please empty your brain below

Bus route changes are a vital part of TFLs ongoing plan and changes must be made in order to create work for all the people who rush around updating and changing E plates and bus information panels, without changes bus stop M could possibly have been covered in cobwebs and dust at this point in time.
I find it extremely reassuring when TfL act against majority consultation opinion for the greater good.

It shows that consultations are not referenda, which people allllllways seem to forget.

If only referenda were consultations....
According to the LHRG books the 13 was introduced on 12th December 1910 between Childs Hill and London Bridge, reaching Hendon via Golders Green from March 1911.

The 13 had no Sunday service after 9th November 1919, this wasn't restored until 29th October 1978.

A couple of points about how the consultation was spun - there was no mention about the loss of capacity between Golders Green and Finchley Road Stn., the diagrams showed increases on selected sections, secondly the so called hopper ticket is useless northbound between Finchley Road and Golders Green as there is no common stop for the '13', 113, 139 and 328, so there is no route to hop to, either wait for the '13', or catch the 113, get off at the first stop in Hendon Way, then walk to the stop that is served by the '13', 139 and 328.

This could have been resolved, for example, by extending the 240 from Golders Green to Swiss Cottage.

Improving the service between Golders Green and West Hampstead isn't entirely daft, due to the increase in popularity of 'Thameslink'.
Is it possible to predict which other bus services might be vulnerable to this duplication argument?

Crossrail is bound to trigger significant changes.
Compared with the 13, which is over 100 years old, the 82 is a fairly recent upstart, only dating from 1986 when the old 2B was split

Two previous incarnations of the 82 ran through the Rotherhithe Tunnel (until 1968) and the Heathrow Cargo Tunnel (1970-1982)

http://londonbuses.co.uk/routes/082-1.html
Your link for 'One MP' under the route map connects to a webpage for Andrew Dismore, an MP until 2010 and now an Assembly Member. So should not the link be 'An Assembly Member'?

dg writes: I hope that's better.
From May 1922 there was an 82 which ran on summer Sundays between Golders Green and Hatfield, from April 1924 this was revised to start from Aldwych, and follow the 13 routeing to Golders Green, I think it last operated over the summer of 1928 - but I haven't got that volume of the LHRG to hand.
I'd like to pledge £10 towards chartering a bus in March 2047, putting an 82 on the front and taking diamondgeezer wherever he wants to go
The 13 used to run from North Finchley but was cut back to Golders Green with the 82 taking over the GG-NF section. The 13 to/from North Finchley was a very frequent service and despite assurances that the 82 would be as frequent, it wasn't.

This now means that there is no direct bus up to Aldwych. Hopper fares are all very well but you have to get off, wait for another bus and hope you get on. And are hopper fares available in rush hour?

In their announcement TfL stated that they ignored petitions because, to cut a long story short, they were not conducted (no pun intended) as TfL would like.

They have form for this, having split the 260 into 260 and 460.
And are hopper fares available in rush hour?

Yes, provided you've not already spent an hour on your first bus.
"provided you've not already spent an hour on your first bus".....and waiting for the second. The trick is to change at the earliest opportunity.

The 139 still provides a link from Baker Street to Aldwych.
I can appreciate the need to cut down on routes shadowing other routes but the chopping and changing of routes over the years is not always good for the passenger.
I grew up in the NW6 area and I remember the old 13 from North Finchley to Aldwych, the 2b from Golders Green to Norwood and Crystal Palace and the 159 from West Hampstead to Thornton Heath. I'm not saying these monster routes should have been kept but making the routes ever shorter is not always convenient even with the new 'Hopper' fare.
I often get on at the first stop in Aldwych and the 13 would take me more or less all the way home. Now, with the new Hopper fare, I'm expected to take a bus from the Strand and change on Oxford Street or Gloucester Place. The queues (or heaving throng) to board an already crowded bus at those places are always very big.
I think it might be easier to use the tube instead.
What about the 84? That's not a TfL London route...
Tetramesh: Yes, it is generally easier, and quicker, to use the tube for most longish journeys. However, it typically costs more and there is less to see, and it makes some people sick.
The Summer Sunday 82 between Aldwych and Hatfield last ran in 1927. In the Summers of 1928, 1929 & 1930 there was a Sunday 284 from Victoria via Charing Cross and Highgate, joining the former 82 route at North Finchley.

After this there were Green Line coaches daily to Hatfield and beyond.
The 82 was a replacement for the 2B,when that was cut back to Baker Street from Golders Green back in 92.The 2B was renumbered 2 at the same time,because what was the 2 was cut back from Baker Street to Vauxhall,given Mercedes bread vans,& renumbered 322.The 82 was extended in 93,when the 13 became the 2nd RM route to pass to a private operator,BTS,& was cut back from North Finchley to Golders Green.

The 5 & 87 shared the same route between Barking Station & Becontree Heath,so TFL decided to extend the 5 to Romford Market,thus freeing up the number 87.A couple of months later,route 77A,London's last suffix route was renumbered 87,with it's night service being renumbered from N77 to N87.

It's not the first time that a route has been re-numbered this year.When the 387 passed from Stagecoach East London to Go-Ahead Blue Triangle,and got the dreaded Borismasters,it was re-numbered EL3.

dg writes: 77A, 387, EL3.
It's much cooler to have the Bus Number 13 as your local route, than 82 (unless you are very superstitious)
That fare freeze is costing real money. Don't expect those savings to be made in Central London to be spent elsewhere. Consultations in SE London are seeing major cuts in routes and frequencies.
From the Mayor's press office (21 March 2017): "bold plans to increase bus ridership across the capital"

• Matching bus capacity with demand by reducing the underused services in central London and reallocating them to where they are needed.
I chanced on a Routemaster running on the 82 this afternoon to mark its last day, so had a ride home on it. A nice end to the working week.

(Am I missing something by the way? Surely there must be at least a tiny change to the route formerly followed by the 82 to give an excuse to use the number 13 instead?)
The current 343 has been renumbered several times without a route change, it was the 621A/B, renumbered 243 on 3rd October 1934, then 173 on 26th October 1949, next as 'Flat Fare' route P3 from 24th January 1970 and finally the 343 from 3rd February 2001 - although the stand was moved to New Cross bus garage and a N343 was added.

The renumbering of the 82 as the 13 was simply a PR exercise.

By the way, the buses from the real 13 switch to the 139 from tonight.
The 139 of course replaced the northern part of the 159 in 1992, after the previous 139 was withdrawn in 1987, having previously been introduced in 1942 to replace part of route 41, while the 159 was extended west in 2010 to cover part of route 15, itself substantially shortened by new route 23 in 1992 and new route 115 in 1999, the number 115 having first been used on a different route in 1937 and subsequently reused between 1984 and 1995.
The same set of events can often be described in two different ways. As in this case. The simplest description of the changes would be to describe it as abolishing the old route 13, and renumbering the 82 as 13. But TfL have chosen to use a different description, which is the one which DG so eloquently reports. As the route numbers, and descriptions, are TfL's "property", they are entitled to do this.

Car models would be another example. What I would describe as a completely different car (different design, different parts, different maker) has been given the name "Mini". But the people selling them would have you believe that it is the same car "updated".
DG: :)
I believe this route 13 is the third incarnation of the number.

Just like the 52, the subject of a recent posting, the 13 also used to work south of the river.
The route had post war garage allocations from Old Kent Road (P), Camberwell (Q) and Rye Lane (RL) ensuring that in LT terms, an irregular service was provided all day to these points. At times every 30 mins or so, but much more frequent at peak times.

The predecessor route 13 ran from Harringay to Peckham via Camden Town and Piccadilly Circus .. Photo: my collection https://flic.kr/p/gstCoe
Am old enough to remember when the 13 was Old Routemasters from North Finchley bus garage (long since dearly departed, now a Homebase) through to Aldwych, and the 82 was from the same to Victoria.

There was much anger when it was cut back to start at Golders Green (about the time they killed the bus garage), so I'm not surprised this latest bit of mucking about has upset folk.
Another frustrating thing was that over the years with all the various changes made not one route running down the Finchley Road/Baker Street corridor went east of Oxford Circus. If I wanted to go to in the Tottenham Court Road/Holborn direction I'd have to change on Oxford Street.
Diverting the 13 to run via Charing Cross Road to the Strand or having the 113 terminate at Tottenham Court Road would have avoided shadow routes and would have quite been helpful.
It's all a little more complicated than the article makes out. The Finchley Road services have often been subject to reorganistion as LT, LRT and later TfL never seemed to get the balance quite right, between servicing all the different branches, without over bussing the Finchley Road itself.

Historically, the 13 wasn't a route to Finchley at all, but to Hendon. Route 2 was the Finchley 'bus route' alongside trams and later trolleybuses to Barnet (T40, 60, 660).

The demise of the importance of the 13 began in the 1930s, when the 113 was introduced to replace the northern section of the 121, which had provided a daily service to South East London. After this time, the 13 always played second fiddle to the 113.

As part of the 1960s reshaping plan, the 13 lost its London Bridge to Aldwych section to Red Arrow 513. A few months later, in June 1970, the 2 to North Finchley was replaced by the now mostly forgotten route 26, Victoria to Barnet, and was cut back to Golders Green as 2B.

In 1978, as part of BusPlan78, the 13 was rerouted away from Hendon to terminate at Golders Green to partly replace the 26, which was now withdrawn south of Golders Green. The 113 was slightly increased at this time to cover for the 13 to Hendon.

When introduced, the 82 (a nice reversal of 2B) replaced the 2B as well as the Sunday service on the 26.

All three of the above reorganisations sought to cut/economise on the overall service and this latest change seeks to do exactly the same. The difference this time is the complete loss of one branch - the service to Aldwych. Of course, if the London Bridge objective had never been severed from the route in 1970, I guess the 13 would still be thriving, East of Oxford Circus.
Hopper fares are all very well but I'm in a wheelchair and changing buses is a hassle for my 81-year-old mother, who pushes me. We use the 13 to return to Golders Green from The Aldwych quite a bit.
As a postscript to my comments above, as well as a reply to the suggestion that the 240 be extended to Swiss Cottage.

I forgot to mention that in the 1960s, LT in its quest to reduce costs on the Finchley Road services, planned rerouting route 2 at Swiss Cottage via Hampstead to Golders Green. Objections to the use of D/D vehicles in Hampstead caused a delay until the 268 could be introduced with S/D vehicles. Of course, the desired effect of reducing the service along the Finchley Road, whilst retaining the overall route objectives had been lost.
@ Andrew S.

According to my expert friend it was "RML900 out on the 82. This was very special as it was the 2nd RML withdrawn years ahead of all the others and sent for scrap after a smash.

It was bought and entered service with Clydeside and has never worked in London since being preserved."
TfL and the Mayor's assertions about redeploying resources to Outer London would be fine if they were true. However they are not. Recent planned enhancements in NE London have almost all been scrapped. The new tenders for routes along the A13 axis from Aldgate to Romford include the reduction in peak hour frequencies. Many other recent contract awards also include frequency cuts to Outer London services. Therefore, as things stand today, the statements are false. There is no evidence of resource redeployment at all. There are further waves of service changes coming that will entrench further cuts which will affect people in Outer London even if the justification is based on the routes serving Central London.

As I feared when I read the Mayor's Manifesto in Spring 2016 he has no plan for the bus network other than "greener" vehicles. TfL are also demonstrably at a loss as to how to recover patronage losses and fare revenue. We therefore face 4 years of cuts and declining usage. What a mess.
I can report another sighting of the "Men Who Change the Tiles", on Blackfriars Bridge this morning: the "100" tile was being replaced by the 388. So for the whole of this week the stops will be displaying the wrong information as the change does not come into effect until Saturday
As a child growing up in North London, I remember catching the 26 bus into the West End - which ran from Barnet to Victoria. It was later cut back - and didn't run south of Golders Green. It looks as if the "new" 13 is a reincarnation of the old 26 (at least between Golders Green and Victoria).










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