Three central London bus routes are being killed off at the end of the month as TfL try to save a bit of cash. I'll ride the doomed single decker routes over the next couple of weeks but today let's ride the route TfL are pretending not to have scrapped, the longstanding 16.
Route16 has been plying the Edgware Road for well over a century following the straight line the Romans laid down centuries before. It's always run at least from Victoria to Cricklewood and oftentimes further than that, once to Sudbury Town and more recently to Neasden, but 'Vic to Cric' has been its raison d'être since 1997. Alas longevity counts for nothing when funding gets squeezed, especially on key arteries deemed overbussed, hence it'll no longer be possible to take a direct bus after April 29th.
It's not needed, said the planners, because several other routes overlap with it along the way. It's not needed, said the accountants, and ooh look its current contract is conveniently coming to an end. But it's an iconic route number, said the suits, so rather than kick up a public fuss we'll look for a route that's fairly similar and give that the 16 designation instead. The end result is a conjuring trick whereby route 332 becomes the 16 overnight, just like that, so it sneakily looks like the 332's died instead and the 16 lives on.
n.b. Historically speaking transforming the 332 into the 16 isn't so stupid. The 332 was introduced in 2007 to replace part of route 316, the section which until 1997 had been operated by route 16, so older residents living between Cricklewood and Neasden will just say "oh look the 16's back".
Here's my attempt at a very simple map to show what's going on.
Before on the left, after on the right.
Route 16 is the red route currently running straight betwen Victoria and Cricklewood. Route 332 overlaps with most of it, indeed two-thirds of it, on its longer journey from Paddington station to the big IKEA in Neasden. Meanwhile route 6 nips across on its way from Willesden to Aldwych, the overlap being from Little Venice to Hyde Park Corner. From the end of the month route 16 disappears, route 332 becomes route 16 and route 6 is diverted at its southern end to fill the gap to Victoria.
TfL have also made a map, indeed the only map they've produced as part of The Great Extinguishment, but alas made it more complicated than it needs to be by including nightbuses too. They could just have said "Route N16 renamed as N32" but instead they drew them too, adding another two long identical dotted lines. I shouldn't complain - squeezing any bus map out of TfL these days is an achievement - but their obsession with cramming daytime and nightime routes onto the same diagram only ever muddies the waters.
OK, enough background, shall we just ride the thing before it vanishes?
Route 16: Victoria to Cricklewood Location: London inner, northwest Length of bus journey: 6 miles, 50 minutes
The 16's not allowed in the shiny bus station, there's no room, so each service kicks off in gridlocked Wilton Road beneath a picture of a musical witch. It's also quite popular for a doomed bus, although most of those boarding mid-morning in the Easter holidays aren't travelling far so any of the other three services from Bus Stop H will do. One of these is the 13, which isn't really the 13 it's the 82, another bus TfL sneakily renumbered to avoid a withdrawal rumpus, just to show they have history with these things. And so we head off in a sinuous attempt to escape from Victoria, passing front of house at Hamilton and back of house at Buckingham Palace where a thick treeline bars comprehensive scrutiny of the King's back garden.
This is where route 6 joins us. At present it runs nine stops from Hyde Park Corner to Aldwych but in future it'll only run three stops to Victoria so that's so more cash saved. And to fix this breakage TfL also intend to reroute route 23 to Aldwych rather than sending it to Hammersmith, which always was a bloody stupid idea so hurrah for that.
Hyde Park Corner is a choked swirling maelstrom, in places six lanes wide, with the Wellington Arch marooned in the middle. We take the Park Lane exit, dropping off tourists as appropriate, heading north past lines of stationary coaches and the occasional magnolia. This is easily the prettiest bit of the journey so best make the most of it. The park is looking splendid in the spring sunshine with its bright flowers, monuments and vast tracts of grass being remediated after the heavy toll of supporting Winter Wonderland. Speaker's Corner is silent. The Mound is conspicuous by its welcome absence. And enjoy the final swerve round Marble Arch because after this it's straight ahead all the way.
This is where route 6 used to join us. For most of its life it connected Edgware Road to Oxford Circus but in 2017 it was diverted via Piccadilly as part of plans to clear Oxford Street of superfluous buses, and in 2023 it's being diverted to Victoria instead. TfL are no respecters of tradition, they tweak the ends of bus routes to fit the latest practical need, and so the 6 goes wherever it's sent.
The lower end of the Edgware Road is a bit of a Middle Eastern bazaar, scattered with shisha cafés, Maroush restaurants and foreign exchange counters. Some of the shops are only identifiable if you can read Arabic, others like the Waitrose and the casino will take anyone's money. The man in the seat behind me is deep into a conversation about shift work, drain cleaning and leaky showers, which is annoying when there are so many other empty seats he could have taken. We've now been going 20 minutes, and those were all the streets the 16 will never see again.
This is where route 332 joins us. It's come a few stops from the back of Paddington station, barely any distance to speak of, and will now shadow us all the way to Cricklewood. When it's renumbered 16 anyone waiting north of here may not even notice that their normal bus has vanished, but they may wonder why it now takes longer to appear.
After passing underneath the Marylebone Flyover the tug of central London subtly diminishes. Church Street Market caters to a longstanding population and very much not the occasional stray tourist. The infamous (and ugly) Paddington Green Police Station awaits a future as (probably) flats. 'Little Venice Aldi' is not as exotic a shopping experience as it might sound but it does herald the imminent crossing of the Regent's Canal, a waterway topped by a bijou restaurant adjacent to an interminable set of traffic lights.
This is where route 6 leaves us. TfL haven't allowed a significant overlap between routes 6 and 332, only four stops, but that's perfectly sufficient in a world where changing buses now only has to be possible, not convenient.
We chug on into more residential territory, i.e. the leafy suburb of Maida Vale. Round here they've long championed apartment living, mostly in multi-storey brick courts that accommodate the semi-wealthy in seclusion if not natural elegance. We've also finally sped up, in part because there's less traffic but also because the lights are thankfully now further apart. But as we enter Kilburn High Road a set of temporary lights has been laid out for (hang on? seriously?) HS2 works. Checking maps I see that the key tunnel from Euston won't go the quick way, it'll loop north shadowing the existing mainline railway, hence the appearance of a big month-long hole at the top of Oxford Road.
This is where the 32 joins us. This is the other workhorse route along the Edgware Road, conveniently overlapping with the 16 between Kilburn and Cricklewood. Today the 16 followed by the 32 will take you all the way from Marble Arch to Edgware, and from the end of the month it's no longer as tidy as that.
Kilburn has proper shops from well-known chains and also high street bank branches that haven't yet been shuttered. Many of its pubs have been here since this was a coaching route and one even claims to have been founded in 1486, although the current version is a 1900 rebuild and advertises itself as a brasserie. At completely the other end of the scale the Buns Out burger restaurant displays "Est 2022" on its facade which doesn't exactly inspire confidence, at least not yet. We aren't picking up many passengers any more, a 32 is hoovering them up ahead.
This is where the 98 leaves us. I didn't mention it before but it's been shadowing us since Marble Arch and that was 2½ miles back. A number of other routes follow Edgware Road so don't imagine that extinguishing the 16 will leave bus passengers bereft, just with longer to wait.
Shoot Up Hill is a great name for a road, and intriguing because the name applies to both the ascent and the descent on the other side. One of the mundane blocks of flats at the top is duly called Summit House. Here we're temporarily halted by 4-way temporary traffic lights, because the Edgware Road always seems to have some somewhere, and that's made our journey at least 10% longer. When they finally go green the joys of Cricklewood Broadway await, to be fair a tad lowlier than Kilburn, where a helpful bus lane speeds us as far as a badly-parked van.
The most famous pub in Cricklewood is The Crown, a massive Victorian pile renowned for Irish hospitality, but currently under renovation to reopen (imminently) as a 4* hotel. Since Kilburn we've been driving north within the borough of Brent, but so close to the boundary that on the journey south it'd be Barnet and Camden instead. Sight of a bingo hall and B&Q means we're almost at our destination, and once we reach Matalan and Wickes it's time to be turfed off. Cricklewood Bus Garage is sandwiched between two railway curves and that's where our empty vehicle heads, at least for the next two weeks, after which it'll just be a driver changeover point on the 332 (sorry, 16, I forgot the conjuring trick myself there).
TfL describe their skulduggery thus: "Existing route 332 will be replaced by revised route 16." In truth it's no revision, it's a murder, and the bus that rumbles out with 16 on the front will be an impostor.
