Do we all realise why we got the bendy busses in the first place? They carried more passengers per hour than the usual double decker and routemaster busses, MANY more. To get the same number of passengers through in an hour they will need more busses. On route 38 they will need 25 more busses an hour at peak times. There is more here.
Those new designs are nice, both of them. However, once the accountants and 'elf-n-safety have had their say, expect a very ordinary bus without the solar panels and zero-emissions.
I am a cyclist and I like bendy busses. I've had a good dig on the internet and nowhere can I find evidence that an official cycling organisation is anti-bendy busses. As far as I can work out this is just an urban myth.
Each single bus does not carry twice as many passengers as a double decker BUT that is not the argument, the argument is that over the space of an hour less busses carry more people. How many times have I tried to get onto a standard double decker but the driver won't open the doors because it's too congested down below when everyone at the bus stop can see that there's plenty of room up top? Too many. Anyway, an hours worth of bendy busses will take up less space on the road than an hours worth of double decker busses.
Look at the effect that the bendy bus has had on the 38 route through Hackney. They have no tube. They used to have standard double deckers which pretty much travelled in twos and threes, the first one being too full to get on. When people are still left at the bus stop after the bus has been something is wrong. Bendy busses solved this.
Fare dodging on bendy-buses: yah boo. Wasn't some bloke stabbed to death on the top of a double decker in Holloway a few years ago?
Bendies run contrary to almost every other element of space-limited modern city design (build upwards)
The main thing is the time they spend stopped at bus stops. A bendy bus averages 17 seconds.
Seriously, whenever someone has properly policed the "no parking" in the evenings the traffic whizzes by. Congestion is caused by one vehicle too many, i.e. it is a victim of a tipping point. Of course you can point to things like right hand turns and even left hand turns but I think it would be very difficult to say that a 29 causes more congestion than a 141, especially given a 29's impressive times at the bus stop.
I actually like the bendy buses, they are faster, easier to get on and off (especially if a fire broke out) and have loads more space for pushchairs and wheelchairs and contrary to propaganda not dangerous*
* If cyclists and pedestrians do not put themselves in danger ie. go on the inside when a bus is turning left.
Finsbury Park to Canary Wharf return is a journey you only need a single for... and even then, you'll get away with nothing unless they inspect your ticket on the DLR.
What a load of old tosh.. Still you can't expect better from someone like Boris.. Politicians should keep their long noses out of designing buses...
I notice that the new RM carries less than an old style RML vehicle, so to carry as many passengers from A to B, you'll need three extra staff... one extra driver and two extra conductors.. I wonder how the blonde wonder is intending to find the money for the extra staff costs. Perhaps he's hoping to pick up a few redundant Fund Managers looking for work as conductors..
P.S.
I've actually worked on the 38 and I know something about bus operation. To provide the same amount of passenger space on the route, the new vehicle allocation, with D/Ds instead of Artics, will rise from 52 to 72 vehicles.. now how's that for helping stop climate change.
A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless as he still is a TfL employee, was so impressed with the D/Ds currently in service in Berlin. He made up a fake introduction leaflet using the Berlin DLs It's absurd to think that London needs it's own style buses..
@Tom.. Yes, we have about 300 of them in service now, another 300 still to come. Fully air conditioned with room for 3 wheelchairs/prams. It seats 28 on the lower deck as well as 55 upper deck plus 43 standing.. in comparison, the new Routemaster seats only 66 in total. There are two staircases and passengers from upstairs alight at the back and don't get blocked by people standing in the middle.