Transport in London is shit

If it's to keep up the frequency they're not doing a v good job of it on some routes

THAT'S RIGHT 63, I MEAN YOU

I agree with you - though it's not always easy to be precise about how long a route will take, especially at busy times.

Seems like I'm being a TFL apologist today, which is not my normal look.

xpost aw the dear old 63's not so bad. Helps if you're on a bit of the route which overlaps with the 363, obv.

http://img.u.tv/galleries/777/620x349/Wrightbus_London_27022012.jpg

"We will now pass the best designs and concepts on to bus manufacturers, so they can be developed into final design proposals. A competitive tendering process will then determine to which company we award the final contract to build the new bus for London. This should be decided by the end of next year. The first prototype of the new bus will be on the streets of London by 2011."

Looking forward to taking a ride on one of these tomorrow, although I believe there are only eight of them in service to begin with.

One. There's only one. The same one unveiled as a prototype last year.

Does Southern Rail seem to be really struggling lately? I had a run of 8-9 consecutive working days recently where every commute, morning or evening, was beset with delays and cancellations. This is the Lon Bri-C Palace-Victoria loop, chiefly.

Might just be a bad run but you sort of sense that the infrastructure is falling to bits when stuff like that keeps happening.

(Oh, yeah, saw the prototype parked up near Hyde Park Corner last week. Hype Prank Conman, more like, amirite. Get the 38 frequently, hoping I get a chance to ride this chap...)

Given that the reasons (as I understand it) for abolishing the Routemaster in the first place were safety concerns and disabled access, how are they laying off for those concerns with this new design? Presumably that middle door is wheelchair accessible but there is still the possibility of people falling out the back.

Boris will be there to catch them. Esp. pretty ladies.

One. There's only one.

Ah, the report I read was misleading and did not make it clear that there are eight to begin with but they are not all entering service today.

Seems rather a damp squib style launch but I guess there is still quite a bit of testing to do and they didn't want to take the risk of an overambitious launch.

Does Southern Rail seem to be really struggling lately? I had a run of 8-9 consecutive working days recently where every commute, morning or evening, was beset with delays and cancellations. This is the Lon Bri-C Palace-Victoria loop, chiefly

I'm on that line and haven't noticed any major issues going on, although they're regularly a couple of minutes late. The infrastructure should be okay given it's the same infrastructure a lot of the orange line runs on.

I'm beginning to wonder if more than one blunder bus will ever be built.

What, you mean if Livingstone gets back in he could cancel them? But there's a contract, isn't there, for a certain number to be built by the manufacturer?

Main reasons for abolishing the Routemaster were that it's a 50yr-old design which requires more intensive maintenance than newer buses, having two members of staff increases running costs and the requirement by 2017 for all buses to be fully accessible.

I haven't actually seen the new bus, but it appears the rear door is more like a standard door than the open-space of the Routemaster, which also means you wouldn't be able to easily run up and jump onto the platform.

The original designer of the 'new Routemaster' has written a pretty scathing summary of the design and tendering process http://www.capoco.co.uk/media/downloads/Capoco.NewBus4London.Audit.1.pdf

There's two completed buses, I think.

Just in time for Boris' re-election, what a coincidence!

Apparently the rear door will be open on the new one if there's a conductor on board.

It's entirely reliant on the private companies operating the buses, like Arriva, deciding "Oh, let's replace our fleet of buses with these new ones costing over £1mn each instead of these ones costing £150,000 each."

Southern are so often delayed I've come to rely on it, and this morning they were on time and I missed the damn train, damn it.

really really could not care less about what SHAPE the buses are, compared to how regularly they turn up and how quickly and painlessly they can carry me to my destination

Yeah, and it won't be in use at all when there's no conductor*. What I meant was the design of it, it's only open along the side of the bus, whereas on a Routemaster it was the back and the side, so it was easier to jump onto the platform from behind, when the bus is moving, which is kinda dangerous, tbh, but that's how Boris likes to roll (see also 'why does Hyde Park Corner/Elephant & Castle/ Vauxhall Cross need improving for cyclists? It's fine if you keep your wits about you. Tally ho!'), but you won't even be able to do that with the new bus.

*Conductors aren't there to issue tickets or check fares, just to make sure people don't fall out of the open door.

Bendy buses - 3 doors, only a driver to check fares - evil free bus costing billions in lost fares.
New bus 4 London - 3 doors, only a driver to check fares, oh shi

lex otm.

Punting millions of TfL money at a private constructor to 'develop' existing technology, paying to terminate existing contracts of buses that you don't like the shape of, having to replace those buses with even more of a less-efficient type (routes converted from bendy to double-decker need about 15% more buses to maintain capacity) all adds up to less money to spend on the service as a whole.

Bendy buses - 3 doors, only a driver to check fares - evil free bus costing billions in lost fares.
New bus 4 London - 3 doors, only a driver to check fares, oh shi

The stated role of the conductor seems odd. If the conductor also performed the role of a ticket inspector -- not to validate every ticket but to keep an eye on people not validating their oyster cards using the readers -- that could go some way towards cutting fare evasion, maybe to the extent of paying for the extra crew member, I don't know. On the other hand, in view of the existence of a middle door, and the conductor not having eyes in the back of his/her head, it would probably be unworkable.

Anyone would think it was a dumb gimmick to get voters' attention or something.

or an olympics prop

I agree about the Olympics but how is it going to pay electoral dividends if it is widely perceived as a complete failure?

Another thing with the conductor, is on the old RM, the standing capacity was only 6 iirc, to allow the conductor to walk around the lower saloon and check tickets (no-one stands upstairs). The new bus will have the standard as many that can squeeze on as possible, so when it's busy the door operator won't be able to see what's going on at other door anyway.

Anyway, most of what I know comes from this guy http://www.boriswatch.co.uk/2012/02/27/the-emperors-new-bus-part-1/ and this is a very good summary of what the new bus actually means right now.

I don't know if people will see it as a complete failure - Boris's traditional voters in the outer boroughs won't see it about, but they weren't expecting to, and they don't even use buses so they don't care, they're happy to believe that this is the first one and if Boris gets in for another term he'll do all he bally well can to have the whole fleet converted before the next election. Boris's supporters in the media (Gilligan, mainly) will refuse to accept it as a failure, regardless of what happens in the next 3 months.

The people who live in the outer suburbs, never see the bus (and don't use buses anyway) are not going to vote for Johnson based on that issue, because it's not an issue they have any interest in. They'll vote for him for other reasons.

If this bus doesn't enter service in large numbers, that can easily be spun as a failure. I can't see how an expensive bus that nobody's ever seen and doesn't enter widespread service can be spun as any kind of success.

they don't even use buses so they don't care

Truth

The people who live in the outer suburbs, never see the bus (and don't use buses anyway) are not going to vote for Johnson based on that issue, because it's not an issue they have any interest in. They'll vote for him for other reasons.

True, they'll vote for him because he's Tory and he isn't Ken Livingstone. But what else has Boris actually done, other than rid London of the scourge of the bendy bus (which was actually popular with most people who used it regularly (because it was free amirite)) and 'bring back' the Routemaster which is of course A Good Thing, like everything else from the 1950s.
I don't know, I'm strawmanning furiously here. I wish this election was something other than the Boris-v-Ken show.

Not sure I hold withe the idea that people who live in the outer suburbs don't use buses when they're in town.

This isn't going to be an issue in the mayoral election though. Spiralling fares, on the other hand...

http://991.com/newGallery/The-Fatima-Mansions-Only-Losers-Take-450488.jpg

... quote attributed to Thatcher, but I don't believe it

It would seem to me Johnson might have to be very careful in the short term to strike the right balance between crowing about the new bus and keeping quiet about it. I notice information about it is rather buried on the TFL site.

Johnson doesn't seem to be in a very strong position. I might be wrong, but unless he can get Livingstone on particular issues, Johnson might be reduced to hoping that there's enough residual dislike of Livingstone to keep him out.

xp another favourite myth busted ;_;

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher#Misattributed

Johnson might be reduced to hoping that there's enough residual dislike of Livingstone to keep him out.

There's enough residual dislike of Livingstone to keep him out

The Standard will probably be a bit (read a lot) more circumspect about backing any one candidate this time, the editorship skews Tory but it won't be Boris's propaganda paper this time round. Chance of Ken shooting himself in the foot is pretty high though.

Boris has done a fair bit of work on differentiating himself from Westminster so the coalition shouldn't really be much of a problem for him, but then I'm not really sure how much voters connect the mayoralty to national politics anyway - Frank Dobson couldn't win even when Labour were winning landslides, etc.

Also, people like the bikes, a lot.

so the coalition shouldn't really be much of a problem for him

I don't know about, I would say that's the main reason Ken has any chance at all of winning this

This has probably been said before but providing bikes without providing helmets seems borderline homicidal

I see tons of people who cycle in from zone 3/2 doing it without helmets. I see more people without them than with them, which seems insane to me.

providing helmets would be a logistical nightmare.

no-one wears helmets in paris and they had zero fatalities last year (allegedly). (nevertheless i am all for them.)

I don't know anyone who's warmed to Boris at all - he's been a bit of an embarrassment, and once the Boris Bikes start getting re-attributed to Ken, he'll be out on his arse, is my guess.

Do you know many people who are inclined toward voting Tory, or would at least consider doing so? If the answer's 'no' then you're not in much of a position to judge as your social circle is pretty self-selecting. As is mine.

The bikes are 'Boris bikes' forever now I think, no way are they ever being attributed to Ken.

I'm a bit surprised nobody has yet been killed using one of those bikes. (I've not heard of any fatalities.) Quite a few of the users seem not very competent. On the other hand, most of the deaths of cyclists seem to occur on main roads into London (where there are much larger numbers of vans and trucks), not in central London itself.

(xp) otm

I don't know about, I would say that's the main reason Ken has any chance at all of winning this

Maybe, maybe not. Seems to me that the people who do well in mayoral contests are self-styled maverick types who stand at odds with the leadership on key issues. Boris will be trying to distinguish himself from Cameron as much as he will from Ken, see a lot of posturing about "standing up for London", fighting national cuts in London etc etc.

I'm amazed that anyone thinks Ken has a chance in hell.

Yeah to both the last two threads but suspect a lot of people will turn out to vote Ken, who probably wouldn't have been arsed otherwise, because it'd be a bloody nose for the Tories, despite Boris' not exactly convincing efforts to distance himslef from the coalition

... last two posts not last two threads

<I>Do you know many people who are inclined toward voting Tory, or would at least consider doing so?</I>

Yeah, a few, but my point was more establishing that Tom D is not Speaking For London. The last election was quite close after all.

Also "They're popularly called Boris Bike but <I>actually</I> they're Ken's work" is the kind of quirky transport-based fact that Londoners eat up :)

I imagine everyone who benefited from the shrinking of the congestion charge zone will vote for Boris too!

multiple xps I used to cycle to school (not in London) and escaped serious injury after being tipped off my bike by a truck cos I had a helmet on. Interacting with buses and trucks in London seems terrifying to me, I don't understand it either.

The last election was quite close after all.

The people voting for Ken at that point were voting for a proven winner, not somebody who had lost an election to a joke novelty candidate.