London has a brand new bus route and it's rubbish. A seriously miserable experience on multiple levels.
The 728 is a Bridge Replacement Shuttle, a temporary means of crossing the Thames while Wandsworth Bridge is closed to traffic for repairs. It's only needed until the end of September, hopefully, and commenced operation yesterday with a 20 minute frequency. It's needed because three bus services which normally cross the bridge can no longer do so and are being terminated on the Fulham side. And much like its Hammersmith counterpart, the 533, it should only be ridden by people with a lot of time on their hands because it's quicker (and a lot more reliable) to walk.
They've got a lot right. All the affected bus stops have a 728 tile and a yellow notice explaining what's going on. They've sent the bus via Battersea Bridge rather than via Putney Bridge which, because it's now sandwiched between two closed crossings, is effectively choked. And they've created a bespoke webpage with frequency information, endpoints and a map. But my god what an over-complicated map it is, littered with so much advice that the basics fail to shine, and the average passenger is highly unlikely to unravel what's going on in under a minute, if at all. See how long you take.
The route is also longer than it needs to be in order to sweep up everyone who might be waiting for a curtailed bus. No timetables have been provided, so anyone scouting round a bus stop will only discover the destination rather than the route. No tiles for the curtailed routes have been removed, so passengers may still hang around for a 28, 295 or C3 that's never coming. And perhaps most awkwardly the 728 doesn't show up on Countdown displays or in your favourite app, it somehow hasn't been integrated, which means you have absolutely no idea when (or if) the next bus is ever coming.
I waited for an hour by the Wandsworth Roundabout to get this next photo. There'll be a 728 along soon, I thought, even if Citymapper and TfL Go were only showing a steady stream of 44s. But nothing came, only four 728s on the other side of the dual carriageway, and when my 60 minutes of purgatory finally ended I was disappointed to see that two buses arrived at once. I already hate this bus route, I thought. But I still went and caught it properly at the start of the route, and that's when my day got even worse.
The northbound 728 kicks off outside Sainsbury's in Wandsworth, the same stop where the 28 normally starts. A lady hoping to ride the 28 arrives, checks the electronic display and is surprised to see no 28s are due. Eventually she checks the yellow notice, squinting on tiptoes because she's quite short, and fails to make sense of the words. "What bus are you waiting for?" she asks me, and when I say the 728 she says "oh yes it says it up there, 728 Shuttle", but it hadn't really registered. The advice on the notice is to "use route 728" or to "go to Wandsworth Bridge to walk across for buses" but she doesn't do that. Instead she ignores the 44 that'd take her straight there and takes the 270 because it says Putney Bridge on the front... and I'd love to invite the TfL team who organised all this down to Wandsworth to show them the confusion they've created.
Also there are no buses. It's supposed to be a 20 minute service but the reality was much more irregular gaps, in this case 45 minutes without a 728 followed by another 40. With the 728 additionally invisible on the display and no timetable at the stop it's like a return to the omnibus dark ages. What's particularly galling is knowing that four 728s are parked up on the stand just around the corner, that's two-thirds of the entire fleet, but none have deigned to roll out and actually pick up passengers. I know it's only Day One and these things take time to bed in, but running a regular bus service isn't supposed to be this difficult.
When the 728 finally arrives there are several potential passengers, including a mum with two kids who's been expecting a 28. "How long's the journey to Fulham?" she asks, which is a very pertinent question, but the answer she gets is "I don't know, I'm a new driver"! She stupidly takes the risk and gets on. Normally it's about 12 minutes to Fulham Broadway but today it'll be almost four times that. I sit upstairs - it's not busy - and note with a sigh that the display at the front doesn't work, no 'next stop', just a time. And so our magical mystery tour sets off, 1½ miles direct but 5 miles by bus.
We set off via Wandsworth Town station, which is no longer direct now the centre of Old York Road's been pedestrianised. The published map doesn't show the one-way detour, nor that 728s heading south aren't supposed to go this way, but I still spotted one rogue 728 driver heading the wrong way past the station and I'm still not sure how they escaped at the other end. Within just five minutes we're at the southern end of Wandsworth Bridge where any sane able-bodied passenger should have got off and walked. I send my clone to do that while I stay on board and continue my sightseeing trip.
Wandsworth Bridge is closed so that its weight bearing parts can be replaced, its deck waterproofed, its carriageway resurfaced and its kerbs aligned. But walking across is still permitted, plus cycles can be pushed, and within five minutes you can be on the other side waiting for your next bus. It's complicated because only the 295 heads north from here, the 28 is currently terminating southbound only so another change of bus is required, and you can see why some of the collateral around this closure is very hard to unpick. But part of me has already decided that the 'walking across' option is patently the best option, so much so that the 728 should have been left for dead on the drawing board.
Back on the bus of doom, I'm unnerved to see six young lads bounding aboard closely followed by three community police officers. As a cluster of black hoodies bundles towards the rear seats I steel myself for the worst. But no, the boys are in fact using the first day of the school holidays to ride the new bus, and later in their journey will be heard discussing the blinds on an N19 and ringing a mate to say "yeah we're on the 728!" It's not just Men Who Like Buses, it turns out they tend to start out as Boys Who Like Buses instead.
We've been making good time so far and are heading straight for Battersea Bridge. Time to wreck that by turning away from the Thames and heading towards Clapham Junction. This is to pick up river-crossers on the 295 and C3... however you have to stand at the stop on the opposite side of the road to catch a 728 going in the right direction, and I doubt everyone realises that. Past the station I note that the former Arding & Hobbs department store is looking beautifully scrubbed up but with a tacky gold crown in the middle of the roof terrace, so it's a redevelopment that leaves me conflicted.
And because there hasn't been enough despair in recent paragraphs, at Ingrave Street it all goes miserably wrong again. We stop at an odd angle to the pavement, someone gets on and then nothing happens. I eventually hear three loud smashes downstairs which I deduce to be the driver attempting to slam the cab door. Traffic passes. I spy a man clutching a work rota walking away across the road, who I think I recognise as the driver who let us on board. A radio bursts into action. I sigh as another 728 overtakes us and leaves us behind, which really shouldn't be possible on a route with a 20 minute frequency. The engine switches off. The eighth minute of total hiatus ticks round. What I think just happened is that we changed drivers, really slowly, but because the bus isn't set up for audio announcements nobody told us and we were simply left to stew.
Oh hurrah we're finally off, although because we're trailing behind another 728 our driver is now trying hard not to catch up. This includes dawdling up bus lanes on Battersea Bridge Road beside traffic that can only eye up our private road space with envy. The council estates of downtown Battersea pass by, but not as quickly as I'd like. Eventually we join the logjam at the junction with Westbridge Road, where traffic from all directions is converging to cross a Thames bridge that's actually open. Passing one particular set of lights without stopping in the yellow box takes three attempts. If it's this bad in the middle of a Monday I truly wouldn't risk the 728 in the rush hour, it'd be slow-moving hell.
At last we reach the Thames, a full half hour after we last grazed it at Wandsworth Bridge. We've sped up a bit now as we pass from 'being in the queue' to 'passing the queue trying to go the other way'. The next bit's almost quite exciting, bus-wise, because no other London bus route passes along Cheyne Walk. On the right are blue plaques for Hilaire Belloc, JMW Turner and Sylvia Pankhurst, on the left the ridiculously expensive houseboats bobbing off Cheyne Pier, and on neither side are there any bus stops so we gain a little time. But not enough.
The 728's penultimate hurrah is the King's Road, Chelsea's most fashionable spine road, where most of the shops at this end exist to extract surplus wealth from surrounding residents in need of an interior design upgrade. At the final turn I note that the 728 already has a Diversion As Instructed notice for use when Chelsea are playing at home. For Raheem's sake don't ride the 728 on a matchday is all I can say.
And finally we reach the last stop at Fulham Town Hall, although I'm not 100% certain it's the last stop because the electronic display doesn't work, remember. Also the yellow poster back in Wandsworth told me to "change to route 28 at Harwood Road" and that turns out to be the name of a road, not a bus stop, so who'd know that's where we are? One of the Boys Who Like Buses calls out to me "last stop" as he bounds off down the stairs, because they've been on their phones the whole way, and he might as well have added "last stop Grandad" for all the cheery condescension in his voice. I alight feeling ancient as well as pointlessly delayed, having been completely taken for a ride.
London has a brand new bus route and it's rubbish, be that in design, in delivery, in exposition or in operation. A route whose buses arrive at irregular, extended, unpredictable intervals and which goes pointlessly all round the houses. Unless you're a MWLB or a BWLB best leave the 728 well alone.
Route 728: Wandsworth - Fulham Broadway
