London buses - are we worse off?

[bushopper]

NC for this as transport related issues seem to get everyone agitated these days.

Do you think we are worse off with all the redesign and rationalisation of the bus network in London?

For instance, one used to be able to use the 11 bus to get from Fulham Broadway to Liverpool Street on a single £1.75 ticket. No need to change.

Now, to cover the same route, you would most likely need to take 3 buses, and even if you tried to access the 'one-hour' hopper fare, it's unlikely you could as the traffic makes it virtually impossible to cover the whole route in one hour.

Also those with walking difficulties or unwell usually suffer as connecting bus stops can sometimes be 100 metres or more away

In winter, bad weather or when carrying shopping or luggage it can be a nightmare too.

What has been the point of it all?

There a vast swathes of South London that are no where near a tube station.
The buses don't link up properly - both my local routes (one of which isn't particularly close) go to the local town but neither go to the main train station. One stops on the very edge and doesn't even go to the bus station to link to other buses.
Most public transport funnels in to the centre of London. If you want to make your way around the edges it's pretty much impossible.
And yes, from August it will be £12.50 a day to use your car if it isn't compliant.

I very rarely get on a bus that is empty. Most seem to be quite full during most ot the day

If you doubt the first bus of the day is at 9.30, you don't have a Scooby-Doo about public transport outside the major cities!

FWIW, DH's work decided they were going to ban all private cars from the site. Except they had to concede and hand out a load of parking passes when a number of people in one direction pointed out they would have to set out for work on Tuesday before they got home from work on Monday.....

I once took the 11 from Kings Road and it took an hour to get as far as Knightsbridge. This was about a year ago when the roadworks were taking place but it was the most exasperating bus journey of my life. Prior to that, I did the whole route to Liverpool Street and when it ran smoothly, It was amazing.

I'd have liked to see less passengers and higher fares. In particular, bus passes only given to teenagers in exceptional circumstances because a lot of secondary school pupils live close by and use the bus to go to the fried chicken shop and go back and forth to encounter other teenagers - not to get home from school. I think means testing for families with older children would make a lot more sense then giving them all free travel.

The 3 was a wonderful route in its heyday.

It definitely is so. Vocal pensioners are usually happy to go out during the daytime when buses are cheaper to run. There is no amount of being a vocal non pensioner that will get more funding for peak routes in rural areas without more government subsidy.

If certain parts of a route are underused then they’ll look at reshuffling it. As PP have said, this is because TfL budgets have been cut, but would be much worse if privatised (see pretty much anywhere outside of London for examples)

In the 1980's and he 68 went from Chalk Farm all the way to South Croydon. I travelled its entire route once. Took 2 hours+. With traffic the way it is I suspect it would be closer to 3 these days.

The point of the new fares system is to give more flexibility on the central part of the routes which tend to be the busiest.

Frankly I think that anyone who complains about the London transport system is on a hiding to nothing. It is cheap, clean, frequent and pretty integrated. Plus free at point of use for young and the elderly. We are so lucky.

That may be so in central London, but in outer London it is quite usual for secondary school pupils to need to take 2-3 buses to get to school and back. See again - no tubes in South London, and buses often don't connect to other transport networks.

My cousin doesn't live a near tube, so if I visit them I either need to get the bus or picked up.

Very long routes such as the 11 which go across some of the busiest and congested areas of London must be a nightmare to timetable, what with the distance, traffic, road works/closures etc.

Does anyone willingly use a bus for such long journeys when there is a Tube alternative?

London transport which is so comprehensive with bus, tube, overground and riverboats is the best in the country and we are very lucky.

The thing is, OP, London has lots and lots of buses. I can't think of the last time that I had to wait more than 15-20 minutes for a London bus. Invariably I would then have a choice of walking to a different stop/route in zone 1 or 2.

Buses being more than once an hour/actually running and the ability to switch buses in an hour (or fares capped at a daily amt) are revolutionary ideas for much of the country (even though it is usually the same companies running the buses).

Er, plenty of people in London don't have a tube station within walking distance. London isn't just Central London, you know.

Sorry but that is such an affluent view point
The bus is £1.75 and the tube is £3.40

The buses are used by low paid workers who can't afford the tube. Cutting the buses impacts on Londons most vulnerable residents

Invariably I would then have a choice of walking to a different stop/route in zone 1 or 2.

But London goes all the way out to zone 6. Very different there.

@Larner

Yes. It starts to look like profiteering.

How? When the London transport system is subsidised heavily by the taxpayer. It's not "profiteering", it's cutting the amount of subsidy it needs.

*I'm in London and my workplace is 8 miles away and takes about an hour on public transport. That's an average commute here. With the huge numbers of people here, reliable public transport links are essential. It isn't really comparable to life in smaller towns and cities8

Reliable transport links are essential wherever you live. I don't know if you are saying that an hour to go 8 miles is good or bad, but it sounds quite good to me, when you live in a massively populated city. It's great that you can turn up at any time, and there'll be a bus or tube leaving within minutes. I think London has a great transport system.

My DD goes to school 8 miles away, in our nearest city, we live in the South West. To get to school at 8.40am, she has to leave the house at 7.05am, and that would just get her to the door on time if she runs from the bus stop. If a bus is late or cancelled, there's not another one for an hour. And while we don't live in a city, we're not exactly in the sticks either.

The Tube used to make a profit, and that subsidised the buses (pre-Covid). Bus services just aren't profitable anywhere in the country and will always need hefty government/council input.

I was told the X26 is currently the longest London bus route (Croydon to Heathrow).

Exactly. I doubt many people ever use buses to cover that kind of distance. It would take an age. I’ve lived in London for 15 years and have never sat on a bus for its entire route.

This, and the Underground is just wonderful! Londoners just don't appreciate it!

My city has fantastic public transport, but it's really expensive.

I’m sure we are worse off and presume, privately that TfL admit this. But there is a massive funding crisis so they have little choice. Air quality/obesity crisis/climate change being what it is, we should be funnelling far more public money into public transport and up congestion charge/ULEZ etc to pay for it. But that’s not a vote winner, is it?

Londoners are allowed to complain that the tory bailout of TFL due to their imposed covid restrictions has resulted in a worse service across the network.

I'm not going to think 'oh its alright that my central london tube station is regularly closed in the mornings due to chronic defunding (TFL told to cut staffing levels to an unsafe amount and as such they can't staff stations properly) because in huddersfield their bus is once every 20 mins'
It is irrelevant.

It honestly seems like the defunding of TFL has been done in order to reduce the popularity of the London mayor. The tories hate having an elected labour mayor in the capital. Many people will just assume TFL cuts and failings are down to Khan.

People who cant afford £3.40 but can afford £1.75?

Many, many people do use London buses to travel long distances every single day. And even this gets expensive.

I used to work in SW London and our cleaner used to travel in by bus from Lewisham because that was where the agency that she worked for had sent her.