Boris has ear bent over end of bendy bus

Farewell: The last of the 'bendy buses' will complete its final journey tomorrow
12 April 2012

Boris Johnson today said farewell to the bendy bus as a row broke out over passengers having to fight for seats on their replacements.

The Mayor fulfilled a manifesto pledge to remove the 18-metre articulated buses by converting the last of 12 routes - the 207 between White City and Hayes - to double deckers.

Mr Johnson said: "Today we bid a final but not fond farewell to the bendy bus. These bulky and ungainly monstrosities were always more suitable for the wide open vistas of a Scandinavian airport than for London's narrow streets and I am glad to see the back of them."

However the Liberal Democrats said the replacement of bendies, which could supposedly carry 140 people, compared to about 85 on a double decker, meant capacity on the 12 routes had fallen by between five and 26 per cent.

They said the 73, which runs between Stoke Newington and Victoria, was the worst affected. Caroline Pidgeon, Lib-Dem chair of the London Assembly transport committee, said: "The key issue is not whether bendy buses are good or bad, but simply whether people can get on a bus. The Mayor promised to get rid of bendy buses - he didn't promise to make bus journeys more crowded."

Transport for London has had to pay a £2.2 million penalty to convert the routes ahead of the usual five-yearly retendering of the bus contracts.

It also admits there will be more buses on the roads - about 500 single and double deckers at peak times compared to about 350 bendies. This will cost an extra £302,000 a year.

However TfL insists it will make a substantial net profit as it will save up to £7.4 million a year on fare evasion suffered by bendies.

Introduced by Ken Livingstone as a way of moving large numbers of passengers amid soaring bus popularity - there are expected to be 2,337 million bus journeys this year - they became unpopular by blocking streets and leaving travellers feeling queasy in the rear-facing seats.

Mr Johnson began removing the buses in 2009 and they have ended up in Malta and in Leicester and Merseyside. Labour said Mr Johnson had opted to replace them with the "world's most expensive bus" - his £7.8 million version of the classic Routemaster, which will start running next year.

Labour transport spokeswoman Val Shawcross said: "A considerable amount of TfL's time, effort and money has been spent replacing these buses which covered just 12 out of 700 bus routes in London.

"These resources which would have been put to far better use improving services for the majority of bus users and cutting fares."

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