please empty your brain below

I have used the 4 bus to get from Waterloo to Barbican seems that will not be possible soon.

dg writes: No, but the 76 will do it instead.

Having to change buses puts me off using them.
"Modernising" and simplifying"? They mean cutting, don't they. "Readiness for future growth"? Well, I suppse growth can be negative too. Shrinkage, you might call it. Certainly, eliminating buses would solve problems of pollution and road danger (no buses -> no emissions, no collisions). And also match demand (no buses -> no empty buses).

It is easy to see where there is overcapacity, although some of that is required for network flexibility, but does TfL have any idea where there is unmet demand? Do they have any plans to create demand for their bus services - a virtuous circle of more services and more usage - or is it just managed decline?

Surely TfL must have a map of its bus routes for its own internal purposes, even if it is not published? Bizarre if not, and perhaps one explanation of why changes are made one year and unmade the next: no strategic vision.
Cutting the 59 back to Euston means there will once again be no direct link (by bus OR Tube) between the country's busiest railway station and the Eurostar terminal.

The truncation of the 4 and 172 halves the number of bus routes (and therefore buses?) between Waterloo and the City - again an axis poorly served by the Tube. Still no buses on the direct route from Waterloo to the City via Blackfriars Bridge though.
Londoners don't know how lucky you are, the rest of the country has had to put up with this sort of stuff for years!
So TfL consider buses to be a source of 'Road danger'. I would suggest that is a very unwise description to make in the public domain. It could well return to haunt them in the future.

And I hope that they had to pay a king's ransom to use Mike Harris's bus map for this consultation. They should jolly well produce their own map.
Soon we’ll be back in the early 80s. Buses not turning up, routes without a Sunday service or those funny suffixed routes which indicate the weekday route is going a different way.

Sadly the ease of Uber has meant lots of people are ditching the bus for door to door connections. Press a button and a car arrives. I’ve had friends take the tube to Bethnal Green and jump in an Uber to Hackney Central rather than try to work out which of the many frequent buses to take up Cambridge Heath Road/Mare Street. I’d love to see night bus loadings this year compared to five or ten years ago. It won’t just be the night tube that’s eaten into passenger numbers. Wherever you go, at least in zones 1-3, day or night you can’t help noticing ‘private’ motor vehicles with the little yellow diamond on the window. They used to be Toyato Priuses but these days they’re just as likely to be smart BMWs or Audis. They’re everywhere.

I appreciate there are other reasons. Kingsland Road used to be the domain of buses. As Shoreditch, Dalston and Haggerston became more more popular so the 149, 242 and to a lesser extent 67 got more crowded. It was one of the reasons the 149 became a bendy bus. Unpopular maybe but it did scoop up lots of passengers whereas the 242 would often leave full downstairs with passengers on the pavement shouting at the driver about empty seats upstairs. Now of course there’s an Overground route running parallel along Kingsland Road.
Some of these cut routes can be replaced by underground - at greater cost of course. But I know several elderly people who will be badly affected, even though they have Freedom Passes. For people who can't walk far and find using stairs a strain, the bus network is much more accessible than the underground network. Despite the improvements in accessibility in recent years, at most stations stairs will be unavoidable for the foreseeable future.
I've dug out my June 2008 Central London Bus Map and am checking how many of the routes on there have actually survived unscathed... it's not looking pretty.
Don't understand this need to hang on to the 15H, just withdraw it.

The 19 looks like its being prepared for withdrawal, terminating at Holborn helps suppress passenger numbers on the remaining section, passengers will use the 4 and 38 instead.

The 14 seems to replace the 10 via the British Museum as far as Russell Square.

Why bother with the 73 and 476, just extend the 73 to Northumberland Park, considering all the other changes the N73 could be renumbered N573 to distinguish it from the day route.

Talking of faffing about, several of these routes have only recently received new buses - 19, 45, 171, 172, 341, where do the redundant buses go, what'll happen to the spare LTs?
Men Who Obsess About Buses should enjoy the discussion here: http://tangytango.proboards.com/thread/8629/upcoming-changes?page=210
Of course TfL could reduce the "over-bussing" in the centre by simply terminating alternate journeys on radial routes at Elephant/County Hall/Marble Arch/Holborn Circus/Aldgate or wherever. This would mean links are not lost, simply run at lower frequency. BUT it would mean that the fiction of all buses running the full length of their route would be ditched, and therefore no doubt impossible for TfL to countenance. Would passengers find it hard to work out which journeys are not going the full distance - maybe, but West Midlands people have coped well enough with E buses.

The few very useful cross-centre routes (eg 19, 21, 36, 148) could be allowed to continue unchanged.
What the leaked information fails to reveal is service frequencies. To take the Kings Road as an example, the 11 and 19 are withdrawn and replaced by new bus 311. But is the reduction in the total number of buses (21.5 an hour instead of 29) just down to that, or are we going to find that existing 22 services are also reduced in number?
For me there are two key themes here and DG has picked up on both. Firstly this is just a staging post to a later finalised much reduced network. Secondly the point that a lot of this is really a "U Turn" on past changes that have either failed or not been given enough time to work. These two when combined really pose the question as to whether TfL actually know what they're doing and what problem(s) they are trying to address. It's actually rather worrying given that this "simplification" mantra is clearly going to be imposed on many suburban centres too.
Hopefully reducing central London congestion a bit will increase bus ridership due to reduced journey times. Then the buses will fill up and there will be a clamour for more capacity...

The wheel turns!
Most of this seems quite sensible - most of the cuts are in central London, and working in central london it's pretty obvious that some of the central sections of these routes are hugely overbussed, with often near-empty buses stuck in jams slow enough to make it quicker to walk.
The hopper fare will be held up as the reason for withdrawing "duplicated" sections. Whilst it is nice to be able to change for free, changing buses as the de riguer is undesirable and will lead to longer journey times at best, and more uber and lower passenger numbers across the network at worst.

It is despairing how the combined effect of several factors is leading to lower investment in the cities' bread and butter transport investment (eg. Not Crossrail) and in term is seeing more and more ubers and similar clogging up the roads and polluting the air.
This is part of an ongoing process, the 13/139/82 changes from a year ago being an example that affected me.

This all feels like public transport in the 70s and 80s - lower passenger number, cut services - lower passenger numbers, cut services etc

It does feel like there's a lack of love for buses both within TfL and with Mayor Khan.
Daily life for many Londoners has moved away from the need or wish to enter zone 1, buses are just no longer needed there in these numbers
I enjoyed this additional analysis of Darryl’s scoop. Sorry to be one of those people, but the 172 starts at Brockley Rise, not Bellingham.

dg writes: Sorry - that was incorrect in TfL's presentation. Now fixed, thanks.
Clutching at straws, but I'm not sure this is the end for Fetter Lane as a bus route - the logical route if not going via Grays Inn Road is via Holborn Circus, not Ludgate Circus.

As for truncating the 172 at Aldwych, they usually do that anyway (leaving passengers from Waterloo further from the City than when they boarded), so no real change there.
To be fair, what they really need to get rid of is all the bloody roadworks in the centre of the capital. That'd solve that traffic problem in a heartbeat.
It does feel like Blackfriars Road/Bridge is taking a bit of an unnecessary hit with the 388 cut back in the north and the 45 cut back in the south. Just leaves the 63, which has already had three buses cut an hour if I recall correctly.
@matthew
The 40 is to be diverted over Blackfriars Bridge to replace the 45 and 388.
TfL previous fairly recent announcement with regard to route 3 - looks like that extension to Russell Square has gone...

Route 3 - from 15 July 2017 buses will start and finish at Trafalgar Square and will no longer serve Regent Street or Oxford Circus. We intend to extend route 3 to Russell Square, as consulted on, when Elizabeth line services start running from Tottenham Court Road.
Looks like TfL is totally unwilling to keep their old Routemasters. Can't say I am upset - my ride from Tower Hill on a November Friday was cut short without prior notice at Aldwych. The EOR is far more keen on keeping the legacy.
I note you call tfl staff "muppets" a very unkind and unprofessional comment.

dg writes: I reserve the right to describe the TfL executives who sanctioned the scrapping of London bus maps as "muppets".
I am surprised that people are saying declining bus use is significantly caused by Uber. The difference in price is considerable for one person for any journey and even for a car load where there are concessions will usually still be large.
Sadly it looks like all TfL are interested in these days are running bike and train services.

As a visitor to London I prefer buses as I’m too old to cycle and having experienced the joys of the deep tubes this Summer, prefer to travel on the surface rather than the noisy super-heated hell holes they provide under Central London.

Also TfL seem to be gambling on the fact that Crossrail1 is the answer to through passengers problems. Except Crossrail has no direct interchange with either the Victoria Line or the Piccadilly Line, so those wishing to get to West End stations served on those lines still have two further journeys to make i.e. the only single transfer way of getting to Piccadilly Circus is from Paddington by the Bakerloo.

Those of us coming from the East will have to make awkward double changes if you want to get to from Crossrail to Covent Garden, Piccadilly Circus or Knightsbridge. Previously it was so much easier to get on a bus to those places using the through routes from the National Rail termini (Liverpool Street, Fenchurch Street) and tourist locations in the City (St Paul’s, Monument, Tower) to Pic Circus, but TfL have already cut those routes (15 and 23), and the multiple journey options will be no fun in the pouring rains or howling gales of winter. What have they got against bus passengers?

But with TfL carrying on the way they are, I’m sure Uber won’t be objecting.
Page 8 of the Evening Standard.
https://twitter.com/853london/status/1030466534999764992

(no attribution to original source)
PEDANT ALERT

"Crossrail has no direct interchange with either the Victoria Line or the Piccadilly Line"

I bring you Heathrow. (Not that that's much help for eastern passengers heading to Russell Square...)
Meanwhile today's the day that TfL finally revealed the outcomes of last summer's enormous Crossrail-related bus review.
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/buses/crossrail

Tons of changes are coming, especially in outer London.

As a flavour, here's what they've said about cutting back route 25 from Oxford Circus to Holborn Circus (which is going ahead despite support from only 16% of respondents).

• There has been a big decrease in demand on route 25 over the last five years, particularly at the western end of the route.
• Unfortunately, there is no spare stand space available at Holborn station or Tottenham Court Road to accommodate route 25. Even if there were it would incur additional costs which cannot be justified.
• Following the changes, passengers will be able to use route 8 to continue their journey into the West End.
• We intend to retain the night service on route 25 between Ilford and Oxford Circus, which will be renumbered as route N25.

Shame about the 15H. I always seek it out, and use it exclusively when we have oversees visitors in town.

Saying that, when I have used it, it's always been virtually empty. :(
There are no bus maps any more, no wonder usage is falling. I wrote to TfL about this as I recently needed to get a 45. I knew it went from Tooting but I was in London and didn't know where it ran at that end. No information anywhere. Spider maps are no good, they show major stops and no interchanges. Imagine maps at Tube stations that only show the lines that pass through that station, only the adjacent and 'major' stations on the line, and no interchanges with other lines. Ridiculous, but that is how TfL now 'promote' their buses.
The reply I got basically said "Yeah, tough"
While budgetary constraints and the introduction of the Hopper fare conspire to create a network of shorter routes with less overlap I find it particularly striking that low-cost measures designed to aid the traveling public in using such a network are notable by their absence.

The TfL journey planner continues to present options that TfL would like you to take instead of ones that a rational user would design. The graphic design is awful, particularly on mobile devices. No provision is made for alternative routes, nor for fare economy.

Yes, I hear you shout, it's all about the money (cost and fare take).

How simple however to bring back the humble bus map and geographic route diagram; or design the Journey Planner to produce a customised .pdf of start and end point with a local map at any interchange.

A simpler bus service can work, but the more changes required the more frequent that bus service must be to remain competitive.

And for goodness sake, when changing buses, don't spoon feed us, just give us a clue.
Shocking about the 171, precious few buses from the outer suburbs make it to the centre as it is. Bellingham is a deprived area, has already lost (hopefully temporarily) the 4tph it waited forever for, and of course is nowhere near a tube line. How about picking on a place on the tube network instead?
I compare the 25 cutback to Holborn Circus to a cheapo easyjet/Ryanair flight to an airport miles out from the city centre. Somewhere in between Somewhere and Nowhere.

I said this years ago on other forums, and maybe even here about the 25. Being London’s biggest bus route I view it as symbolic in so many ways.

The assault of the super cycle highway in around the Stratford to Bow corridor ripping out excellent bus priority made me stand up and say, “if TfL can do this to their by far number one route in terms of patronage, they’ll make light work of callously axing anything else”.

Despite TfL’s claim, Crossrail will not take away passengers from 25. TfL’s cycle stragies which could easily have been more bus friendly, and failure to properly regulate this huge expansion of private hire vehicles which quite frankly unsustainable for London’s Roman based road network have already done so. This next cutback to, somewhere in between somewhere and nowhere, will only serve to assist the would be 25 customers to opt for another mode, or not travel at all.

And on the basis of opting not to travel, well considering 25 serves the shopping arena that be Oxford Street, what does this mean a for UK’s no.1 shopping street in these diffuser times verses the online retail giants, and current state of confusion regarding brexit. Have the New West End company really taken this lightly? Surely a cut to TCR rather than somewhere in between somewhere and nowhere serves, the passengers, businesses, workers, economy better as well allowing TfL to save on some resources (I appreciate £700m deficit)?

44% of users rebuked this change in the ‘consultation’, with only 16% in favour. Hmmm, I think that it’s clear to suggest TfL that you are onto a bad idea, that does not serve well those who actually use the service. Therefore clearly, not “every journey matters”
We have now crossed the MWLB Event Horizon
Some bus routes are being wholly or partly reverted to previous roads - see 9, 22 and 100.

Planners are usually able-bodied and unencumbered by kids or bags (luggage or shopping). The proposed route changes suit able-bodied passengers who live beside rail or tube stations. The rest of us do not qualify one way or the other; 10% of us have mobility issues, permanent, temporary or intermittent.

No-one is addressing fare evasion on the LT class - after 7pm on some routes 'fare-payers' are often in the minority, also round the clock at weekends. Each non-swipe is another bus cut contribution.

Those paying fares (stored value ticketing) instead of time-based tickets will be forced to pay more to complete their travel in a reasonable time-frame, by switching to rail instead of buses all the way. Bus fares are cheaper than nearly all forms of London rail tickets.

Passengers interchanging buses to complete their travel may end up trying to board buses already full.

And finally, TfL rig the outcome of 'consultations' (the operative syllable is the first one) so that the result is derived from the minority of objectors, not the few who support a proposition - Highbury Corner changes were not supported, nor was Oxford Street pedestrianisation if the 'votes' are counted correctly. Both projects are going ahead (Oxf S will be imposed, eventually - the pollution hasn't changed despite most buses along it being hybrid or electric) and bus passengers are already suffering.

The only real question is what can we passengers do about it?
Notably to replace each Citaro with the same capacity of non articulated buses, you need 3 single deckers, or 2 double deckers which take up 100% or 30% more road space (& creating a massive problem at Waterloo Bus Garage (507/521))

This does not allow for the massive dwell-time penalties that switching from 3 double doors boarding & alighting, and literally sucking up passengers in seconds to the massive time penalties of one door entry (and climbing to/from upper deck). This politically driven decision with no objective review (ignoring the option of reviewing/using CCTV to analyse & manage the issues) gave a massive boost to the order books of the UK bus makers, as the main source for the double decker buses required in a very short time, and prompted the disaster which is the NBFL with questions still over the CANBus system (at least 2 uncontrolled accelerations and crashes) plus the regular power steering failures, and air cooling systems not working (possibly flipping into reverse when the condenser coils get too hot to export heat, and import it instead)

One option is to have people changing buses, and switching from outer London vehicles and routes, to inner London routes - very high frequency, possibly free to board, and using direct routes -change bus to move across the city. 7 routes between Centre Point and Oxford Circus could be reduced to just one with less than half the number of buses turning 10, 390 and 73 at Euston, and 8, 25 and 55 at Holborn with the 98 turned at Marble Arch. Free to board of course, paid for by savings on the 160% more buses required to create the red wall of near stationary, near empty buses the epitomise the evening peak on London's Streets. Learn from Manchester - their city centre bus routes are free to board - it would cost more to run them & charge fares.
The moving of the 88 over to the C2 route between Camden Town and Great Portland Street has the benefit of removing a service from the Hampstead Road where, theoretically, HS2 works will be blocking the road for bridge rebuilds.
The official central London bus consultation was published on 28th September: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/buses/central-london/consult_view

It includes everything in the leak, except that Heritage Routemaster 15 appears to have been given a reprieve.

It also reveals the outcomes of separate decisions on routes RV1 and 343:
• RV1 - route withdrawn
• 343 - extended across Tower Bridge to Aldgate (to mitigate for withdrawal of RV1)
Some of the perverse logic in the new review:

"During 2016/17 our data shows daily usage on route 205 increased by three per cent between Mondays to Friday. The usage increase on weekdays is largely due to significant frequency decreases on routes 25 and 18 which both share long parallels with route 205.

To better match capacity to demand we propose to decrease to the frequency of service Monday to Saturday from every 8 minutes to every 9 minutes."

Confirmation, finally, April 12th 2019

Withdrawn: 48, RV1
Shortened: 3, 4, 40, 45, 59, 67, 134, 172
Rerouted/changed: 9/N9, 14, 53, 55, 76, 205/N205, 341
Extended: 100, 343
Increased frequencies: 26, 35, 46, 149
No change: 11, 19, 22, 271, 311










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