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they stopped most bendies in glasgow cause roads too narrow but kept them on the no 62 rout till recently,ive been driving buses in the city and thank god we didnt have bendies at our depot in motherwell, roads in motherwell are to narrow for bendies anyhow,but theyr a dream to drive well the new 1s r its like driving a single decker with another one stuck on the back just got to remember its a bendi u`r driving, most of the bendies glasgow had got shipped to london for that reason too long for our roads

- arty fae scotland, glasgow, 28/06/2010 19:46
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The bendy buses were perfect for the Red Arrow routes, stupid decision to take them off those routes.

Equally the roads weren't that bad- it is not narrow back lanes in London, it was driving standards. I spoke to a bus driver in Glasgow who said they were fine to drive just as hard as single deckers round turns as the articulation helped - bendy buses first appeared there in 1985 and still run!

I don't think they worked well on all trunk routes, but there are some routes where they could be useful. To scrap them all is pandering to people who probably never use buses and want a moan. I still think equally there was a place for routemasters too.

Why can't London get buses like Hong Kong or Glasgow- tri axle deckers with seating for 90-100 folk! You could even put 3 doors in them.

- Colin, North of Watford Gap, 05/01/2010 17:55
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I'm a cyclist and have no problems with buses - bendy or otherwise. I cycle about 100-120 miles per week, about 60-70 of which are in central London. Any problems or near misses are usually with cabbies/minicab drivers, white van man and absent minded pedestrians walking out without into the road looking where they're going/whilst on the phone/texting etc etc.

Back to buses, I find the bendy bus an amazingly efficient people mover. I used to live in Islington and trying to catch a 38 back when the route was plied by Routemasters was a nightmare, I would frequently end up having to wait for 30 mins or more as bus after bus rolled by completely full. Route number 19 along Upper Street was almost as bad. When introduced, the bendy was a breath of fresh air and allowed me to get to destinations much earlier.

So now what? Will we end up back in the bad old days waiting for ages whilst bus after bus rolls by full up? Why are we spending millions of pounds on the "Boris Bus" and buying in fleets of brand new buses at a time when public finances are in a horrible state and only a few weeks ago the press was reporting huge holes in TfL budgets (hence transport price hikes)?

I now remember why I didn't vote BoZo... Come back Ken.

- Cyclist, London, 19/11/2009 09:18
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You Londoners really are gullible if you think that the removal of the bendibuses will be good for London. Never mind that there are now 72 double deckers on the road instead of 44 bendibuses. Never mind the cost of all those extra drivers. Never mind how much your council taxes will increase to pay for it all.

- John Hodgkins, Gabriola, BC (Canada), 18/11/2009 23:25
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The first routes to loose the bendy buses were the 507 and 521. The replacements are absolute rubbish. Just look at the time taken to load at Waterloo in the rush now.

- Peter, london, 18/11/2009 21:58
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I have started using the 38 bus route again now that I am very likely to get a seat and knowing that the driver has control over the number of people on the bus.

- Mike Constable, Islington, London, 18/11/2009 19:14
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Tom, I know my local history quite well. The Uxbridge road was originally a cart track linking London to Uxbridge via villages such as Acton, Ealing, Southall.
Since the fields inbetween were not developed as housing until the 1930s, the road was made quite wide, EXCEPT through the centres of what were once villages, where existing buildings constrained it, and where we now have serious traffic congestion.

That's why the Uxbridge road tramway was cancelled - the expense or impossibility of making space for trams through what were once village centres.

And by "London" I was referring to central London, the area in zones 1 and 2, most of which does still have the same street layout as it did when everything was horse-powered.

- Nigel, London, 18/11/2009 18:57
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We could maybe use them in Fareham, Hampshire where they are planning to use a disused railway line for a high-speed bus link from Fareham into Gosport - relieving a horribly-congested A32 and providing a fast link by bus then ferry to Portsmouth. Nice, straight track - great use for high capacity single-deck bendy buses!!! Or maybe that is too simple.......

- Carlos, FAREHAM, Hants, 18/11/2009 18:30
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Beautful bus for wheelchair user; providing you get a driver trained to acknowledge the existence of wheelchair passengers at the bus stop, in the first place.
.
The Volvo and other two storey busses all have much less room for boarding with wheelchairs -except no.8, whose doors open right opposite the wheelchair securing space.
.
..."Taxi!"

- Rebeccaofsunnybrookfarm, Westminster SW1, 18/11/2009 18:16
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I thought they were brilliant and they carried so many passengers meaning it was usually possible to get a seat. Now all the whiners have got their way we'll have to wait for 3 or 4 buses til there is space to get on. Good work.

- Dave, London, 18/11/2009 17:57
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You only need to stand at the entrance to london bridge station on the approach to london bridge to see the chaose these things cause. good riddance.

- Joseph Yossarian, london, 18/11/2009 16:16
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I'm glad the "free" bendy buses have been taken out of service, they were a waste of time and revenue for LT, as nobody paid their fare!

- Mrs, London UK, 18/11/2009 15:04
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"The mistake was thinking that they could be used in London, with narrow roads in a pattern established centuries ago for horse-drawn transport."

Please don't talk rubbish, not all London roads are narrow, not all London roads are medieval and if you apply the rule that the only suitable transport is horse-drawn you're not going to get very far in 2009. Go and look at the Uxbridge Road some time. We live in a modern metropolis, not the Dark Ages.

Particularly given the news elsewhere about front line bus service cuts, it's pretty obvious that new Routemaster vanity projects and made up scares based on nonsense statistics about bendy buses are costing London bus users - is £20m a year on the bus subsidy and untold tens of millions on a pointless bus really value for money?

"these death traps"

I'm beginning to reconsider my support for cycling in the capital with this kind of rubbish from the two-wheeled fraternity - clue: Boris lied when he said cyclists were killed every year by bendy buses, and his own statistics say the replacement fleets are *less* safe for cyclists. Why aren't you het up about the HGV safety unit being scrapped to save TfL a million quid, or speed cameras being slashed or the WEZ being abolished leading to more cars on the road or Parliament Square's unsafe gyratory being retained? Boris isn't actually being that nice to cyclists, now, is he?

- Tom, London, UK, 18/11/2009 14:52
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@ Patrick, Dalston

Graham of course bendy buses work in Holland, Germany and other countries. The reason is they are used on wide and much less congested streets unlike the routes that they use in London.

Having watched bendy buses navigate without any problem in the centre of the old part of Luxembourg city which has some turns much tighter than London, I suspect the problem in London is the standard of driver training; not the routes.
As far as I know, the Luxembourg drivers get their bus license and if they want to drive a bendy, they have to do a separate license equivalent to an HGV Artic license.

- Peter C-H, London, UK, 18/11/2009 14:43
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Only a buffoon would have installed buses that generate little revenue because they positively encourage fare dodging, are far too long for the streets of London and have a habit of bursting in to flames. It took courage to withdraw the things and I hope now they find a good home somewhere like an airport where their design is of use and there are plenty of fire tenders around. Livingstone swore he would not remove the Routemasters yet he did just that. Ideally I'd like to see more of them back on the streets converted as far as can be to make them greener.

- Squiz, Islington, 18/11/2009 14:13
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They were so fast for getting on and off with plenty of comfortable standing room when busy. People not paying is easily resolved by inspectors boarding more regularly, and anyway, I wonder if it really is an issue, with a travelcard/season ticket you don't need to swipe.

- Jonathan Albutt, London, 18/11/2009 13:52
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One of them has been on trial here in Brighton. Not well received. Just as Londoners found, they are too long and a danger to cyclists. But they are cheap second-hand, so the local bus company wants to use them.

- Rupert Rg, Brighton, East Sussex, 18/11/2009 13:42
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Use them in outer London areas where some of the single decker routes can get severely overcrowded and the suburban roads are more suitable for them.

- John, Feltham UK, 18/11/2009 13:30
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Surely there's a town with straight wide roads that could happily use a fleet of well-maintained slightly-used bendy busses? In the UK, maybe Milton Keynes or Harlow?

The mistake was thinking that they could be used in London, with narrow roads in a pattern established centuries ago for horse-drawn transport.

- Nigel, London, 18/11/2009 13:11
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Graham of course bendy buses work in Holland, Germany and other countries. The reason is they are used on wide and much less congested streets unlike the routes that they use in London. I am sure there are many countries who would only be delighted to buy some second hand ones from TfL.

- Patrick, Dalston, 18/11/2009 13:08
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What a waste of money. Granted they weren't popular in the beginning but people are used to them now. I got on the new double decker 38 at Victoria the other day and it took so much longer to load people on because now we are getting on through 1 small door rather than 3 bigger ones. Selfish people queue jump all the time and this is going to make it so much worse. WELL DONE DOZY BORIS.

- Louise, London, 18/11/2009 13:06
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And is this why Boris is putting bus fares up by 20%? Replacing buses which work fine with brand new ones? Utterly pointless and wasteful.

- Mark Lee, Vauxhall, 18/11/2009 12:34
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How odd. They have been operating quite successfully over here in the Netherlands. Why weren´t they are success in the UK?

- Graham Rodhouse, Helmond, Netherlands, 18/11/2009 12:31
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Looks like I have found where all the 23 Buses are, I can never get one!!!

- Andrew, London, 18/11/2009 12:03
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As a cyclist I will not shed one tear for the removal of these death traps. Blame Livingstone for scrapping the original routemasters and getting these in the first place. They cost a fortune, take up too much space and no-one ever paid for the fare. Send them to Luton or Stansted to move air passengers around.

- Nick, Waltham Abbey, Essex, 18/11/2009 11:59
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I'll give you £100 for one of them - I could do with a new greenhouse.

- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one, 18/11/2009 11:52
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And how much is your dogma costing London taxpayers BoZo?

- Roy, England, 18/11/2009 11:14
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what a waste

- Donny, Greenwich, 18/11/2009 11:10
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