Much to the dismay of fare dodgers everywhere, Boris Johnson has taken the first steps towards undoing one of the most notorious legacies of his predecessor.
At 00:32 on Saturday, the last no. 507 bendy bus let its passengers off at Waterloo station then went gently into that good night.
And by 2011 all of Ken Livingstone’s cyclist crushing behemoths will be removed from London’s roads.
The controversial 18 metre long vehicles were first introduced by Red Ken in 2001. The mayor hoped they help to ease London’s chronic congestion, but they were beset with problems from the outset.
They were always unpopular as their introduction hastened the demise of the much loved Routemasters. A series of bendy bus fires, and accidents involving the buses and cyclists did little to enamour them to the fare paying public either – although those who don’t like to pay for their transport quickly adopted “Ken’s free bus” as their travel medium of choice. Although it will cost £12 million a year to replace the buses, TFL expects to recoup £5 million a year of that in increased revenue thanks to a reduction in fare evasion.
The buses also played a role in Livingstone’s failure to retain his position as mayor, with Johnson using the promise of their removal as one of the key parts of his election manifesto.
The ever quotable mayor said:
These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rear ends round our corners for the final time. Pedestrians that leapt, cyclists that skidded and drivers that dodged from the path of the 507 will breathe easier this weekend.
Bendy buses on other routes are on borrowed time.
The bendy buses on route 507 will be replaced by specially commissioned twelve metre long single deckers carrying up to 96 people each. The new Routemasters should be on the streets by 2011 when the last of London’s 387 remaining bendy buses (running on routes 12, 18, 25, 29, 38, 73, 149, 207, 436, 453 and 507) will be withdrawn.
Personally, I was never a fan of the bendy buses, not because of any great love of the cramped, out-dated, dangerous Routemasters, just because they never seemed to make much sense.
I could never see how a single floor bus would be an effective solution to congestion, after all these giant buses took up more road space than of the other buses that preceded them – a double decker bendy bus, for all its faults, would at least have crammed more passengers into each square metre of road space.
Strangely, no matter how few people were on them, the 140 passenger capacity beasts also always felt cramped.
The fact that most passengers on the bendy buses felt no need to pay was another source of frustration to me and anyone else stupid enough to actually pay to ride on them.
Goodbye bendy buses, sorry no one loved you.
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