The bus in London - funky (or least not dowdy)

A friend of mine works for the Snivel Service’s Department of Transport, and we got into a smallish debate about why bus patronage in London keep rising, while every where else, it falls year in year out. I wanted to know his theory.

Mine is simple. London government has made car ownership, or certainly drivership, quite expensive. Also, the bus priority measures in London (CCTVs in bus lanes, bus-controlled traffic lights) have made bus travel faster than elsewhere. Also, other than some towns in the North and Scotland, the cost of travelling on buses in London is comparatively cheap, especially when you include the aggro-factor of driving, plus the expense of parking. Plus, if you live in Central London, owning a car itself is tres pricey with residents' tickets and the likelihood that some kamikaze parking nazi will book you even if you park legally in your own street. This has led to a middle-class rejection of the car. Or rather the middle classes have come to realise that in London its not so important own cars given the existing reasonable alternative. Bus travel in London is the only place where it can be called classless. Ken has done wonders - where as the train was always seen as multi-class with its wealthy commuters and scurrying suburban secretaries, it never shared the same stigma of the bus.

Thatcher (that lovely woman) once said that a man aged 26 or over finding himself on the bus should consider himself a failure. This stigma never applied to trains, and to a lesser extent, tubes, which served some quite wealthy suburbs like Northwood, Golders Green and Epping. Unbelievably though, the reason the District Line is having problems with dwell times at stations was because it was decided in 1975 or 6, when the D stock trains were designed, that since Underground patronage would inevitably go down (yeah, right), they'd build the trains with smaller doors. So even the tube wasn't safe under the 80s Tories; they considered it a means of transport only the poor would need to use.

This sad philosophy failed: this is because there are only two options to choose from when considering a rising amount of cars in a fixed amount of space:

a) make car ownership harder (eg, more expensive)

b) build more roads. Which the Tories were quite happy to do, a la M25, numerous by-passes and so on). This was destined to fail. Numero uno, we like to kid ourselves we are a "green" nation. This is obviously bollocks, but it is true that Brits hate the idea of killing their environment, as they crank up the heat to max and invest in that new truly earth-saving 4 wheel drive leviathan. Secondly, simply put, no one wants to live near a motorway. The only time this is acceptable is when you are at the M52/M6 TravelLodge and want a hasty start to your day's journey.

Cuddly Ken's adoption of plan a) has left a vacuum of journeys which still need to be made by people who still need to make them. Thus, the tubes of London are busier than they have ever been. The Victoria Line itself is running 3 times over its intended capacity, with a train about every 3 minutes throughout the day, the most that can be run, bearing in mind trains actually need servicing, cleaning etc. This vacuum is further being filled by buses, which to some extent have plugged the gap left by clearer roads courtesy of the congestion charge. In London, unlike any other city in the UK, the bus too has become classless, no matter what Thatcher in her "wisdom" would have to say about it. In a sense, getting a bus in London is like experiencing a microcosm of London itself.

Elsewhere buses are full of chavs, elderly women doing the shopping, and the Thatcherite definition of a loser (read poor), as well as the desperate looking, lost person who's car is in for a service.

Ken - we love you. Now London now only has the cheapest bus transport in the UK, but one of the best.

Except the 103 which is appalling both in fleet (knackered old Olympians allegedly due to retire in November) and timetable. A bus every half hour in the evenings and all day Sunday is no incentive to spend the evening in Romford, our local large town.

Its not because Londoners are inherently greener than anyone else, or have a nostalgic attachment to their red double deckers. Its because they have no choice. And bearing in mind the environmental catastrophes, on a micro-level and on a world-wide scale, damn good they don't.