Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
The end of the 29
am I the only mourner?
Bring back the bend bus
it always had a bad press...well
there were a few little things
like the time I nearly got stabbed
by a 6 inch blade
wielded by a gang of kids
in Seven Sisters Rd.
I never sat at the back again.
It is mourned by the poor
those on benefits
known to them as
the Free Bus.
Why do I miss it then?
It was part of our local landscape
it was such a familiar sight
if you ran for the bus
you'd catch it at the back
just before the doors closed.
It was great for wheelchairs and prams
Yesterday I saw a young woman with a pram
get off the crowded double decker
because the ONE bay
was filled by another pram
and a man with a large suitcase -
this would never happen
with the bendy bus...
Today at the bus stop
looking up the road
I could not see which bus was the 29.
Now they all look the same.
Shame. I miss it
snaking down Green Lanes.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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Oh I agree, I was tutted at by a smartly dressed young lady when I had the misfortune to be trying to get home from a station with a four your old and a suitcase once. I was ready to indulge in a bit of suitcase rage but instead this happened. A postcard I saw at the IWM reminded me of this attitude:
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Permalink Reply by Joe Bailey on
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This has made my day!.
I will drink fine wine to celebrate the passing of that terrible invention.
No bus should need a length warning - if it's dangerously long, why did we have them to start with?
So happy to see the back of them!
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Now if we could just see the end of all those long lorries that actually do kill cyclists and pedestrians with alarming regularity then we'll really have something to celebrate.
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Permalink Reply by Paulie on
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Lorries have to use the roads Liz, they can't go elsewhere. If safe cyclying is still too dangerous then the only solution is to have part of the pavement converted into cycle lanes - a lesser version of the Dutch model.
Off the point, but we can't even stop people using their phones whilst driving. Only this morning while cycling along Carlingford Road I met, coming the other way (of course), a builder, driving a van; he was holding the wheel in one hand and a phone was held to his ear by the other; seeing someone he knew on the other side of the road, he took the hand HOLDING THE WHEEL away from the wheel and gave a "thumb up" to his mate! Whilst still gabbing on the phone. Naturally I pointed at him in an accusing and furious manner but after he nonchalantly drove past it didn't seem enough, somehow...
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Small lorries are suitable for small roads, same argument as for the buses. So now the 'so called dangerous' bendies have gone, maybe concentrate on this campaign? Will there be the same fervour, facebook pages and crowd pleasing speeches about it, do you think?
Incidentally googling 'lorries on London roads' throws up numerous stories of people being killed by them, googling 'bendy or bendies on London roads' doesn't. Not scientific, I know but perhaps telling, none the less.
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If cyclists would stop passing vehicles on the left, then they might get hit and squashed a little less. Doing this to a big lorry is a suicide mission if the lorry happens to turn left!!
Likewise, if more had lights (steady on, not on just 50% of the time to save batteries), and didn't remove the reflectors that are fitted to every new bike by law, which in some way apparently makes you a cooler cyclist, there might also be less accidents.
Cyclists have a duty of care to themselves and to others, as do all road users. Cyclists should not expect others to take more care for them than they do for themselves; you don't see many cars driving at night with their lights off, and rear reflectors removed, cos guess what? We all want to be seen and not hurt!
It's a two way street in this regard. The number of cyclists who foolishly assume that a driver can ALWAYS see them, from any position, is alarming. When I cycle, I never pass on the inside of any vehicle. They are mostly faster and I wait in line with the cars in a jam, or pass on the outside as the highway code suggests I should. Seems to get more respect from drivers too, as well as feeling one hell of a lot safer!
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So, if I'm following this, bendies are to blame for accidents (although I don't think they actually killed anyone), therefore withdraw them from roads, but if someone is killed by any other road user (the 16th cyclist killed this year by a lorry was announced this morning) it is the victim's fault and they just have to learn to be better cyclists. Seems like Boris wasted our money after all. People should have just learned to be more careful around the buses.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on
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I saw a guy driving a lorry the other day driving with the paper across the wheel, reading it... Nice!
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I do not agree and I am a man is his 50s who HATES climbing stairs with loads of bags of groceries or having to battle for space downstairs with mums with pushchairs who feel they have all the right to that space in the bus because they have infants - I know it SOUNDS uncaring and I fully understand the difficulties of mobilizing to travel with small children. And much of that space is to allow wheelchair users access to buses anyway.
I do not own a car and I thought the bendy bus was one of K. Livingstone's great introductions and that its removal was a political response to emotional nostalgia for the great Routemaster that allowed people to hop on and off the bus at any time, and where there were conductors on board to sort issues out. Bendies had their problems and it it those that should have been addressed. Replacing them with new "Routemasters" will not bring the hop on/off back, nor the conductors, but we will still have the lack of space and the 'issues' of anti social behaviour. Where is the logic?
How come the bendies work in other European cities, including ones with narrow streets? Please let me know.
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No way do I miss the number 29 (bendy) bus of crime (had stuff stolen, seen others trying to steal and sometimes succeeding, people not paying etc...). When my child was small I used to fold the pram EVERY TIME I boarded a bus so that is not a reason to keep them just because 2 extra people can keep their prams up. They were also really bad for cyclists, you normally had to stand for the entire journey squashed in like sardines and they took ages to get over crossroads. Good riddance.
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Guess I was really lucky then. The crime I witnessed, heard about or was (nearly) a victim of all happened on D/D's. Pickpockets twice on packed 141s, and a friend bottled on the top deck of a 29 at Holloway with no way of escaping as the gang had blocked the stairs. On the several occasions, when we were checked by ticket inspectors on the 29, they caught one or two people, sometimes none. Didn't seem any worse than when we were checked on D/ds. However, I was never checked at rush hour so maybe it was worse at those times.
Boris tells us that crime on public transport has fallen, can't be just because they've withdrawn the 29 bendy
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Permalink Reply by cara howard on
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I've got mixed feelings about it. One the one hand, you could pack huge crowds on in quick time at busy stops like Finsbury Park station.
As a driver, sometimes cyclist and pavement user, I don't know how many times I've felt the the driver couldn't possibly have full control because clearly they didn't have full vision - I count muself blessed to still have 10 toes after several bendy bus pavement mountings on corners.
I do feel that perhaps because of the areas it passes through (in North London anyway) and the ease of boarding and not paying, it attracted more than its fair share of the more 'quirky' of London's residents shall we say.
But never was it dull...
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