please empty your brain below
To be pedantic, technically, the 166 counts for extra buses only running part of the route... West Croydon - Banstead being a short working.
Tomorrow, it drops out of the top 40.
"Up 1 place at Number 7, it's the 73!"
dg writes: Up 1 place at Number 3, it's the 73!"
On the topic of bus usage numbers the update for the 2017/18 financial year should hopefully be published on 17/9/18. I have that info from TfL having chased them as to why the usual update didn't materialise in early Summer.
I think we can take it as read that the 25, a bit like the old 83, will no longer be resident in the top 10 busiest bus routes from 2018/19 onwards. I am half expecting route 18 to have taken the 25's "number 1" spot when the numbers for 2017/18 appear.
1. Traffic. Pre-CS2 there was a bus lane almost all the way from Bow Flyover through to Stratford. Now you can easily get stuck in the Westfield queues, not to mention the recent gyratory works.
2. Moving Stratford to the Zone 2/3 boundary has meant that Bow residents who are likely to have a Zones 1-2 travelcard can use the DLR to get to Stratford much quicker than the bus.
Which begs the question why are so much traffic infrastructure resources being wasted on a mode of transport that despite all the hand waving and immense investment still only accounts for what is just a rounding error on zero for all passenger miles traveled daily on all modes of transport in the greater city region. And will always remain that way no matter what vast sums are spent on cyclists. Its overwhelmingly a purely discretionary activity of a very small well defined population cohort. And will remain that way. Totally unlike every other mode of transport. Which all population cohorts can, and do, use.
To me the most fascinating part of the whole urban cycling fad of the last decade or so is the very strong class marker element of the fad. The sort of people you find on bikes in London (and equivalent cities) today, their socio economic class, would not have been found dead cycling a bike in London 30/40 years ago. When I was a daily cyclist.
Because the urban cycling fad has such a strong class marker element, they are mostly well to do middle class types, thats why so much scarce transport investment is spent on what has always been a fringe and irrelevant transportation mode when it comes to mass transport in cities like London.
Much better spending all available transportation infrastructure money on buses, trains, the Tube and keeping the arterials flowing smoothly. Which actually account for 100% (or near enough to make no difference) of all daily passenger miles between them.
If this small minority of people want to cycle on the public roads in high density urban areas maybe they should move back to the much safer suburbs. Which almost all of them in my experience seem to have grown up in. And will in time eventually return to.
dg writes: The 15's not even in the Top 200.
Aldgate → Stratford
Ten years ago: 28 mins
Today: 35 mins
(and specifically)
Bow → Stratford
Ten years ago: 9 mins
Today: 11 mins
Like Moogal, I now think twice before catching the bus.
Even at its peak (9m p jnys) it was way behind the 25 which was around 22.3m pass jnys. The 25 peaked at around 23.6m pass jnys but it has lost 6.5m p jnys over the 3 years (2014/5 to 2016/7). That shows the impact of the cycle lane works and it may well have gone down even more when we get last year's numbers. It's a lesson in how to destroy a successful bus service.
dg writes: 2011.
Instead of having lots of doors to chose from and ample standing room, now you have to force your way past people blocking the entrance and the stairs to get to seats on the upper deck. It’s a much less pleasant experience.
dg writes: So it's not that.
Make kids and students pay fares to discourage them from taking frivolously short journeys would have a far greater impact on overall health, but is not a vote catcher unfortunately.
When the route was converted from conductor to OPO number of journeys per duty dropped to 2 round trips (Ilford to Victoria) from 3+
There are different trends in terms of ridership rises and falls on each of the routes that were run with bendy buses. That makes it very difficult to identify any relationship between bus type and ridership without other relevant supporting data. TfL might have such data but it's not in the public domain.
The other view of free travel for young people is that they then use the bus and walk a bit rather than being driven door to door by their parents.
The saddest thing, most of the Whitechapel to Stratford corridor which the 25 plys its trade could have retained/improved its bus infrastructure and noddles of pavement space and some road space (for cars, van as etc), could have been handed over cycling schemes.
Result could have been, more cycling space (great), more 25 space for faster journeys. Faster bus journeys end to end lead to fewer buses having to be recycled across the same distance.
Instead what we have is an appalling mish mash of nothing, an inadequate cycling network, a bus network ripped apart, yet still increasing numbers of car drivers despite all of congestion charges, hiked parking prices, and new green road taxes etc.
“Oh but it’s ok, hopper ticket, hopper ticket, consultation, consultation, Crossrail, Crossrail, it’ll all be ok”.
TfL/Mayors, well done for playing politics with peoples lives.
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