please empty your brain below

Somewhere in TfL is a person whose job is to read this blog every day and then try and sort out the problems identified and the mistakes exposed by DG. I hope they get promoted soon.
What happened to the 741? Does it not call at stop A now?
Easy dg. TfL will hunt you down. dg towers may be appearing on the next version of that map.
So does the 741 no longer serve bus stop A, or did the person forget to put the tile back on?

You wonder if anyone is actually in charge, or are things reliant on the flutter of butterfly wings.
The 741 has had its LSP (London Service Permit) suspended and does not operate. Much as I would like to think that DG has some power over TfL I suspect the change of the order of the tiles is probably due to the demise of the 741.
I quite like this new motto. Keep it up DG.

Buses. East London. Bow. Forever.
The '741' tiles at Bus Stops A and B have recently been removed, with A shuffled to the correct order but B still in the wrong order.
I do wonder how widespread this disconnect is. In my neighbourhood Bus Stop K moved 75 metres to the east from the position shown over five years ago. Bus Stop G used to be for the 112 which moved several years ago to Bus Stop F. However, G is still left on the map as an "empty" stop although they have removed the shelter and sign.

Then there is the intriguing "Mystery Stop" going eastbound on The Mall that has no letter on it. Neither I or my OH who has lived here over 50 years has ever seen a bus stop there.
We have ghost bus stops here in Bow too. Old Bus Stop G still appears on TfL's basemap, even though it's vanished in real life, while Old Bus Stop E lingers on as an "empty" stop.
Did you notice the large crossing numbers underneath the Bow Flyover? They are now peeling off from the concrete and some wont last much longer. They need to put up proper signs made out of something a bit more substantial than sticky back plastic!

dg writes: Yes, here's a peeling-off '5'.
I love the Bow bus stop posts.

However, it would be good to see a tightening up at TfL, so that they could be less frequent - or preferably, to please me and all the Berts, as frequent but covering a wider area.

Because it's not just bus stops. The recent highlighting of a website full of incomprehensible balderdash shows a deplorable failure of TfL management to properly manage and supervise their staff. And in some departments this could be rather more dangerous than simple bus stop confusion.

The mention of a "wider area" is because I am quite sure that anyone who looked carefully could find similar bus stop muddles all over London. There is absolutely nothing about Bow to specially attract incompetence.
At least it would be easy to rename bus stop M bus stop E just by rotating the sign by 90 degrees..
If A is in the right order, and B is in the wrong order, it implies that the 741 tile may have been removed from each stop by different people.
This blog used to have a lot more about kittens. Just saying.
Having read the Digital Blog I was expecting a bus stop update from Bow.

If you read those updates on the Blog you'll see an enormous volume of tinkering around with bus stop data. Moving stops, changing co-ordinates, removing stops, adding stops, removing Hail and Ride sections. Seems like a life long task for someone just to play with all the data.
I love these updates (even more so now that I am semi-local). Just makes the mind boggle quite how many inaccurate bus stops there must be across the whole TfL area (thousands?).

In other hyperlocal news, the cycle superhighway looks finishd but they've forgotten to clear away the temporary railings at the junction of Bromley High St & Bow Road and it's looking awfully untidy. Do you take requests? Can you blog about those so that TfL will notice?!

dg writes: I fear the railings may be permanent.



They're to nudge pedestrians to use the relocated zebra crossing, rather than walking directly across Bromley High Street via the obvious desire line. Ill-thought-through Cycle Superhighway design, alas.

These bus-stop posts are balm to my soul. My family has always regarded the awe in which I hold bus-stops to be one sign (of several, granted) that I am slightly bonkers. Whereas I now realize I am not the only one who knows that they are one of the guarantors of civilization. Just think, they stick a post in the concrete, we queue up and eventually a bus comes along and carries us away. It's a metaphor too, I now see.
I just walked the first section of The Line on Friday, and I saw the other Bus Stop M on Stratford High Street, and I was surprised how close it was to yours.
In the good old days the person who signed off the design for the Bromley High Street, and also the Infrastructure Controller who cannot get point letters and e tiles right would have been hung at Tyburn.

Memo to TfL: Vinyl stickers do not stick to concrete flyovers. Try paint.
This post makes me sad
So does this mean that if me and Debster and others keep whinging about the lack of kittens we get revenge posts on kittens? Just asking, :)
I'm with Bert.
If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a blog of posts about buses and bus stops in Bow. Forever.
Bert - not many of DG's readers get entire blog posts dedicated to them. You should be honoured.

Also, we should be grateful that TfL provide so much information on bus stops, even if it's occasionally wrong. You try going to the suburbs of any other city in the UK and see if you can work out what bus stops where...
This has made my day.
"The mention of a "wider area" is because I am quite sure that anyone who looked carefully could find similar bus stop muddles all over London. There is absolutely nothing about Bow to specially attract incompetence."

Nothing of significance? But surely you must have heard of the 'Bow Triangle' ......?
@ Scrumpy - instead of being hung at Tyburn the TfL "infrastructure controller" got an OBE in the New Year Honours. Dana Skelley is Head of Asset Management at Surface Transport and is responsible for all things roads, road bridges / tunnels and, I understand, bus stops and shelters.
The pictures were dull enough, didn't bother with the words.
@ PC @Scrumpy: OBE well known to stand for recognition of Other B*gg#rs Efforts.

Responsible but not taking responsibility.
Come mid September, the routes of the 108 and the D8 swap about. Be interesting to see if they manage to swap the bus stop signs on the right day....
I love Bert!
This is one of my most favourite of all DG posts
I support Bert
I think you should all be very grateful

Here in Sydney we also have the bus stop 'A', 'B' etc system

But the designers of a new wayfinding system thought that we could be confused whether the stop is for a bus, or tram, train or ferry.

So all bus stops now have a 'B' (for 'bus') as well as 'A', 'B', 'C' etc

So helping visitors to find the right bus stop can be confusing

Ferry wharves have an 'F' (in case you think a train will come)
This is really about pizza, right?
Please can we have a post dedicated to the stop in Chaper Road, Dollis Hill that is served by the 226, 302 and N98?
@Kate Demonstration brings in the complicated subject of bus stop versus ferry pier. Something Tfl is struggling with.

She will be pleased to know that the bus stop for Putney Pier where you can alight for the Thames Clipper is no longer considered a bus stop when you are on a bus.

Ahead of arrival at the bus stop on either the 22 or the 265 the louspeakers spring into action to say "the next pier is Putney Pier" no mention of the fact we are stopping because it's a bus stop.

This is an improvement on the previous version where the buses were treated to the onboard announcement from the boats complete with details of where to find lifejackets. On a bus? At least it made some passengers laugh / despair.
Do you think the aforementioned Miss Skelley gets fed up with the (I imagine) inevitable X Files jokes and puns?
WS Gilbert (of "& Sullivan" fame) appears* to think the area is something special.
(from "Iolanthe")

"Bow! Bow! Ye lower middle classes!
Bow! Bow! Ye tradesmen! Bow! Ye masses!
Blow the trumpets, bang the brasses!
Tantantara! Tzing! Boom!"

* Appears - it usually sounds rather different in performance.
After reading all these posts I could probably go on Mastermind with a specialist subject of "History of bus stops in Bow, 2015 to present". Although all the answers would go out of date between filming and broadcast.
A masterful explanation, as ever...!










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