please empty your brain below
The 10 was only rerouted via Russell Square in June 2016 to reflect new travel patterns - but nothing about what replaces this section, same applies to the 113 which was restored to Oxford Circus in April 2017 as partial cover for the withdrawn 13.

Crossrail is the justification - even though it runs non-stop between Paddington and Acton, and has no branch serving Finchley Road, yet the 25 just gets a trim to TCR.

Pollution also keeps being mentioned, even though the 43 and 134 are to get battery powered buses, so why not use them in Oxford Street? (the 98 currently has an allocation of five).

This also marks the end of some long established service patterns, the 10 covered the old 73 routeing (Hammersmith - Stoke Newingon), the 23 covered the 15 (Ladbroke Grove - East Ham), the 94 covered the 88 (Acton - Tooting), the planned change to the 88 and C2 also means the end of the last bit of the old 137 routeing via Great Portland Street and Warren Street when it ran through to Archway.

We are also about to start trials with the tri-axle bus on the 12, no doubt the bigger capacity buses will be used to justify further cuts in frequencies.

Still Anon | 11.08.18 - 8:34 a.m. | #

@Still Anon: That's what exactly happened in Hong Kong, although it took something like three decades to eradicate regular buses from proper urban areas and new towns. Good luck to London with that, especially the roads seem narrower there.

Patrickov | 11.08.18 - 8:57 a.m. | #

Patrickov- the NB4L is pretty much as long as a tri-axle double decker, the first few even have standing restrictions based not on the packing of people but the axle weight of the things.

Al__S | 11.08.18 - 9:04 a.m. | #

Any thoughts on buses on Oxford Street?

diamond geezer | Homepage | 11.08.18 - 9:06 a.m. | #

The 23 also used to start at Liverpool Street station it was only changed in the last year.

g23 | 11.08.18 - 9:29 a.m. | #

To answer dg's request, buses on Oxford Street have become too slow for me since the demise of being able to hop on & off to avoid the jams.

ap | 11.08.18 - 9:34 a.m. | #

On the bright side, exterminating those troublesome buses will open up space on Oxford Street for more useful vehicles such as taxis. I'm sure that will make Westminster council very happy.

Andrew | 11.08.18 - 9:42 a.m. | #

In principle buses should be convenient for short hops along Oxford street itself, and they were when we had routemasters. But over the years the number of stops has also been reduced so I generally find that by the time I've walked to the nearest stop I might as well keep walking.

Alan | 11.08.18 - 9:45 a.m. | #

Nice to see tha DG notes that TfL's consultation response is just basically a long exercise in going "la la la we're not listening". It just highlights the farce that "consultation" has become.

As for the bus changes well they're a disaster but no surprise. Given some of the changes that are on their way these are pretty tame. The 10/23 change is one of those classic "we can't scrap these routes wholesale now" things. The combined route will be gone in 2 years due to lack of use. This is a longstanding technique used on the bus network - take two decent routes, mess them about into something useless and then declare that "unviable" a short time later. Nice to see the tactics from the 70s and early 1980s are alive and well at Palestra.

I rarely go to Oxford St (or elsewhere in Central London) because the bus network is now so useless. I don't want to be forced to walk miles nor do I want to schlep up and down tube stations for shortish journeys. I was more than happy to use buses including along, to and from Oxford Street. Not anymore. TfL's actions to destroy the bus network in Zone 1 are ensuring my use of it is also destroyed. I doubt I am the only person in that position.

PC | 11.08.18 - 9:53 a.m. | #

These particular bus changes were a fractional part of a high level consultation which assumed a completely different pedestrianisation outcome. They're essentially being introduced with no consultation at all.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 11.08.18 - 10:01 a.m. | #

Have I misunderstood something?

In your summary, you have the 94 continuing to run between Marble Arch and Selfridges, but have it cut back to Marble Arch in the list of proposed changes. Is this because Westminster Council have to approve a new bus stop? But how it will it continue only as far as Selfridges (where thee is no possibility of a turn-round) if they don't.

dg writes: 94s departing the new terminus at North Row will still have to pass down that short section of Oxford Street.

Martin | 11.08.18 - 10:36 a.m. | #

Having lived in several cities in which the main drag is pedestrianised (Queen St, Brisbane, St Georges St, Canterbury and Kaufingerstrasse, Munich), in none of them would anyone ever imagine bringing the traffic back. The busses, trains and trams are either below or not far away. Westminster has its head stuck in the sand (or 1955-65) and TfL wants to rationalise: not a happy combination.

The remaining bus routes would still provide a steady stream of busses. I'm willing to believe that rather than the previous wall-to-wall canyons of largely empty buses crawling at slower than walking pace, fewer ones with more passengers going a little faster can't be a bad thing.

I have recently noticed that buses on Oxford St now emit a gentle klaxon warning noice to help avoid running people over, which seems to be effective. It is, however, a form of admission that they are running through a space that struggles to cope with the pedestrian footfall.

NickW | 11.08.18 - 11:08 a.m. | #

Of course the original route 10 passed DG Towers...(and bus stop M, had it been thete then).

Kim | 11.08.18 - 11:34 a.m. | #

surely the important thing is what the frequency of the buses will be ?
only two bus routes covering the length of Oxford St sounds bad - but if they run every few minutes between them, then that sounds ok to me!
i do agree with TfL that there are too many half empty buses on Oxford St at present - thinning the herd should allow the survivors to travel faster!!

ADS | Homepage | 11.08.18 - 11:50 a.m. | #

North Row - i'm really surprised that TfL are trying to use this street as a terminus - it's really narrow. Hard to imagine Westminster Council will agree to it. So TfL will probably cut back the 94 even further, and blame Westminster !

ADS | Homepage | 11.08.18 - 11:52 a.m. | #

I would prefer TfL to pull buses from Oxford Street completely during shopping hours - wall to wall empty buses do no one any benefit.

Consultations are frequently a waste of time and money as decisions have already been made. It would be more honest if they explicitly stated what had already been considered and ruled out and what people had to demonstrate to get changes to be made.

Q | 11.08.18 - 12:07 p.m. | #

Some of these buses are can be rammed full a large amount of the time. I've used the 23 for years, and it's only got busier in recent years as more routes have been cut serving Oxford Street and W London via Paddington. It was particularly noticeably when the route for the 159 was terminated at Marble Arch about three years back.

Where are these displaced passenger going to shift to? I also think this a serious disadvantage for those who use buses for shorter journeys due to personal mobility issues. This will create massive restrictions on being able to access this core part of Central London.

Andrew | 11.08.18 - 12:15 p.m. | #

Remove the bus routes that now use Oxford Street.
Run some shuttle buses from Marble Arch to Tottenham Court Road using the NBFL with the platform door open.
The buses would run slowly and people could jump on and off as they passed the shop they wanted. They should be free to use. Maybe the shops could sponsor them plus some advertising on the buses.
The shuttle buses would also be a link between the buses at Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road.
Eventually uses electric buses for the shuttle but with an open door platform.

John | 11.08.18 - 2:44 p.m. | #

So, only 2 through buses in Oxford Street.
Probably true representation of intending passengers from New Oxford St (or east of) to Marble Arch (or west of).

scrumpy | 11.08.18 - 2:46 p.m. | #

I always try to avoid any bus which goes down Oxford Street for part of the journey (except for, say, the 2, which only goes down a tiny bit of it). I very rarely go to Oxford Street itself, and there are usually quicker alternatives when travelling west to east or vice versa. Possibly TfL’s move is to counteract Westminster’s concern that a pedestrianised Oxford Street would lead to congestion on parallel streets. I doubt if it’ll work, but it’s worth a try.

Baldassaro | 11.08.18 - 4:14 p.m. | #

Since they chopped the routes down to 9, the infamous wall of empty red buses no longer exists. Traffic flows well (when there's not that many taxis at least) and to my great annoyance, buses are generally well used (as someone who lives in the Oxford Street area and likes riding on empty buses).

Cutting 9 routes down to 4 to solve a problem that hasn't actually existed for a while, in the process breaking a number of transport links and without even providing a pedestrianised space for tourists to mess around in is silly...

the orange one | 11.08.18 - 4:22 p.m. | #

Shame on Westminster Council for putting the kibosh on Oxford Street pedestrianisation. Regent Street should have also been pedestrianised seeing as it copes perfectly well on those weekends when they do just that. The T zone of Oxford and Regent streets is well served by tubes at each end, in the middle and another along the western half of Oxford St. in this day and age of increasing obesity levels coupled with illegal levels of pollution this would have been a great bit of PR for the West End!

Joe | 11.08.18 - 5:11 p.m. | #

Taking the whole bus service out between Selfridges and Oxford Service would disadvantage those with mobility difficulties getting from one end to the other and TfL knew this, and came up with some half baked plan for a shuttle service using the side roads. Lack of mobility might be in part why Westminster quashed the full pedestrianisation idea.

SJM | 11.08.18 - 10:02 p.m. | #

The previous proposal had just two routes running from Selfridge's to Oxford Circus (139 and 390) and they would have run via Wigmore Street.

AbM | 11.08.18 - 11:24 p.m. | #

It’s easy to forget that Westfield operate the equivalent of 2 pedestrianised Oxford streets without much problem!

Joe | 11.08.18 - 11:46 p.m. | #

@Joe, I've only just seen this. Westfield and the other modern centres like Brent Cross were purpose built to be pedestrian shopping malls, and have very large behind-the-scenes areas for delivery vehicles, storage etc, as well as large areas designated as shoppers car parks. So not much problem...or am I stating the obvious?

amber | 12.08.18 - 4:51 p.m. | #

Personally I'd turn this on it's head and be radical by closing down most of the shops in Oxford Street itself - there are no destination stores apart from Selfridges in any case (do you actually need the two giant Primarks?) - shopping focus for many are the two Westfields!

Sir Biton | 12.08.18 - 6:54 p.m. | #

Even if pedestrianised, the distance from the alternatively located bus stops to the main department stores would be a lot shorter than the trek from Stratford station through Westfield to John Lewis.

NickW | 12.08.18 - 7:38 p.m. | #

The consultation results were published in July, I think, not yesterday. (After originally being published in March then withdrawn whilst some extra responses to a typoed e-mail address were solicited).

Using the original pedestrianisation consultation to make some smaller changes to bus routes seems a bit cheeky, but understandable given the Crossrail timeline and the delay/cost of re-consulting.

It’ll be interesting to see if Westminster Council consent to the highway changes allowing the 94 route to change. That’ll be an indication of how likely they are to start co-operating at least.

Frankie Roberto | 13.08.18 - 8:48 a.m. | #

Wasnt the 23 supposed to be withdrawn between Paddington & Aldwych, & extended from Westbourne Park to Wembley Central in the Crossrail bus service proposals?

Kevin Lucioni | 13.08.18 - 1:20 p.m. | #

A typical TfL consultation, in that they do what they want, whatever the public's views

Mikey C | 13.08.18 - 6:24 p.m. | #

Route all of the routes that cross Oxford Street down Park Lane / cut them in half and run a shuttle along Oxford Street. Call the shuttle route 0 and rename the North-South crossers 10N and 10S to make TMWLBuses really angry, especially now that the Mayor, Sadiq Khan (in case you had forgotten his name), has introduced the Hopper fare.

Flanders Valhalla | 14.08.18 - 4:41 p.m. | #

One aspect not mentioned is the bus services at night. What on earth is the point of removing buses away from areas of *night time activity*? e.g. cutting routes back from Piccadilly Circus, Soho. Trafalgar Square etc to start at Marble Arch and head W/NW. that is just pushing people more onto Uber.

And this is just the beginning of the great bus massacre... more to come very soon.

Ian | 16.08.18 - 11:14 p.m. | #

Here are my proposals for the 10 & 23.
10.Withdrawn.
14.Diverted at Tottenham Court Road via current 10 route to Euston.
23.Withdrawn.
205.Extended from Paddington to Westbourne Park via withdrawn 23.
267.Extended from Hammersmith to Paddington,replacing 10 between Hammersmith & Marble Arch, & 23 between Marble Arch & Paddington.

This would both maintain,& provide new links.
It would maintain a direct bus service between Turnham Green & Kensington.TFL plan to withdraw the 27 between Hammersmith & Chiswick.Stand room at Paddington would become available by extending the 205.
Re-routing the 14 would create a direct bus link from SW London to Euston for HS2.
Both 10 & 267 are LT routes,so any LT buses made spare from the withdrawl of the 10 can be transferred to the 267.

Keviin Lucioni | 17.08.18 - 12:44 p.m. | #











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