The Anonymous Widower

Who Parked This Bus Here?

Yesterday, I needed to go between Waterloo and Victoria stations.

According to my mother’s ready reckoner that is four stations; Embankment, Westminster, St. James’s Park and Victoria and one interchange at Embankment.

So at two minutes a station and one interchange at five minutes that is a total of thirteen minutes.

But after a bit of difficulty locating a bus spider map for Waterloo, I found that I could get 507 bus direct to Victoria station, from the Cab Road, which is a very short level walk from the main station concourse.

I waited perhaps two minutes for the bus and it took fifteen minutes for the journey.

So my bus journey probably took just four minutes longer than the Underground, but there were no steps, escalators or changing trains.

The 507 bus also stopped in the forecourt of Victoria station, just a short level walk from the trains.

The forecourt at Victoria station is rather small, so why do they allow buses like these to take up valuable space?

Who Parked This Bus Here?

I think that tourist buses are an unnecessary curse on London’s traffic and they are part of a big industry that rips off visitors and puts them off the greatest city in the universe!

Hopefully, someone will write a guide and an app, which will mean that all the Routemasters can be used as tourist buses, which explore all parts of the City.

I live on the Routemaster-equipped 38 route from Victoria to the romantically-named Clapton Pond and know a lot of the interesting history you pass through from end-to-end of the route.

One decent audio-guide app, would help to consign tourist buses to the dustbin of stupid and unnecessary ideas.

December 30, 2015 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Buses, Tourism, Victoria Station