Take a New Routemaster to Romantic Clapton Pond on the 20th of February 2012
I’d thought that the new Routemaster was going to be introduced on the route 38 between Victoria and Clapton Pond and today it was confirmed that they’ll start on the 20th of February. Initially, they’ll just be eight of them.
I went to a presentation on the bus some months ago and I think it will be a good addition to London’s bus fleet.
The choice of route 38 is an interesting one. But in my view a correct one.
At the southern end, it starts at Victoria, which is a major transport interchange, where lots of visitors arrive. I hope that they make sure that the route keeps its prime stop in front of the station. I doubt anybody with any marketing nouse would do anything, except make it more obvious.
It then goes straight through the West End, past or close to, some of London’s most important places and landmarks, like Buck House, Green Park, Piccadilly Circus, many of the theatres on Shaftesbury Avenue, and the British Museum. The route in this area, is only a short walk from places like Soho, Covent Garden, Bloomsbury, and Leicester and Trafalgar Squares. So I think, if they get the hop-on/hop-off right in this section, I think it will be a very valuable addition to the transport landscape of this part of London. As I have experienced several times, getting a bus in this area at times is often a long wait because of all the traffic that shouldn’t be there. But at least with a hop-on/hop-off bus, you won’t have to wait for the stop. But even when it is working as a normal bus, it’ll have an extra door, which will mean that it unloads and loads quicker.
After Bloomsbury, the route does its more mundane work, through Clerkenwell, Islington and down the Essex Road to Dalston and on to Hackney and eventually to Clapton Pond. This is where I use the route a lot as none of the Underground or Overground lines, really get you from Hackney to Islington or on to the West End. Having seen the inside of the mock-up, I feel that the bus will suit this part of the route well, as passengers often have large amounts of shopping and cases and I have a feeling that New Routemasters might be better at handling, this type of passenger, as they have three entrances and two staircases, which will enable the more mobile and unencumbered passengers to get quickly and easily upstairs and out of the way.
As an aside here, it will be interesting to see if two staircases, raise the average loading on the top deck.
Hackney and Clapton are not really leisure destinations in London. But could putting New Routemasters on the major route to the area, help in that direction. Clapton Pond, may not sound romantic, but if you were say walking the Lea Valley, it is one place to start. Uniquely, the 38 bus terminus at Clapton is in the middle of a roundabout, which means it is easy to turn the buses back to Victoria.
If I was Hackney Council, I’d put a very small amount of work into the roundabout, as the arrival of the buses, will attract bus anoraks from all over the world, if the scrum in Trafalgar Square last night is anything to go by. Note the link is from the Belfast Telegraph.
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