Getting all sentimental - about a bus

A little over six years ago, I indulged myself in a secret geeky pleasure – a ride on the penultimate AEC Routemaster on a normal, cross-London bus route. It was a little misleading, because these 1960s veterans continued to ply their trade on two special ‘heritage’ routes, the 9 to Kensington High Street, and the 15 to Tower Hill. But the final day witnessed an outpouring of emotion for a public transport icon that only the British could be capable of (see files marked 'End of Steam on British Rail' and 'London's Last Tram').

As a reasonably recent arrival to London in 2005, I was already nostalgic for the Routemaster, with their 1950s design and quirks of a bygone age. They plied the streets of Dalston where I first lived, a flotilla of weathered red metal, rubber and comfy moquette. I missed them so much that I even ended up doing weekend work as a conductor and guide for a company that specialised in Routemaster charters when money became tight.

I'm normally never a stranger to sentiment, but I recognised these museum pieces couldn’t go on for ever without significant re-engineering, time and money (the first one was built in 1959 after all). An impending 2017 deadline imposed by the Disability Discrimation Act sounded the death-bell for these purring red beasts. Mayor Ken Livingstone had made it clear that, since the introduction of German-built bendy buses on the high-capacity Red Arrow routes in 2002, the future was not going to be the preserve of elderly double-deckers with an open ‘hop-on, hop-off’ rear platform. The Routemaster was, after all, evolved from a design which, admittedly with the addition of a roof and pneumatic tyres, was little different from the pre-war B-Type, and later RT type. Why then, in 2005, would anyone want to operate a vehicle that was prone to accidents around its rear platform and which, without passenger doors, could be very cold in winter?

 
It took a Tory mayor, Boris Johnson to take that somewhat retrograde step – much against the advice of industry professionals and those who said “it can't be done”. But Boris did it. The proof of the pudding for me was on Saturday, as I perused the Thomas Heatherwick-designed Routemaster New Bus for London. In tune with London's aspirational classes, it was parked up outside the brand-spanking new Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, itself the epitome of modernity situated on the Olympic park. Londoners were invited to inspect their new public carriage, and they seemed impressed during my short visit. It is indeed a beautiful vehicle which may finally render redundant the insult 'he/she/it looks like the back of a bus’; the NBfL is far from ugly. Its striking curves, traditionally-inspired seating and flooring and other bespoke design touches make it a winner, at least from an aesthetic point of view. Oh, and like many of London's new buses, it's a hybrid – so the Toyota Prius loving classes should come flocking. 
 

Like all good design however, the proof of the pudding will be in how it fares in every day use. The new vehicle seats just 64, and there is less space for wheelchair users and those with pushchairs – facilities which bendy buses seemed to have in abundance. The first two prototypes of eight initial buses are due in service on 20 February on the arduous 38 route – a bus route which has become ridiculously frequent in recent years, and one which runs not too far away from Boris' own home in Highbury. So let's see how the residents of Hackney and Islington deal with an open-platform bus six years after the last one ran in their locality. It is a high-profile risk to take for a Mayor of London who is so keen to see this expensive and quirky pet project succeed. I hate to be a cynic, but even if it does succeed I'll wait for the first person to fall off the back of one and become seriously injured (or worse) and see what the Mayor thinks about his new bus then. 'Elf 'n safety may well win the day - the passengers of 2012 just aren't those of 1962.

Meanwhile, is it just possible that the average passenger just wants a seat on the way to work – and isn't particularly bothered about what the bus looks like?

Seeing red in London's mayoral contest

I cried when Ken Livingstone lost the 2008 election to Boris Johnson to become Mayor of London. Yes, I know. I'm a silly, soppy thing who takes politics far too seriously. I have soft spot for the old warhorse, and I'd been canvassing all day. I'd had a few bottles of wine, and it was late. Ken Livingstone's valedictory address was heartfelt, and he was clearly gutted. And surely politically-savvy Londoners would see through the vagaries of The Blonde and re-elect Red Ken, the man who had remade London politics, with a landslide. Wouldn't they?

That was over three years ago. I've given up active politics since then, mainly because I couldn't do anything but feel guilty when looking at bundles of leaflets that needed delivering to nearby streets. I don't feel so guilty any more though. London's politics has changed – and elections are no longer fought and won in the hole of the 'doughnut' that is inner London boroughs. With credit to Ken, the centre ground of London's politics – a micro state within the UK – did shift westward. Even the Telegraph has called Ken the most successful left-winger of modern times. As a result, massive investment in public transport, the congestion charge and a commitment to police numbers have all been written into the rulebook for London's mayor.

Boris knows these truths, and in spite of the blustering demeanour is no fool. He is surrounded by smart people at City Hall; strategists, specialists, communicators. As Conservatives, they have realised how valuable City Hall is as a power base and they are not prepared to throw it away, despite the historic antagonism towards London local government under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Much has been made of the personal similarities between Boris and Ken – the mavericks acting outside the party mainstream, even their occasionally racy private lives. Boris isn't on the same page as David Cameron. Ken's rarely read from the same book as the Labour leadership. But both claim to be standing up for the People's Republic of London in their own way.

The New Bus for London – or the new Routemaster -is a big bold, physical manifestation of Boris making his mark on London. But Ken was right to scrap the original Routemaster, as I've argued before. He was right also to introduce the unfairly maligned bendy buses, which seem to operate in many of Europe's other cities without any trouble at all.

Boris and his team have been entirely wrong to scrap bendy buses, which have been well suited to the job expected of them. Preferring to listen to ill-informed advice on what might win him the election (it worked, but his advisors know nothing about running transport) we’ve seen chaos outside places like Waterloo and Victoria stations, where there are either too many replacement double-deckerscausing congestion at the terminus, or smaller buses which leave large numbers behind. Here's the evidence:

Enormous queues build up at Waterloo station every morning waiting for the 521 bus - down the stairs, double-backing several times and causing huge congestion like some sort of low-budget British horror film

Bendy buses on the route I use most often just vaccumed up queues and never left anyone behind. And, as for the urban myth that they're more dangerous to cyclists – well, not a shred of evidence could be provided to support that theory.

I’d personally like to see the return of the bendy bus, and for politicians to leave decisions over what sort of buses should be on our streets to the professionals, rather than getting stuck in a 1950s timewarp about ‘new' Routemasters. Yes, that's right – a bus based on a open rear entrance design that dates back to at least the 1920s, but built in 2011. It will leave TfL and the London bus companies open to lawsuits. But Boris powers on with his pet project, which although is undeniably pretty as buses go, is still unnecessary and expensive in an age of supposed austerity and budget cuts. The first is due in trial service in the new year.

Artists' impression of the imaginatively titled Emirates Air Line

Then there's the Thames Cable Car. Who remembers Londoners asking for this? It would have been expected that any incoming or re-elected mayor would have supported a new bridge in that part of London, easing the pressure on the Blackwall Tunnel and the Limehouse Link. It wasn't however, part of either Boris', or for that matter, Ken's manifesto and has managed to spectacularly overtake other long-hoped for projects such as the Cross-River Tram or Crystal Palace Tram extension, or the DLR's Dagenham Dock extension. The Emirates Air Line, as it will be called, has even sneaked on to the tube map. Like the new Routemaster, it's shiny and glossy and looks great in the run-up to a Mayoral election. But do we actually need it?

Non-Londoners may wonder why all this is of consequence. But what happens in London next year will undoubtedly have an impact on UK politics come the next general election in 2015, or sooner. Ken Livingstone has been busy attacking Boris on police numbers, for example. Boris sounds less combative towards his opponent and has grown in confidence significantly since taking on the job. He's even using similar language and the posturing of his opponent. Meanwhile, Ken really needs to learn the lessons of 2008 - and some have doubted whether he really can - if he is to wrest back control of the capital. There's even been muttering that he may be deposed as Labour's candidate. Either way, 2012's going to be an interesting year in London.

Head to head: Oona vs Ken

Oona's helped out Ken on his own campaign trail in the past

One of the annoyances of having a party leadership selection process running in parallel with a London mayoral candidate selection is that Facebook sends me countless invites to hustings events for either. Last Monday 26 July I ventured, in a rare move, out to Southall in West London to what I thought was a Labour Party leadership hustings organised by the Co-operative Party, an organisation with which I hold much sympathy. The latter part of my assumption turned out to be right - as it turned out, when I arrived, there were significantly fewer chairs at the top table than I was expecting. And a surprising lack of party staff to move things along. Nonetheless, our good friends at the Co-op had attracted a significant number of people to the event, compered by the ever-droll Steve Pound MP, which turned out to be an excellent chance for Ken Livingstone and Oona King, as the official Labour mayoral candidate nominees, to make their case.

I have to admit, once I arrived I did have fairly set views on my preference for London mayor, and have been used to having them challenged quite a lot recently by my boyfriend and others. I voted for Ken in 2008 and, for the last few years, and I've been of the view that, with a better campaign less-focused on the inner-London boroughs and an appeal to a more aspirational Labour vote, he could win City Hall back off Boris. After all, Ken's got something of a reputation as a comeback kid, what with his battles with the Labour hierarchy in the early 2000s and entering Parliament in the 1987 General Election, only to leave Westminster in 2001 once he'd returned to London local government. Of course, he's far from perfect, what with his confrontation with Evening Standard Journalist Oliver Finegold and various other skirmishes. But I have a lot of time for a politician with boomerang-like abilities - and his passion for, and ability to speak to, and for London. His words after the 7 July tube and bus bombings were well-judged and sensitively aimed.

But, I'm coming around to the idea that despite Ken's ability to come back from the abyss, London may have moved on. I hope that Oona King genuinely does have the fresh ideas and the new approach which she claims she has. Because, if there really is a palpable hunger within the London Labour Party, and the London electorate as a whole for Oona's qualities, then she really may be in with a chance of ousting Boris Johnson. Several London councils went back to Labour control in 2010, and despite the huge swing to the Conservatives in 2008, the Labour vote still held up very strongly in inner-London boroughs in particular.

Maybe this means that on this occasion, the debate is less about the policies, and more about the ability of a single personality to elucidate a metropolitan, socialist politics. After all, as Oona herself said at this hustings, she was previously one of Ken's greatest supporters- she just happens to think that she can do the job better now. After Ken's big falling out with Labour ten years ago, few party members would disagree the triumphs of Ken's congestion charge policy, investment in the East London Line and his vigorous campaigning for the 2012 Olympics and Crossrail as a catalyst for investment in London for the present, and future. Why would Oona want to undo those (perceived) successes?

The point of this hustings however, was to differentiate between King and Livingstone and their specific proposals for London. On balance, I found Oona to be the lighter of the two on matters of policy. Oona is clearly disadvantaged as the less well-versed in London politics, although arguably this is irrelevant given her experience in Westminster during the New Labour years. Most bizarrely, when faced with a question on Fair Trade (to be expected with a Co-operative party audience), Oona evidenced her credentials with her campaign within the House of Commons to ban Cadbury's chocolate in favour of Fair Trade products. That's all very well Oona, but surely London's ethical trade with the rest of the world is bigger than what you stock in an MP's tuck-shop? I don't wish to denigrate the good intentions of the Fair Trade movement - I support it wholeheartedly - but I expect a mayoral candidate to have bigger ideas than that. It's the sort of politics which I practiced in my student union nine years ago...

There were several questions around transport, and one subject in which a dividing line was evident was on dedicated schoolbuses for London's schoolchildren. I've been in favour of such a scheme since a report was published on the subject five years ago, and found the deadlock between the two candidates rather irritating. Ken adamant that such an idea won't work as "there's no more road space" whilst Oona extolled the virtues of it - quite rightly pointing out that parents,pupils and the public alike want security and safety on their morning and evening journeys - giving the travelling public a break during the school run. Ken did not present any tangible evidence as to why present dedicated TfL schoolbus journeys (of which there are very many in London) could not give way to a dedicated 'yellow' bus system with specially recruited drivers and monitors to look after their young passengers as exists in the USA. Ken further defected Oona's proposals with costs - £350 million to lease or £500 million to buy outright a fleet of buses. It didn't help that in these straightened times, Oona hadn't identified where the money for such a fleet might come from.

My own question was on policing numbers, and whether both candidates thought that the current standard of policing could be maintained with fewer policing officers. The Safer Neighbourhood team is all over my area like a rash, which is a good thing, and it's no surprise that (touch wood) that my bit of Balham has a particularly low burglary rate. Both Oona and Ken were pro-directly elected invididuals to look after policing, which is what we've already got of course with Boris at the head of the Metropolitan Police Authority. Ken had concerns about central government undermining local efforts to deal with crime (the Shoot to Kill policy being cited as an example - where ACPO (the Association of Chief Police Officers) and the Home Secretary had decided on a particular policy decision and the Mayor had not been consulted. A true test of the coalition's decentralising mettle could be to be more comfortable with policing policy decisions being made by directly elected individuals, as opposed to central government. Will traditional law and order Tories be able to resist the urge to intervene if these directly elected individuals become more widespread in other areas?

Both candidates gave inspiring final statements - Ken highlighting his view of the role of the London mayor in an uncertain world where ordinary people are now facing unprecedented cuts, and that "London needs to be at the place where the new world is being born". Oona, once again, summed up by asking the room "Do you want to win London?" implying that the opposite was a distinct possibility for Labour supporters if they failed to back her as Labour's candidate.

Me, I'm still undecided despite a strong case being put forward by both candidates (and with both having very different credentials). But I suspect that whatever happens, the public will have decided that, despite a bike scheme here and a 21st century Routemaster there, people will want a serious candidate in these less stable economic times.

Driven by the drink - thoughts on Boris Johnson's alcohol ban

I felt compelled to respond to my boyfriend’s blog post on Boris Johnson’s somewhat misguided ban on alcohol on public transport in London, not only because I have a slightly different view but because he’s worried that no-one reads his blog!

Actually, I don't think this ban is so much as a criminal offence, but probably more of a by-law. The Underground and buses publish 'conditions of carriage' which stipulate things like passengers not talking to drivers whilst the vehicle is in motion, not putting your feet on the seats, and giving up your seat to an older person etc. They also ask you to do things like not eat revoltingly smelly kebabs, and to turn the volume down on MP3 players for other passengers’ comfort.

Most people see these things as being quite reasonable and help retain an order of general acquiescence and a pleasant environment on public transport. A ban on alcohol effectively comes into the same category as the rules which stop people going through the grey gates at the end of platforms, or board a bendy bus with a pre-pay Oyster and not ‘touching in’ for example.In terms of being enforceable, a bus driver can refuse someone travel if they're being violent or abusive and in principle, they should have the right to ban someone with alcohol if they think it's going to cause a problem. So it's right that TfL staff should be empowered to prevent someone drinking on their vehicles if they think it's going to be a problem. The problem is that they won't have the confidence or the training to challenge a whole load of Arsenal/Fulham/Crystal Palace supporters (delete as appropriate!) who’ve just come from their game all tanked up and ready to cause trouble. If such a ban would work, it would be applied just as equally to the slightly squiffy young City couple on the train back to Epsom with a half-drunk bottle of Pinot Grigio in their hand...

Ultimately it's a bit harmless as a rule, and hardly criminalises the act of drinking – and as it will be so difficult to police (given British Transport Police’s other, more pressing priorities) it's hardly worth worrying about. Those people so utterly devoted to their right to carry on drinking whilst between the pub or restaurant and home might feel aggrieved that their liberty is being somewhat encroached upon. But for people who feel that buses and tubes are a 'neutral', safe, space where we just go from A to B without feeling the need to get sloshed in between, there's no harm in this ‘law’ from Boris saying “we’d rather you waited until you got to the other end!”

If anything, it just proves that Boris' policies aren't really that serious and don't get to the root of the problem - namely a culture which encourages excessive binge drinking! That one will take literally generations to sort out. Personally, I'm more concerned that Boris won't be giving any money to the Pride celebrations in London this year, or respecting the importance of London's diverse communities which Ken Livingstone used to.

So, right now I’m just going to set up a Facebook event to organise a massive piss-up on the Circle Line on 31 May! Hic…

Election postscript

I've never spent such a tense day as I did yesterday, constantly checking on the progress of the Mayoral election results. And when the result finally did come through, confirming our worst fears that Boris Johnson had comfortably won City Hall, it really hit home.

Ken's valedictory speech was moving, and I could detect a little bit of emotion in his voice as he spoke from the platform. Hardly surprising, given the passion with which he's served London and the way in which he's understood it like no other politician. He's faced down his critics admirably, sometimes controversially, but always honestly. No-one could forget the way in which he brought the city together on 7 July 2005, and the speech which said it all about what sort of city London is. And at the risk of being a candidate for Private Eye's 'OBN' column, I don't mind admitting I shed some tears last night when I think about what sort of man London has lost.

Here's one of my favourite clips of the man in action...proof of what he was up against

Ken loses it at City Hall

So where did we go wrong? Ministers such as Justice Secretary Jack Straw have been saying we all "shoulder the blame", particularly with regard to some national issues, but I think London's politics are something quite different. We really should have won this.

Our campaign was flawed for a number of reasons. An article in yesterday's Guardian went a long way to explaining these issues. For me, a lot of it is about geography and Ken's inability to reach out to the middle-class suburbs. London is like a doughnut, or a Polo mint. We concentrated too much on the hole in the middle and didn't reach out enough to the people on the outside - inner London and the suburbs are after all two very different places. Our activists were really thin on the ground in places like Bexley and Kingston, which really didn't help get out the vote there. We also didn't stick to a clear message - was Boris just a clown or a nasty right-wing Tory? Or both?

A part of me is going to have to get used to Tories in top jobs again, but the divisiveness of Boris Johnson means I really can't see how he's going to appeal to ethnic minorities, gays or anyone who's vaguely socially progressive. Johnson is a pretty much unreconstructed free-market Thatcherite, whom - bumbling persona aside - represents the return of what the sort of hard-line right wing Tories we thought we'd seen the last of in 1997. We don't really know how his policies are going to pan out, such as his fabled new Routemaster (which I suspect will be quietly forgotten once he's realised how unworkable it will be). Alongside delivering the chaotic and ill-thought out manifesto, he even promises us the "odd indiscretion" from time to time, which will no doubt have Londoners glowing with pride as this comic character attempts to run a city of eight million people.

Boris may have won London, but he's not won our hearts and minds. Roll on 2012.

Why bringing back the Routemaster isn't the answer for London

Boris Johnson launched his transport manifesto for London today, but his ideas struggle to sound coherent or even workable. The Conservative candidate for the job of Mayor claims Ken Livingstone has "run out of ideas", when the current incumbent of the job has demonstrated anything but. TfL is a remarkably different organisation from the old London Transport inherited some nine years ago. Bus use has risen dramatically - a reverse of the considerable decline outside the capital and there are signs of considerable investment in the Tube (even if the Metronet debacle has somewhat damaged public confidence in the funding structure). It's all down to a co-ordinated, well-funded and integrated transport policy and a Mayor with a genuine passion for the things which make a difference to Londoners.

Johnson's latest wheeze proposes bringing back the Routemaster, seemingly in an attempt to capitalise on public mistrust of their replacements, those nasty European bendy-buses which happily purr down continental boulevards but which have never really caught on in Britain.

The last Routemasters were retired from front-line service in December 2005, minus the ten or so which currently ply their trade on the 'heritage' routes. There was public outcry at the abolition of these venerable old beasts, as many a Time Out article and opinion piece pointed out. What the travelling public didn't quite realise is quite how time expired these vehicles were.

The Routemaster was developed as a replacement for London's trolleybus fleet, in a post-war Britain, catching up on the development of new vehicles had been stalled for at least six years during wartime. The concept of the vehicle was revolutionary for its time, but its basic look and feel was little different from the pre-war 'RT', itself a development of the 1910 'B' type. So, in 2005, a fleet of buses was operating on front line services in central London based on a design which originated before many passengers' grandparents were even born. Operators of the Routemaster struggled to find spare parts, their capacity restricted their usefulness somewhat, and they cost considerably more than one-person buses to operate because of the necessity of the conductor to collect fares and oversee passengers embarking and disembarking.

Boris has announced a competition to design a new Routemaster - a bus fit for the 21st century. But London Transport long ago stopped building its own vehicles, and in an age of standardisation and globalised transport manufacturers, a bus that's specially designed for London use only isn't going to find markets elsewhere. The black cab only survived because its basic design was so adaptable elsewhere.

To Boris and his campaign team, this dewy eyed notion of a cheery conductor returning to shout 'fares please' up the stairs might be a vote winner. But, as TfL have stated, returning the conductor to London's buses, not least developing the replacement vehicle, would cost something of the tune of £108m. Is that a price Johnson is prepared to pay? And if so, how would he fund it? It's a question I've already put to him - and it'll be interesting to see how nostalgia will survive in a mayoral election which is already more bitter than the previous two.