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Routemaster conductors will cost £8m says Boris
Ross Lydall, City Hall Editor27.02.08
Employing conductors to work on a new fleet of Routemasters to replace bendy buses would cost just £8 million a year, Boris Johnson claimed today.
The Tory mayoral challenger wants to launch a competition to design a new version of the London double-decker, with its open rear deck and conductors.
His rival Ken Livingstone claims that bringing back conductors would add a couple of pounds a week to council tax bills, while Transport for London buses boss David Brown said it would cost £600million to replace the capital's 337 bendy buses with Routemasters.
Speaking on BBC London radio today, Mr Johnson said the true cost of employing conductors on replacement Routemasters was insignificant when contrasted with the amount TfL spends on consultants - more than £210 million in 2006/7.
He said: "It's absolutely true that if you are going to bring back a Routemaster, or have a new Routemaster, you would need a conductor with them. I have looked at the expense of that. It would cost £8million to have conductors on each of these buses per year"
A spokeswoman for Ken Livinsgtone thinks Mr Johnson has got his sums wrong. "There are currently just under 400 bendy buses. To achieve the same capacity with the Routemaster design would require at least 200 more buses. Conductors on the 600 new buses would cost £70million a year," she said.
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Reader views (19)
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London's Routemasters should never have been withdrawn as even though they were over 30 years old they were still far superior to the modern vehicles that replaced them and popular with the majority of Londoners.
It's a shame that Ken's bendies can't do u-turns as quickly as he can as, let's not forget, in the late 90s when Livingstone was trying to become Mayor he was championing both Routemasters and conductors to such an extent that when he was elected Major he bought 50 of the buses back and put them out on the road!
- Paul, Shoreditch, London
Why do we need to spend more money on new Double decker buses, when we have perfectly good old ones, that worked just fine before they were taken off the roads? Just bring back the old Double deckers that are part of London and sorely missed.
- Jane, London
Personally I couldn't care less about the Routemaster - load of sentimental claptrap! As for conversation from the conductors, the most I ever got from them was a miserable grunt as they shoved up and down the bus. Apart from the harmonica playing guy on the 73 or 38 up Essex Rd that is... bring on the bendies!
- Cyclist, London
