction.

And experience of a whole load of other blocked junctions, blocked
crossings and uncomfortable journeys.

Its a fair point, but how is that going to improve when they have to
run 40% more buses to get even vaguely the same capacity on the
routes?

Well the comparison point is the non-bendy routes that people use,
which generally are more pleasant. The mistake is to think that the
bendy routes would suddenly be more pleasant if only they were
converted to double decker, which as you say, is not the case.

This to me is the pertinent point that always seems to get lost in the
noise of the London Rags.

The majority of REGULAR commuters who use the bendy routes (a group
that includes my Missus who uses the 38) are, in my experience, more
than happy with them and dreading the inevitable change. They may not
be perfect but they are decidedly better than the full double deckers
that used to thunder past the bus stops.

Obviously the plural of "anecdote" is not "data" but, as the last
Travelwatch piece on the matter pointed out, actually speaking to
those who use the services regularly wouldn't be a bad place to start
if you're trying to get a fair assessment of their success (or
failure).

Quite frankly I tend to find (not here, but in general) that a lot of
the criticism the bendies get comes from people who've never even been
on one (let alone used them regularly), and whose vision of how London
buses should be involves Butler driving a Routemaster with Blakey
hanging off the back.

Boris admits bendy-buses are safe - but he'll axe them anyway
 

wrote:
In article


Those figures read dangerous to me. How many bendies are there and how
many accidents involving other buses are there, and how many of them are
there?


339 in intensive daily service, many 24 hours a day, so as John points
out, given the tiny number of serious incidents there's a large margin
for error - one cyclist killed by a bendy tomorrow would skew the
figures enormously, which in itself suggest they aren't dangerous.

The death toll of cyclists rose last year to 19, incidentally. Lorries
seem to be the big killers. According to TfL:

"Every year, more than half of all cyclist deaths on London's roads
follow a collision with a goods vehicle."

"In 2006, nine of the 19 cyclists who died on London's roads were
involved in a collision with a goods vehicle. Provisional data from the
Metropolitan Police Service for 2007 indicates that nine out of the 16
cyclists who died on London's roads last year were involved in a
collision with a goods vehicle."

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...hive/7695.aspx

Which is more dangerous, a type of vehicle that kills nearly ten
cyclists a year or one that hasn't killed anyone in six years?

The bendy replacement plans currently available*, apart from being
expensive, result in far more buses on the street. I don't think the
figures of accidents per million miles are adjusted for bus capacity, in
which case the replacements are actually likely to have more accidents
purely because of the increased mileage (along with using more fuel and
employing more drivers and generally costing more to operate).

The main point is still 'who told Boris they squished cyclists, or did
he just make it up?'.

Tom

* 3 for 2 replacement with 12m single deckers on the 507/521 Red Arrows,
7 for 5 replacement with double deckers on the 38. One of the Red Arrow
routes would have something insane like a bus timetabled every 120
seconds to keep capacity up. I'm half-convinced they're drawing up the
plans to show Boris his ideas are wrong, in a Serpell Report kind of way.

Boris admits bendy-buses are safe - but he'll axe them anyway
 

On 22 Oct, 10:56, Tom Barry wrote:
wrote:
In article

Those figures read dangerous to me. How many bendies are there and how
many accidents involving other buses are there, and how many of them are
there?

339 in intensive daily service, many 24 hours a day, so as John points
out, given the tiny number of serious incidents there's a large margin
for error - one cyclist killed by a bendy tomorrow would skew the
figures enormously, which in itself suggest they aren't dangerous.

The death toll of cyclists rose last year to 19, incidentally. *Lorries
seem to be the big killers. *According to TfL:

"Every year, more than half of all cyclist deaths on London's roads
follow a collision with a goods vehicle."

"In 2006, nine of the 19 cyclists who died on London's roads were
involved in a collision with a goods vehicle. Provisional data from the
Metropolitan Police Service for 2007 indicates that nine out of the 16
cyclists who died on London's roads last year were involved in a
collision with a goods vehicle."

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...hive/7695.aspx

Which is more dangerous, a type of vehicle that kills nearly ten
cyclists a year or one that hasn't killed anyone in six years?

The bendy replacement plans currently available*, apart from being
expensive, result in far more buses on the street. *I don't think the
figures of accidents per million miles are adjusted for bus capacity, in
which case the replacements are actually likely to have more accidents
purely because of the increased mileage (along with using more fuel and
employing more drivers and generally costing more to operate).

The main point is still 'who told Boris they squished cyclists, or did
he just make it up?'.

The vehicle that collides isn't necessarily the one that caused the
collision. Maybe overtaking bendys puts cyclists in the path of
lorries. Maybe people who have to walk in the middle of the road when
the crossing is blocked by a bendy get hit by a motorbike.

Boris admits bendy-buses are safe - but he'll axe them anyway
 

On 22 Oct, 10:54, wrote:
On Oct 22, 8:20*am, MIG wrote:





On Oct 22, 1:13*am, wrote:

In article
,

(John B) wrote:
I hate bendies because they are just too long to mix with other
traffic.

Based on what evidence?

Trying to get along Euston Road from King's Cross station to turn left
into Judd Street before and after the 73 became a bendy route. Observation
of the Cambridge Circus junction.

And experience of a whole load of other blocked junctions, blocked
crossings and uncomfortable journeys.

Its a fair point, but how is that going to improve when they have to
run 40% more buses to get even vaguely the same capacity on the
routes?

Well the comparison point is the non-bendy routes that people use,
which generally are more pleasant. The mistake is to think that the
bendy routes would suddenly be more pleasant if only they were
converted to double decker, which as you say, is not the case.

This to me is the pertinent point that always seems to get lost in the
noise of the London Rags.

The majority of REGULAR commuters who use the bendy routes (a group
that includes my Missus who uses the 38) are, in my experience, more
than happy with them and dreading the inevitable change. They may not
be perfect but they are decidedly better than the full double deckers
that used to thunder past the bus stops.

Obviously the plural of "anecdote" is not "data" but, as the last
Travelwatch piece on the matter pointed out, actually speaking to
those who use the services regularly wouldn't be a bad place to start
if you're trying to get a fair assessment of their success (or
failure).

Quite frankly I tend to find (not here, but in general) that a lot of
the criticism the bendies get comes from people who've never even been
on one (let alone used them regularly), and whose vision of how London
buses should be involves Butler driving a Routemaster with Blakey
hanging off the back.- Hide quoted text -



Travelling between Trafalgar Square and Camden Town is better on a 24
than on a 29. I know people who let the 29 go in the hope that a 24
will turn up, and I've done so myself at times.

Similarly where there is a choice of 36/436 or 53/453 etc.