please empty your brain below
If you can cram 30 standees onto a double decker (not 20), then TfL's new service is equivalent to cramming 80 (not 90) standees onto a bendy.
No matter how you count, these figures represent inhumane travelling conditions for substantial numbers of people.
I use the 29 (bendy); at least once a week I see a group of around 20 Revenue Inspectors and Police at a bus stop dealing with those bendy* passengers (they don't do this mob-handed routine on our doubledeckers) who haven't paid. That has to be expensive.
Perhaps TfL and Boris won't be as much out of pocket as they're claiming. Double deckers might cost less, overall. Are we surprised?
(*Bendy passengers - well you have to be particularly flexible to move down the gangway of a bendy bus...)
On the first three routes, commuters will still be able to board via the second door, so fare evasion won't be reduced on these.
The 'cyclist killing bendy bus' meme is a myth. No cyclist has ever been killed by a bendy bus and there have only been four serious collisions with cyclists since they were introduced. When you compare that with HGVs you can see that bendies are actually relatively safe.
The figures do show more pedestrian accidents per kilometre, but when you factor in the routes they use and the total amount of people they carry they are actually marginally safer per passenger than other type of bus.
Some people just don't like them and I can understand that, but on some routes they are simply the most efficient way of moving people around. the fact that Boris is going to fork out an extra £3 million on these three routes, and still have a lower capacity, demonstrates that.
This new initiative has got to be a good thing.
Another thing: those 12 metre rigid buses won't be as manoeuvrable as either double deckers (9 metres) or bendy buses, so could cause more holdups and be delayed more.
Compromises, compromises... and no, I don't think Boris's unicorn (sorry, fabled new 'Routemaster') could resolve all of the trade-offs either.
e...oris/
article.do
"He said: "We should on day one, act one, scene one, hold a competition to get rid of the bendy bus. They wipe out cyclists, there are many cyclists killed every year by them."
From last Saturday's comment box ( 11.30.08 - 1:30 am | #)
"He (Boris) claims that they are much more dangerous than double-deckers, and produced some figures to back up the claim, which apparently show that the bendy buses are twice as dangerous (collisions per mile travelled) than double-deckers. However, despite being challenged to do so, he was unable to produce a single incident of a cyclist killed by a bendy, whereas it was reported that a double was involved in a fatal collision with a cyclist on Park Lane in February of this year."
http://www.movingtargetzine.com/...-on-bendy-
buses
Maybe it's HGV's that should be 'replaced'
http://www.movingtargetzine.com/...lorries-in-
2008
Boris is a TWAT!!!
If Boris wanted to tackle fare evasion he wouldn't have started with the Red Arrow routes. The reason he *did* start with those two is purely because their contracts were up first and because he needed to demonstrate that he'd stick to his policy, in other words it was expediency and spin.
It was nothing to do with fare evasion, safety, congestion (the replacements occupy more roadspace), value for money or providing extra capacity.
TfL haven't released any figures for how much more this costs, the £3m figure (presumably annually) is from the BBC, and my request (and presumably Adam's) into the Mayor's people hasn't received a reply yet.
As disgruntled points out (inadvertently) what will happen on the 38 is that the extra seats will fill up with some former standees while the rest find alternative arrangements. If they take his advice and cycle they'll be at more risk than if they'd stayed on the bendy, since cycling is more dangerous than bus travel whatever vehicles are on the road, particularly HGVs which kill far more cyclists than buses.
"They wipe out cyclists, there are many cyclists killed every year by them."
he was just making it up.
As I said, no cyclist has ever been killed in London by a bendy bus. He just repeated it enough times so that people believed it. When you break down all of Boris's assertions about bendies on congestion, cost, safety, and popularity the only one that hasn't been disproved is popularity as no survey or consultation has ever taken place on that.
You could argue that the election was a form of consultation, but bendies mostly operate in non-Boris voting central London. To really find out the answer to that you need a proper consultation, which Boris has refused to do. Could it be that he was not as sure of the result of a bendy consultation as he was with the western congestion zone consultation?
Er, quite a lot of mentions of safety, such as the 59\\% extra vehicles on the road under Boris's scheme being more dangerous to cyclists than bendy buses by Boris's own figures. What figures do you have around relative safety of standing and sitting on an already safe form of transport, Blue Witch? Perhaps we should ban standing on all buses?
More pertinently, perhaps we should ban double deckers, which have killed two people this year (one by knocking a branch off a tree onto a pedestrian, the other by throwing someone out of the top deck window).
I live along the 29/253 and the 29 (bendy) is just a much more comfortable ride and perfect for the long straight routes with an amazing amount of passengers along it that it serves. The 253 is always packed and in the morning rush you usually can't get on at all.
Thanks, Boris. If he'd had held a referendum here like he did with the Congestion Charge, I don't think they'd have ever gotten rid of them.
According to the capacity figures written above the driver's cab, each bendy bus holds 149 passengers (even though there are only 49 seats).
Full bendy capacity is therefore one-third seated and two-thirds standing like sardines.
So I've updated the figures in today's post to reflect 'reality'. And it makes the 38's replacement double decker service look even more inadequate.
Standing is now banned on all contract buses that carry school children as passengers in every county I have experience working in (so, 5, all around London). Standing is also banned on coaches carrying school children (who also have to wear seat belts). I believe this also applies to adults, although that may just be coach companies round here. There is undoubtedly a reason for this. I'd expect it to be safety.
People may not be killed by being jolted when buses stop suddenly or accelerate rapidly, but they do suffer bruises, sprains and falls.
No-one's picked up my point about how comfortable it is (or isn't) for passengers who have to stand due to lack of seats to travel on buses. Many people (including myself these days) aren't able to use buses unless they can sit down. I certainly don't *look* disabled, but then neither do most people who can't stand for long periods so need a seat - but they won't get it, probably even if they ask.
a) many people who are unable to stand for bus journeys are also unable to climb the narrow, steep stairs on buses (especially as the driver always pulls away the second the last passenger is on board), so the existence of those seats is basically irrelevant to those people (except that it means some people will get out of their way and so they might get a downstairs seat!)
b) Many able-bodied people don't bother climbing the stairs to get a seat, especially if they're not travelling far, and as a result the downstairs seats fill up quickly as does the standing space, sometimes to the extent that new passengers have trouble getting on even though there's plenty of capacity left upstairs. I used to see this happen daily on the number 9 - I'd sit upstairs where it was half-empty, but when I came downstairs to exit the bus it was overcrowded.
Does anyone have figures on how many seats are available via level access (i.e. no stairs) on a double decker vs a bendy?
The difference between Ken and Boris is that Ken had always used public transport and was keenly aware of what it was like to travel on the buses/tube in London.
Boris in my opinion, has no idea about public transport and its use and I bet if he's honest, he doesn't care a toss.
He belongs to the 'let them eat cake - let's get rid of those nasty foreign looking buses - little Englander brigade' and thank goodness it's beginning to show...
As someone who has done a daily commute on a routemaster, a bendy and a modern double decker I would choose the bendy. Why? Because whilst I may not get a seat, it is easily the quickest and most reliable of the three.
If safety was the primary concern, there would be seat belts (as on coaches). Nothing reduces injury as much as a seat belt, aside from not getting into an accident in the first place. The accident and injury rate for busses has long been low enough that people are more concerned with fitting on the bus than how safe it is.
TfL actually worked on the basis of 120 on a bendy, 70 on a single decker (which will include a lot of standees) and 85 on a double decker (likewise, a lot of standees, but fewer than a bendy).
I'm not sure that being on a bendy with 120 people on counts as 'not-packed', however. Also, 120 on a bendy is definitely easier to use than 85 on a double decker (where there'll be ten or so people standing downstairs in the way of anyone descending from upstairs to get off).
In other words, the 38 in the peak with 85 people per bus is going to be very slow at the stops compared to a 38 at the peak with 120 people per bendy.
I'd just like to pick up on something that Bina said:
"When buses arrive in 3's (as they truly do in real life) the bendys (especially the 38 ) take up the space of 6 buses. They're a menace to traffic movement, and also a hazard to cyclists, pedestrians and other small things. I won't cry when they're gone. We don't have the kind of roads to use them effectively."
There are three points there, and they all bear further consideration.
Firstly, buses arriving in threes. I don't take the 38 very often, so I can't comment particularly. The 507 and 521 have short routes and so there's not far to somewhere to hold them (without passengers!) to regulate the service. If, however, they are bunching on the 38 as it stands, things are going to get worse. Bunching is caused because there are lots of people waiting to board a bus and it takes them a while to do so. Bendies have three doors; the 12m replacements have two, which might well slow things down further.
Secondly, they're a menace to cyclists. Except that, as is well known, they're not. The available statistics simply do not support your position. I think cyclists have cottoned on the fact that you have to look out for these 18-metre, bright red bendy things that say 'long vehicle' on the back.
Thirdly, we don't have the roads to use them effectively. I would contest some of that. In the very centre of London, we don't. We don't actually have the roads for motorised transport, to be honest. I don't know if you've ever tried driving around Soho or Covent Garden, but it's hard enough in a Micra, let alone a double decker. There is, as I've mentioned before, a particular problem at Cambridge Circus, but rerouting or shortening those lines (which may well happen as a result of the redevelopment of Tottenham Court Road station for Crossrail 1) could solve the problem. If you look in other places, the roads we have are fine for bendies - the 507 and 521 are practically segregated and are commuter specials anyway. Essex Road, Stamford Hill and so on are fairly long and straight. If we accept DG's figures, to give equivalent capacity you need 35 double deckers at around ten metres each, giving an occupied road space of 350m, while the twenty bendies at 18m each occupy 360m - only 10m more - and may well have shorter dwell times.
xD.
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