please empty your brain below
Why can't they find the money to do the sensible thing and create a new route from The Spires area to Edgware? Why touch the 384 at all? If the passenger numbers are genuinely low, lower the frequency a bit (I know we don't like that, but if it's that or losing a route...)
dg writes: They've already lowered the frequency, from every 15 minutes to every 20, in July last year.
To me this seems to be a way to create a more direct route for residents of Edgware to get to JCoSS at the expense of everyone else.
I also suspect the changes are merely to serve JCoSS from Edgware. A simpler solution would possibly be a schooldays/hours 6xx service.
The section between New Barnet and Cockfosters is mainly used by people travelling to/from Sainsburys, hardly anyone between Quinta Drive and New Barnet would use the 384 to reach the Piccadilly Line, as both the 34/184 run much more frequently and serve Arnos Grove.
@Patrickov
TfL and Sadiq probably aren't bothered by voter reaction, as the elderly residents affected will be largely Conservative voters anyway
The only other current option for a direct Edgware-Barnet bus that I can think of off the top of my head is the 614/644 pink-purple University of Hertford Uno bus, which is the bus favoured by my mum!
I generally agree that taking the 384 away from the lifeline back roads is a joke, and effects the most needy the most.
A fast link between Edgware and Barnet would be useful, but the 384 is a local side road route, not a long-distance service. Small single deckers could get very overcrowded on the new section. If that happens, I wouldn't call it a victim of its own success, I'd call it a failure in planning the bus network.
Fact of the matter is that there is a financial crisis in TFL, but one of Sadiq's election promises was the moving of bus resources from Central London to the suburbs. TFL are struggling to that due to less revenue and funding, so they're linking 2 important well-known towns that are poorly linked (the 107 & 614 could be argued as doing it already) at the expense of local roads that outsiders probably don't care about. Sadiq has show he's done something in reguards to outer London.
This is similar to the 425 extension to Ilford; a route extension that is really a saving of resources due to the huge cut on route 25.
If every bit of service degrading is linked in with an improvement, however tenuous the link, then there will be some gainers. The consultation can then be represented as at least partly in favour, and TfL's apparent intention to do it regardless can be dressed up with a small fig-leaf. Just like the way route 13 was going to be scrapped, but it was finangled into losing the 82 instead, as DG reported on 31/3/17.
consultations are a waste of time
In which case you misunderstand the purpose of consultations. The aim isn't to allow the public's opinion to shape the final decision. It's to give the illusion that the public are being listened to.
As others have mentioned, if you structure the questions in the right way, you can get the public to approve your plan, despite hating it.
Sir Humphrey would be proud of TfL.
Just this week another round of cuts arrived and the 173; 380/ 381 were chopped.
A majority of routes are/were subsidised by TFGM and generally run once an hour Monday/Saturday daytime only. As each bus goes another road loses it’s only bus route.
By comparison the Oxford Road Corridor has a bus every 45 seconds due to the Students.
That's what I meant! It's a fig-leaf to make it look like the public are being listened to.
In the case of the 13, they did the ultimate in Sir Humphrey language trickery, by doing EXACTLY what people didn't want them to do by still abolishing the previous 13 route, but then renaming the 82 to 13 so that they could say that they weren't actually ABOLISHING the 13.
dg writes: Indeed.
Aren't you using the wrong arboreal metaphor? A fig leaf is to cover embarrassment (or maintain dignity); an olive branch is to offer peace.
I may or may not have made a cameo in DG's tale of his journey on the twiddly but valuable 384 bus.... ahem! Please, no photographs! :-) I wonder which person he was?
He also skilfully and succinctly puts across the all the main points and arguments, while clearly recognising the value of the route on all the currently-served roads in Barnet. The only part I'm not sure I agree with is that people shouldn't 'go diving in if this isn't [their] fight'. Of course, people that know and use the route are best placed to respond to the consultation, and of course no one has the time to respond to every consultation that doesn't affect them. But anyone who supports local bus services and is worried that this if this one passes, it will serve as a precedent to justify removing all the 'twiddly' sections of routes in London (can a major railway station and an entire high street really also count as part of a 'twiddle', I wonder?), you might as well write a paragraph or two if you have the time. Or simply take two seconds to sign the petition:
https://www.change.org/p/tfl-consultations-save-the-384-bus-route
I think that every objection must go some way to making it dawn on TfL that people won't stand for their counterproductive 'cuts at all costs' programme forever - eventually there will be a tipping point.
And if you happen to be a 'distant bus fetishist sending in crayoned maps detailing how [you'd] run things better' :-), you might as well send one in to TfL about this issue (please join the Facebook group (see later in this comment) and message me if you would like to use my suggestions earlier in the thread for an extended 240 or 340, or a more direct residential route for the 384 extension that could mean it would get to Edgware from Barnet quicker and thus potentially be able to keep serving all the Barnet roads). After all, the bureaucrats at TfL clearly don't know the area or the journeys that people need to make using the 384 either - their proposals are very much based on 'getting the crayons out' (straight lines seem to be en vogue and 'twiddles' dreadfully passé - because after all, those twiddles were designed by someone who had the audacity to know what they were doing in terms of a bus route that would take people in a very hilly area where they actually need and want to go).
PS: A tip for Diamond Geezer if you're reading this:
If you ever find yourself in the Barnet area again and the 384 hasn't been extended, simply take that weird and wonderful-looking purple double-decker 614 bus westbound from The Spires stop or Wood Street/Union Street, and you will be whisked to Edgware in no time at all vs the 107/292 palaver. Ok, it's only every 30 minutes, possibly hourly (?) on Saturdays and in the evening, and not at all on Sundays, and doesn't take Oyster cards, but you can even get to Edgware Community Hopsital, Burnt Oak and as far as Queensbury for the price of your ticket - joy unabounded! Or make a day (ticket) of it and take the same bus in the other direction, braving the wilds of rural Hertfordshire (well, the A1 (M)) and savouring the delights of the University of Hertfordshire and Hatfield town!
Oh, and thank you for linking to our campaign's petitions. We also have a Facebook that all are welcome to join:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/238065826887767/
Roll on this Thursday 1 November at 2:00 pm, when we are presenting the petition to London Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden Andrew Dismore at City Hall, who will then pass it on to the Mayor of London (we are leaving the online versions of the petitions open a little longer, to catch some last-minute signatories before the consultation deadline on 9 November. The petition hand-in event is open to all, so please contact me or join the Facebook group if you would like more information about this or about any other aspect of the consultation itself or our campaign to keep the 384 running on all the roads that it currently serves in Barnet.
It's always good to know that local bus routes are being defended in such an erudite and campaigning manner.
You even sat next to me at one point...
None of these options provided us with a better or more cost effective use of our resources than the original proposal. Therefore we have decided to implement the changes that were originally consulted on."
Just to let everyone know that as far as the many objectors to the removal of the 384 bus from roads in Barnet are concerned, the battle is not over until the new routing actually starts running (no date for that set yet).
We are really angry that TfL have sought to sneak this decision through during a global health emergency, having kept us in limbo for over a year, when they think we shall be less able to fight back. But not so, because the London Assembly Member, MP and local councillors are all on the case to try to get TfL to reconsider removing the 384 from the Barnet roads, at least as far as granting objectors the public meeting they promised us before they would ever consider implementing the plans (given the incredibly high response and objection rate, once such a meeting can be held safely).
Please search for and join the Facebook group 'Save the 384 Bus route' for a list of contacts to which to register continued objections, plus updates as and when we receive them.
[ response to issues raised (pdf) ]
"We have therefore decided to implement our original proposals and are aiming to complete the changes on August 29th 2020."
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