Do We Have Too Many Site-Seeing Buses In London?
On Friday, I needed to get from Piccadily Circus to the Aldwych, which is a simple one bus journey on a 6, 13 or 23. But the whole area was in chaos because of large numbers of site-seeing buses. This one was even parked so that it blocked the Haymarket.
Do We Have Too Many Site-Seeing Buses In London?
Hopefully, when more New Buses for London are delivered and take over routes in the centre, the economics of taking of the annoying tourist-ripping-off site-seeing buses will take a well-deserved nose-dive.
I’m also getting rather fed up in some places in London by the annoying ticket touts for these buses, who I keep telling to Foxtrot Oscar.
Proof That LT7 Is Back On The Job
I’ve seen it a couple of times, since it appeared on Top Gear, but today was the first time, I managed to photograph it.
Proof That LT7 Is Back On The Job
A driver did tell me it’s all pristine now, although it didn’t return that way from Top Gear.
London’s Forgotten Route Gets A Hybrid Bus
The 277 is one of London’s forgotten bus routes and runs from Limehouse and Canary Wharf through the East of London to Highbury and Islington station.
London’s Forgotten Route Gets A Hybrid Bus
I photographed this lone hybrid on the route last week.
Why this route is so often neglected by the powers that be, I do not know! I suspect, we’ll never see New Buses for London or in fact any new buses on this route in my lifetime.
London Buses May Go Cashless
According to reports like this one on the BBC, it looks like London buses may go cashless.
There have been a few comments that the usual suspects are against this, as it may hurt the poor and the vulnerable, but I don’t think it will create too many problems after the first few months, especially if publicity and the technology was cranked up a bit.
I do remember though, a conversation on a Manchester bus, with an off-duty driver and union representative. He felt that their single-door buses where the low-life gathered around the driver and tried to steal his money were very inferior to two-door buses. he would have loved a cashless system.
I’ve just done a small calculation. There are six million riders on each weekday on London’s buses and working on a figure for today that one per cent of riders buy a ticket with cash, that means that 60,000 riders a day buy paper tickets. as there are 250 weekdays in a year, that means there are fifteen million tickets sold each year.
The cost of collecting the cash is given as £24 million a year, so it would almost appear that some of those without tickets could be issued with a free get-you-home ticket. Transport for London are saying they might bring in the Hong Kong system, where an expired card is good for one journey.
I do think though that if the decision was made to go cashless, as the no-cash day approached most people would do something about getting a ticket like Oyster.
i do suspect though that there will be a few objectors, who would not countenance any ticket like Oyster, that enabled them to be tracked,
Art At The Bus Stop
My local bus stop has got the treatment from Art Everywhere.
Art At The Bus Stop
I think, I’ll go and find the original some time next week.
Cash-For Crash By The Busload
This story must be the ultimate cash-for-crash story. Here’s the intro.
A bogus bus crash was staged in Sheffield so 26 passengers could make fake whiplash claims – all set up by organised conmen trying to defraud insurance firms, a court heard.
As I don’t have a car or car insurance, I’m glad that I don’t have to pay for these crooked claims.
Cambridge Tries Its Hardest To Discourage Visitors
I changed trains in Cambridge yesterday and as it was a convenient time for a meal, I took the opportunity to go into the centre to have a late lunch in Carluccio’s.
Every time I go to the city, these days, it would appear that the bus stop layout is different and further from the main entrance to the station. And there’s no simple information, which has a map of the various stops and go to bus stop X for the city centre.
The first stop you come to, tells you all about the Cambridge Busway, but I know that the bus-way at the station goes to Addenbrooke’s and not the city centre.
After waiting at the wrong stop for a couple of minutes, only to see a couple of buses I could have taken, go past. So I waited ten minutes, when if there had been proper information, I’d have waited one.
When a bus did arrive, it was the usual scrum at the single door used for all entrance and exit. Visitors from London, who use the capital’s buses must really fume at the slowness. It’s even worse for people like me with a Freedom Pass, as you must take it out of your London folder to put it flat on the reader on the bus. Surely, we could have a touch and enter system based on Oyster technology all over the country now, as it’s been working in London for several years.
I knew where I was going, but I didn’t know exactly where the stop I needed was. I guessed wrong, as Cambridge buses don’t display the stop names or announce them as all sensible buses do. It must be a nightmare if you’re blind!
Coming back it was a repeat of the process; guess the stop, ask the driver, fight your way through the scrum and then walk farther than you used, to get to the train station.
It really is rather Kafkaesque and how much does it cost the city in lost visitors?
I suppose the only beneficiaries are the taxi-drivers, as those probably get a lot more business.
When Are The Hackney Eight Going To Be Reinforced?
The latest news, as reported here, that London bus routes 9 and 390 are the two next routes to be taken over by New Buses for London is good news for some. The trendy areas beloved of the chattering classes, like Notting Hill, Hammersmith and Archway, will now be targeted by the Boris buses.
But as East London is one of the areas of London with the highest level of bus use, isn’t it about time, that another route in the East was converted, or the much-loved Hackney Eight were reinforced?
At least though LT7 is back on the day job after it’s few days as a television star on Top Gear.
And what about my friends in South London, who have no routes, either converted or scheduled to be so?
One Of The Hackney Eight Appears On Top Gear
The seventh New Bus for London,LT7 has appeared on Top Gear tonight, driven by James May.
This link points to a picture of the actual bus, waiting at Victoria.
This is probably the only time, I’ve ever sat in an actual vehicle featured on television.
You Don’t Get Behaviour Like This On The Dalston Omnibus!
This tragic tale from Biggleswade, shows what you get when you mix two men of my age, shopping and an argument over parking.
You certainly don’t get any behaviour like this on the Dalston omnibus to or from Waitrose at the Angel. The most outrageous behaviour I saw, was a guy laughing at two ladies sitting beside each other who were probably about fifty years old; one black and one white, who’d both hurt a leg and their hospitals had furnished them each with one crutch. Everybody saw the funny side! Especially the ladies!
I do wonder sometimes, why people bother with driving. I miss it like a hole in the head!
I’ve actually never been to Asda and if you get killed in their car parks, I doubt I will now!
The Anonymous Widower 