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Boris: Scrap bendy bus and bring back Routemaster
Paul Waugh, Evening Standard11 Sep 2007
Boris Johnson has vowed that his first act as Mayor of London will be to scrap bendy buses and replace them with a modern-day Routemaster.
Mr Johnson said that the controversial buses were abused by fare dodgers and highly dangerous to cyclists.
Speaking at the first Tory candidates hustings meeting, the MP for Henley said that he would introduce a new version of the Routemaster bus that had been axed by Ken Livingstone. Their replacement would be fully accessible for the disabled and mothers with buggies.
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.
"It's not beyond the wit of man to design a new Routemaster which will stand as an icon of this city."
Mr Johnson also said that he would stand up for the "many" in London who depended on their car and vowed to spend more of the congestion charge on repairing roads, particularly outside the centre of the city.
Just £10 million of the nearly £1 billion raised by the congestion charge had gone on improving roads, he said.
In a question and answer session in Westminster last night, the Tory front-runner also called for all ethnic minority communities in London to have a "good command of English".
He said: "It's tragic that there are people in the second and third generations who still don't speak English.
"If you don't speak English, you cannot take part in the economy and that's one of the reasons those communities are doing badly."
Mr Livingstone has already attacked him in personal terms, Mr Johnson claimed, with the Mayor suggesting he was a racist, a Right-winger and a friend of convicted fraudster Darius Guppy. He said that the public were ready for a new face to run London. "I think the fact that he has been at it for so long... is now turning into his single biggest weakness," he said.
Fellow candidate Victoria Borwick called for police to end the practice of patrolling in pairs, while Andrew Boff vowed to axe the congestion charge.
Warwick Lightfoot praised the Mayor's fight against Gordon Brown over the PPP for the Tube.
Mr Boff was the only candidate to pledge to scrap the congestion charge completely and to axe free child travel on buses. He said: "The congestion charge contract comes up in 2009. It doesn't just need mending, it doesn't need extending, it needs ending."
Both Mr Boff and Mr Lightfoot suggested Mr Johnson was not the man for the job.
Mr Boff said that the capital had had enough of "celebrity" politicians, while Mr Lightfoot said the Tories needed a candidate "without baggage".
