Tonight:
4°c
As Boris embarks tomorrow on the first stage of his promise to "commission a 21st-century Routemaster" - a design competition - I have a confession to make. The reason I fell out with Ken Livingstone wasn't his cronyism, waste, or arrogance. The reason I, and I think many other Londoners, parted company with Ken was that he got rid of the Routemaster.
What a silly reason, the Roundheads among us will say. But the Routemaster has always been far more than a bus, and with any luck tomorrow's launch will be about far more than transport.
What the Routemaster symbolised was public-service idealism: a conviction made flesh, or at least aluminium, that something in the public realm should be the best thing possible, painstakingly and precisely crafted for the job it did, its future users consulted every step of the way, and an object to grace the city it served.
What the successors to the Routemaster symbolise is the disastrous breakdown in relations between the people who run our public services and the people who use them. Could anything be more contemptuous of its customers than a modern bus? The seats are hard, there are far fewer downstairs than on the Routemaster, and some face backwards. The air is filled with high-pitched beeping noises.
Ventilation barely exists. The buses throw passengers around when they brake. The upper decks are vandalised, filthy and disorderly in a way a conductor-operated vehicle never was. Slow, lumbering, the buses are comically unsuited to London's streets. Their fuel consumption is 30 per cent more than the Routemaster's. Their engines are often ridiculously noisy. And that's before you even get to the bendy bus - which, not content with screwing the passenger and the environment, makes life hell for every other road user too.
No actual bus passenger would have chosen these vehicles, but they weren't designed for passengers. They were designed to comply with often irrelevant regulations and to appease minority pressure groups, such as the disabled lobby, which didn't even speak for the minorities they purported to represent (disability is not confined to wheelchair use; opinion polls showed that most people with disabilities preferred the Routemaster).
The other thing new buses are designed to do is look snazzy and modern. Never underestimate our masters' obsession with outward form, as opposed to function and content. Think, for instance, of the city academies - where the priority has been new buildings, rather than good teachers.
So tomorrow should be not just about delivering a new Routemaster but delivering cultural change in the public services - something of great relevance to that central question in British politics, the one that goes "How can Labour have spent so much on the public sector, yet seen such modest increases in public satisfaction?"
I'm only cautiously hopeful, though. The fact is that TfL is proud of its buses, and despises the Routemaster. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the "transport professionals" think they're doing a great job. The main qualification needed for a career in British public transport is the belief that innovation is too difficult and the glass is half empty. The letters pages of the industry press are full of bus managers scoffing at the public's "sentimental" attachment to the Routemaster and saying a new version will be technically impossible.
Ken, too, came to office as a friend of the RM. But the "transport professionals", above all TfL's head, Peter Hendy, turned him around. Only 10 months ago, Hendy was writing emails discussing how to "refute Boris's transport idea [that] Routemasters are good". Hendy is now making nice noises, for tactical reasons, over the 21st-century Routemaster; but sources say David Brown, TfL's bus boss, is determined that it will not happen until the 22nd century, at the earliest.
Boris's own transport adviser, Kulveer Ranger - another transport pro - has sounded doubtful, too. Even the Mayor himself is muttering about the difficulties, in what sounded like a TfL brief, about the difficulties of replacing the bendies with a vehicle that can carry as many passengers.
Yet experts are often wrong, and they're wrong about this. The Routemaster will cost, but much less than some of TfL's other follies. The industry has an incentive to deliver - London is nearly half the UK market for new buses - and are they really saying they haven't got the technology in 2008 to build something they managed in 1956 ? It won't be hard to match the capacity provided by the bendies, particularly since so many of their passengers are fare-dodgers. Theoretically, a bendy does carry about twice the old RM's load, but all the extra people, and more besides, have to stand. The new RM will be larger than the old one, and will let you sit down. And what TfL tended to do when a route went from Routemasters to bendies was to reduce the frequency - so it should be easy enough to increase the frequency right back again.
It will clearly take several years for the new Routemaster to make its way through design, prototype and production. But what Londoners want to hear tomorrow is that the bendies will go sooner, with an interim double-deck solution in place. Two short bendy routes, the 507 and 521, have already had their contracts extended. The contracts for other, more important bendy routes are up for renewal soon.
In making those, and subsequent decisions about buses, Boris should never forget that he was elected as the people's representative in the bureaucratic machine, the populist among the Roundheads. And the people want the new Routemaster. It's his only specific manifesto item that most Londoners remember. Boris needs to maintain his bus's forward motion not just tomorrow, but throughout all the years of TfL obstruction that will surely follow.
And even if you don't think a bus is important, even if you don't buy my argument about the public services, the Routemaster is a big red test of whether Boris can achieve something still more vital to his Mayoralty: the ability to progress his agenda, and avoid capture by officialdom.
Reader views (11)
The Routemaster was an accessibility nightmare, and the new double deckers have twice the actual capacity. The only reason they didn't replace the last remaining Routemasters was low overhead clearances on the routes - hence the disastrous bendy buses, when the real answer was "twice as many buses." But that would have meant hiring twice as many drivers, and we can't have that. Or something.
- David Gerard, London, 18/09/2008 14:53
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Having recently had my disabled mum over to stay, and having helped her get her walking frame on the buses most days, I have no desire at all to see Routemasters return. She loved the Bendy's - they were a breeze for her to get on and off, and for the first time, I've started to appreciate them. I have started to dislike double-deckers more and more since chavs and yobs have taken over the top decks, while everyone else stays standing downstairs so as not to put up with flying objects, blaring IPods and threats. There is something safe and comforting about the Bendy's, despite the obvious problems.
- Dave, N10, 18/09/2008 13:53
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It's good to hear so many voices of reason here from real bus users. I too use a bus every day and rely on it to get to work and home. The routemasters on my route used to be a nightmare to use - more often than not so packed to the gills it had to sail on past the bus-stop with me and others standing miserably waiting for the next (15 minutes away). The new 436 is impressively regular and has never in all my time of using it been so busy you cannot get on. On the contrary, even if you don't get a seat it is designed to give you decent room to stand in.
I cannot believe that Boris is a regular bus user. I think he and Andrew Gilligan are showing their true colours by campaigning on a 'good old traditional London' ticket, not giving a damn for real Londoner's opinions or comfort of life. Still, bus users are on the whole non car-owners and Gilligan and Johnson would much prefer a world where everyone owned a 4x4, damn everyone else, 'we're all right'.
- Susan, London, UK, 18/09/2008 13:53
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Gilligan clearly believes his own publicity. But ask any mum with a pram which are the easiest buses to get on in London. The bendy buses are great not just for people in wheelchairs but also for mums who can't afford to drive or don't want to spoil our environment by driving needlessly. The Standard is happy to campaign for yummy mummies whinging about having to pay to drive their 4x4s in the congestion zone but for mums who can't afford it you want to get rid of the easiest form of transportation in London to use for us. Much of the time you can't get on the double deckers with a pram because there is insufficient space. You are left waiting for the next one and then the next one and so on.
And vandalism - I doubt Gilligan ever got on a routemaster. The upper decks were always covered in graffiti. And you could introduce conductors on the bendys - you don't have to have a double decker to reintroduce conductors.
- Saunaing Tic Gill, London, 18/09/2008 13:53
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I work for a very large bus company in the UK. The industry is safety mad and the one word missing from all of this is service. It doesn't seem to exist any more. When is the travelling public ever consulted over the decisions made by these bus companies? We need a safe public service; conductors are not there primarily to collect fares, they are there to help, in whatever means required, and now we seem to be turning full circle....the public want a friendly face to interact with not a screen to shout through and a machine that bleeps. Bring back conductors, Routemasters or not. In the 70s and 80s we had buses in London that were ordered as one-man buses bus also had the ability to house conductors. Let's return to the days when we had this sort of service. Boris you need to consult with us, not the so-called experts who seem to have other agendas. Do what Londoners want first.
- John, London, UK, 18/09/2008 13:53
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How right you are Andrew - I agree with every word. It's so frustrating to be trapped in one of those airless new-style buses, jammed in traffic, only yards away from the designated stop, but unable to get off. And as far as fare-dodging is concerned, the simple 'hop on hop off' nature of the RM is more suited to today's London, when almost everyone has an Oyster, than it was years ago when the RM's demise was plotted. Don't listen to the professionals Boris!
- Wpw, London, 18/09/2008 13:53
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The reason why the Routemaster was so successful, and lasted so long in service, was that every seven years the whole bus was effectively rebuilt at London Transport's Aldenham maintenance works. That was possible because the LT of the 50s and 60s was a huge organisation whose operating area spread for miles beyond London (remember the old green 'country' buses?) and had the economies of scale and engineering resources to achieve it. Even AEC, the manufacturer of the RM, was a spin-off from LT's predecessor, the Underground Group.
Today's TfL is a shadow of LT in its heyday - the bus fleet is split among dozens of privatised subcontractors and there's no central engineering department to support a specialist new bus like a new Routemaster.
Big, monolithic public organisations like the LT of old are very unfashionable today: everything has to be outsourced to the lowest bidder. But sometimes monolithic public organisations under inspired leadership, like that of Lord Ashfield, Frank Pick and their successors, can produce something very special like the Routemaster.
- Roy Stilling, Gillingham, Kent, 18/09/2008 13:53
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One of the most sensible comments I have ever read on this website Saunaing Tic Gill! I travel by bendy bus every day and much prefer them to double deckers. I would say the majority of people who use them would agree. Most people who moan about them don't use them regularly or know what it was like before they were introduced. Also Andrew i dont think you know what your talking about... 'what TfL tended to do when a route went from Routemasters to bendies was to reduce the frequency' I dispute the accuracy of this statement. The 12 is now every 5 minutes the most frequent it has ever been as is the 436.
- Sean Kirwin, London, 18/09/2008 13:53
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I wonder whether Andrew and Boris watched BB4 on Saturday night (19 July) when a evening was devoted to London buses and particularly the Routemaster. While the films were interesting from an historical perspective they also showed how differently things are now done.
For example the main difference was a conductor collecting fares, well today most people use Oyster or other forms of pre-payment so the job of a conductor performed no longer exists. Also, only small prams which could be folded and placed under the stairs were shown, while nowadays larger prams are simply wheeled on to buses (particularly bendies) and the space for wheelchairs is ideal for prams.
Ironically the first two bendy routes which Boris wants to abolish are the red arrow routes which have always had single deck buses as they carry large numbers of commuters who make short journeys and therefore the artic-bus is ideal for this type of route.
If Boris insists on Double-Deck buses on these routes there will be chaos at London Bridge, Waterloo and Victoria stations. It will also prove how incompetent he is. The bonus will be it won't be mothers with prams who suffer but Tory voters from outer London and the shires just as a general election approaches. Go on Boris make Gordon's day!
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex, 18/09/2008 13:53
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I watched a 36 double decker and a 436 bendy, covering the same route essentially, arrive simultaneously at a stop. The passengers, free to vote with their feet, prefer the bendy bus.
- C Davies, Putney, 18/09/2008 13:53
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If Boris does fail to follow through on the routemaster, will you be apologising for the Anti-Ken crusade that helped propel him into office? I somehow doubt it...
- Liz, London, 18/09/2008 13:53
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