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Post by greenboy on Feb 19, 2022 11:39:24 GMT
There has been a general trend for years of people going out less, even takeaways can be ordered from the sofa. I would expect Central London to be far more leisure orientated particularly when tourism returns and generally less hectic which I don't think is a bad thing. **I thought I'd cleared this about Dan, but I'll explain once again. He asked me a year ago to ignore him which I'm quite happy to do but he seems unable to ignore me. It's quite simple to block people on here. From what I read on here, it comes across that you are the one with the bigger issue, maybe time to step back from it and reflect. The squabbling between you two has been going on for too long ... time to forget it, which includes comments like your opening one. You kicked this off this time, not him. The moderating team should have nipped this in the bud years ago. I'll reply in the forum niggles section rather than clutter this section.
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Post by TB123 on Feb 20, 2022 14:03:23 GMT
Regardless of what happens regarding the funding deal, would expect to see another consultation on inner/central London bus service changes fairly soon. It won't be pretty either. Only have to look at the terms "managed decline" and "structural alterations" being floated around by TfL as of late to see why that is. But it'll also be a culmination of 10 years falling bus usage in inner London I suspect. Answering falling demand by cutting routes will only cause more falling demand - as I said previously, this falling demand is different area to area and by picking on Inner London, they aren't really righting the wrongs of ignoring Outer London for many years but merely repeating the same mistake only for Inner London this time. History is there to learn from and not repeat the mistakes but instead, once again, an organisation decides to do the latter. I agree but a fine line has to be tread when it comes to a public authority spending taxpayers money on a public service. Unfortunately it's difficult to justify running the same service as pre-Covid when essentially all the modelling shows bus usage not recovering beyond 75-80% of 2019 number (numbers having already declined between 2012 and 2019) - rock and a hard place comes to mind. I expect we will see a lot of the post-Congestion Charge enhancements taken out, the network prehaps looking more akin to 2001/2002 in inner London. And let's not forget, many of those extra buses were largely intended to act as a stop-gap until rail-based improvements, namely to the Tube came on-stream. Even prior to the removal of the operating subsidy in 2018 we saw changes in response to that like Finchley Road. We've now had those Tube improvements, it's a vastly better network compared to 2002, in addition to Crossrail, Thameslink more recently and now the onset of (legal) e-scooter rentals. It's a completely different picture. Responsiveness matters imo - but draconian cuts are not a good option.
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Post by vjaska on Feb 20, 2022 15:11:10 GMT
Answering falling demand by cutting routes will only cause more falling demand - as I said previously, this falling demand is different area to area and by picking on Inner London, they aren't really righting the wrongs of ignoring Outer London for many years but merely repeating the same mistake only for Inner London this time. History is there to learn from and not repeat the mistakes but instead, once again, an organisation decides to do the latter. I agree but a fine line has to be tread when it comes to a public authority spending taxpayers money on a public service. Unfortunately it's difficult to justify running the same service as pre-Covid when essentially all the modelling shows bus usage not recovering beyond 75-80% of 2019 number (numbers having already declined between 2012 and 2019) - rock and a hard place comes to mind. I expect we will see a lot of the post-Congestion Charge enhancements taken out, the network prehaps looking more akin to 2001/2002 in inner London. And let's not forget, many of those extra buses were largely intended to act as a stop-gap until rail-based improvements, namely to the Tube came on-stream. Even prior to the removal of the operating subsidy in 2018 we saw changes in response to that like Finchley Road. We've now had those Tube improvements, it's a vastly better network compared to 2002, in addition to Crossrail, Thameslink more recently and now the onset of (legal) e-scooter rentals. It's a completely different picture. Responsiveness matters imo - but draconian cuts are not a good option. Not if you live in South London or have the ability to use a train for various reasons - going south, east or west from Brixton for example, your only going to use a bus and we’ve suffered many unnecessary cuts despite bus usage still being pretty strong here. What makes it worse is TfL give off the impression that don’t seem to be interested in the bus network at all - you get passengers back by making sure your service is attractive in frequency, cost &, speed & reliability yet bus priority is still woeful in many places, regulation of service puts people off travelling, cost is going up all be it understandable to an extent, frequencies being cut made worse on routes below 10 minutes when passengers will simply find quicker alternatives & reliability decreasing as traffic continues to build and TfL wrongly stitches together routes as if we are still in the 80’s. Finchley Road consultation was a failure - locals ended up with an unreliable 13 & the original 13 disappearing despite locals asking for its retention and there’s a another put off for passengers - TfL more often than not doesn’t listen to what passengers actually want. Where I live, Thameslink is handy when Southern isn’t screwing up the line but Crossrail doesn’t help us down here and I’ve no interest in e-Scooters which are as much as menace as a chunk of cyclists are. We’ve essentially wasted 20 years when this “2001-2002 network” comes about and it perfectly sums up the UK when it comes to this sort of thing in failing to break cycles of spending and cutting it all out like it didn’t exist in the first place
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Post by snowman on Feb 26, 2022 14:39:09 GMT
Depending on how you define inner London, have exceeded 300 bus cuts, although it is under 300 if you use a tight definition of inner or central
Highest PVR was end of March 2017, just over 8000, it’s now nearer 7500, so across London about 500
The TfL fleet audit showed 9616 buses then, now about 8800
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Post by MetrolineGA1511 on Feb 27, 2022 7:20:56 GMT
There was the headline earlier in the week about bus route cuts with the picture of the LT on route 453.
Maybe route 453 could be replaced by extensions of route 12 to Marylebone (suggested by other people before) and route 321 to Elephant & Castle (and maybe route 343 or P13 to Deptford).
Neither route 12 nor 321 would be much if any longer than route 468 for example.
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Post by southlondonbus on Feb 27, 2022 8:07:13 GMT
There was the headline earlier in the week about bus route cuts with the picture of the LT on route 453. Maybe route 453 could be replaced by extensions of route 12 to Marylebone (suggested by other people before) and route 321 to Elephant & Castle (and maybe route 343 or P13 to Deptford). Neither route 12 nor 321 would be much if any longer than route 468 for example. I think that was just are article that the needed a pic of a london bus and a pic of the 453 was what they selected. I don't think it had anything to do with the 453.
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Post by YX10FFN on Feb 27, 2022 8:38:26 GMT
There was the headline earlier in the week about bus route cuts with the picture of the LT on route 453. Maybe route 453 could be replaced by extensions of route 12 to Marylebone (suggested by other people before) and route 321 to Elephant & Castle (and maybe route 343 or P13 to Deptford). Neither route 12 nor 321 would be much if any longer than route 468 for example. With all due respect some of the dialogue we continue to see here it's as if no one uses the bus in Central London anymore. The 453 justifies its existence as both a tourist and commuter route, including picking up very heavy loads depending on direction of peak travel. Sure the Marylebone-Oxford Circus section is quieter but I've been on a 453 that's near empty approaching OC and full by Westminster. Serves a vital role along the Old Kent Road corridor now the 53 does not serve the West End.
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Post by southlondonbus on Feb 27, 2022 8:43:43 GMT
There was the headline earlier in the week about bus route cuts with the picture of the LT on route 453. Maybe route 453 could be replaced by extensions of route 12 to Marylebone (suggested by other people before) and route 321 to Elephant & Castle (and maybe route 343 or P13 to Deptford). Neither route 12 nor 321 would be much if any longer than route 468 for example. With all due respect some of the dialogue we continue to see here it's as if no one uses the bus in Central London anymore. The 453 justifies its existence as both a tourist and commuter route, including picking up very heavy loads depending on direction of peak travel. Sure the Marylebone-Oxford Circus section is quieter but I've been on a 453 that's near empty approaching OC and full by Westminster. Serves a vital role along the Old Kent Road corridor now the 53 does not serve the West End. The only change I could possibly see would be the less frequent 12 extended to Marylebone and the 453 possibly just to Oxford Circus or even TSQ. When there were rumours started by some comments on Twitter the 453 was mentioned as being cutback and the 12 was going to be extended to Marylebone along wity the 3 diverted to Elephant. Probably completely made up but it did gets thoughts going of the 12 being extended, the 453 to Whitehall using the 3s stand.
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Post by WH241 on Feb 27, 2022 9:49:55 GMT
There was the headline earlier in the week about bus route cuts with the picture of the LT on route 453. Maybe route 453 could be replaced by extensions of route 12 to Marylebone (suggested by other people before) and route 321 to Elephant & Castle (and maybe route 343 or P13 to Deptford). Neither route 12 nor 321 would be much if any longer than route 468 for example. The photo of the LT on the 453 was just lazy journalists using the first stock photo they could find. The article was about the 1,21,168,271!
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Post by WH241 on Feb 27, 2022 9:56:52 GMT
There was the headline earlier in the week about bus route cuts with the picture of the LT on route 453. Maybe route 453 could be replaced by extensions of route 12 to Marylebone (suggested by other people before) and route 321 to Elephant & Castle (and maybe route 343 or P13 to Deptford). Neither route 12 nor 321 would be much if any longer than route 468 for example. With all due respect some of the dialogue we continue to see here it's as if no one uses the bus in Central London anymore. The 453 justifies its existence as both a tourist and commuter route, including picking up very heavy loads depending on direction of peak travel. Sure the Marylebone-Oxford Circus section is quieter but I've been on a 453 that's near empty approaching OC and full by Westminster. Serves a vital role along the Old Kent Road corridor now the 53 does not serve the West End. That is very true about central London sometimes a desert tumbleweed impression is given and that's not the case everywhere. I used the tube yesterday for the first time since face mask restrictions were removed and it had a whole new vibe to it, it felt much more relaxed and busy. I wonder if we will actually see more return to transport now face covering rules have changed? I was very pro masks but actual maybe now is the time after two years to get on with things but just keep a cautious eye and hope people self isolate when ill.
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Post by abellion on Feb 27, 2022 15:39:02 GMT
There was the headline earlier in the week about bus route cuts with the picture of the LT on route 453. Maybe route 453 could be replaced by extensions of route 12 to Marylebone (suggested by other people before) and route 321 to Elephant & Castle (and maybe route 343 or P13 to Deptford). Neither route 12 nor 321 would be much if any longer than route 468 for example. Withdrawing the 453 in any way would be a disaster - the section north of Marylebone is quiet but it doesn't really matter if the 12 or 453 run along it, and the 12 would hardly be enough to handle the huge loads of people displaced by withdrawing the 453 (pretty much every 453 is full between New Cross and Oxford Circus at the busiest times). The 343 is indirect and long and the P13 has no similar links to the 453 so it would barely be a replacement, and the 321 works fine as an SE route without the loads or delays of running down Old Kent Road.
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Post by evergreenadam on Feb 27, 2022 19:31:37 GMT
With all due respect some of the dialogue we continue to see here it's as if no one uses the bus in Central London anymore. The 453 justifies its existence as both a tourist and commuter route, including picking up very heavy loads depending on direction of peak travel. Sure the Marylebone-Oxford Circus section is quieter but I've been on a 453 that's near empty approaching OC and full by Westminster. Serves a vital role along the Old Kent Road corridor now the 53 does not serve the West End. That is very true about central London sometimes a desert tumbleweed impression is given and that's not the case everywhere. I used the tube yesterday for the first time since face mask restrictions were removed and it had a whole new vibe to it, it felt much more relaxed and busy. I wonder if we will actually see more return to transport now face covering rules have changed? I was very pro masks but actual maybe now is the time after two years to get on with things but just keep a cautious eye and hope people self isolate when ill. Central London loadings have always varied a lot depending on time of day, day of the week, time of year (half term, office workers on summer holidays, shop sales and pre-Christmas buying), good or bad weather, buoyancy of domestic and international tourism, economic impacts on household spending etc. The Central London bus route network is largely that which came into being in 1992 following the great reorganisation of cross town routes, overlaid with pre-congestion charge enhancements and then eroded by recent Oxford Street shenanigans and the City/bridges cuts.
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Post by ronnie on Feb 27, 2022 23:50:40 GMT
With all due respect some of the dialogue we continue to see here it's as if no one uses the bus in Central London anymore. The 453 justifies its existence as both a tourist and commuter route, including picking up very heavy loads depending on direction of peak travel. Sure the Marylebone-Oxford Circus section is quieter but I've been on a 453 that's near empty approaching OC and full by Westminster. Serves a vital role along the Old Kent Road corridor now the 53 does not serve the West End. That is very true about central London sometimes a desert tumbleweed impression is given and that's not the case everywhere. I used the tube yesterday for the first time since face mask restrictions were removed and it had a whole new vibe to it, it felt much more relaxed and busy. I wonder if we will actually see more return to transport now face covering rules have changed? I was very pro masks but actual maybe now is the time after two years to get on with things but just keep a cautious eye and hope people self isolate when ill. It’s definitely busier. I used the central after ages on Thursday (this was at 11:15am) to get from Liverpool Street to Oxford Circus and it almost seemed to be same as old (almost no masks - I am still wearing a mask as I have an annoying cough which sends me into bad coughing fits) and there were very few seats available WFH will still remain (which is good); people are back 3-4 days so there’s a decent balance between central London cafes making money and those close to people’s residences as well (my local cafe guy definitely has been very busy!) Do hope sanitisers remain as that’s basic hygiene. Can’t believe people didn’t wash hands after say using the toilet
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Post by vjaska on Feb 28, 2022 0:20:40 GMT
That is very true about central London sometimes a desert tumbleweed impression is given and that's not the case everywhere. I used the tube yesterday for the first time since face mask restrictions were removed and it had a whole new vibe to it, it felt much more relaxed and busy. I wonder if we will actually see more return to transport now face covering rules have changed? I was very pro masks but actual maybe now is the time after two years to get on with things but just keep a cautious eye and hope people self isolate when ill. It’s definitely busier. I used the central after ages on Thursday (this was at 11:15am) to get from Liverpool Street to Oxford Circus and it almost seemed to be same as old (almost no masks - I am still wearing a mask as I have an annoying cough which sends me into bad coughing fits) and there were very few seats available WFH will still remain (which is good); people are back 3-4 days so there’s a decent balance between central London cafes making money and those close to people’s residences as well (my local cafe guy definitely has been very busy!) Do hope sanitisers remain as that’s basic hygiene. Can’t believe people didn’t wash hands after say using the toilet That cold/flu or whatever is certainly going around - I've had it for about just over a week now, thankfully just a cough and runny nose and my mask certainly comes in handy as a result
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Post by thekbq14 on Feb 28, 2022 14:56:19 GMT
There was the headline earlier in the week about bus route cuts with the picture of the LT on route 453. Maybe route 453 could be replaced by extensions of route 12 to Marylebone (suggested by other people before) and route 321 to Elephant & Castle (and maybe route 343 or P13 to Deptford). Neither route 12 nor 321 would be much if any longer than route 468 for example. 453 is a very busy route, shouldn't be withdrawn. Don't tell me it's because a 4xx route "shouldn't" be serving Central London or that because it got split by the 53. Yes some route might duplicate it but that doesn't undermine it's importance.
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