I won't keep you long today.
It's a lovely day and you should be out enjoying it.
Let's answer a dull question.
Which London bus terminus has the most terminating routes?
See, half of you can head off already.
Probably more than half actually.
This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer.
It used to be easy when TfL made bus maps.
You'd open the set of maps, count the routes at each terminus and see which came out on top.
Can't do that any more.
I did start by doing exactly that with the 2016 set of maps to get a rough sense of numbers.
But those maps are now eight years old and out of date.
Wildly out of date in places.
Take Walthamstow bus station, for example.
Eight terminating routes on the 2016 map.
Since then one route scrapped, one diverted and two Superloops shoehorned in.
I make that ten now.
But ten can be beaten.
I made myself a list of likely contenders and then checked their spider maps.
Yeah, but spider maps are rubbish too these days.
Time was when they had a useful list of routes in the corner.
All you had to do was see which routes appeared only once, not twice.
Can't do that any more.
If you're the muppet at TfL who binned the list in the corner, damn you.
You made answering this question ridiculously harder.
Also not every likely contender has a spider map.
There isn't a spider map for Uxbridge, can you believe that?
There isn't a spider map for Edgware either.
Cost-cutting blinkered jobsworth muppets did this.
I ended up having to check several webpages for individual bus stops.
Even then it's not clear whether buses actually terminate there or not.
Map-scrappers be damned.
What I'm saying is I've probably counted some of this wrong.
But I hope this is right.
The bus stop with the most terminating routes is at Bromley North.
It has 12 terminating routes.
They are 61 119 138 146 227 246 269 352 354 367 SL3 SL5.
It's the Superloop that clinched it.
I won't show you a photo.
If you're interested you already know what Bromley North looks like.
Victoria station is also the terminus for 12 bus routes.
They are 3 6 13 26 38 44 52 170 185 390 C1 C10.
Unlike Bromley North, they don't all terminate in exactly the same place.
If we're being picky, most of those routes terminate outside the bus station.
I'm not being quite that picky.
The terminus in third place is Edgware with 11 routes.
They are 32 79 107 113 204 221 240 251 303 340 384.
All these routes terminate at the same bus stop outside the station.
I should say I'm not including nightbuses.
Edgware overtakes Bromley North if you include night buses.
In fact, if you include night buses Trafalgar Square wins outright.
Several bus stations have 10 terminating routes.
They are Brent Cross, Crystal Palace, Hounslow, Uxbridge and Walthamstow.
I should say I'm only counting TfL routes.
Orpington would also have 10 routes if you included the non-TfL 477.
I think Kingston's Cromwell Road bus station also normally has 10.
But it's closed at the moment.
The other terminus with 10 routes is Lewisham station.
They're 75 89 178 181 185 208 261 284 484 P4.
Five other routes terminate very nearby but still have 'Lewisham' on the front.
They're 21 108 129 380 436.
If you're happy to include Lewisham Tesco then 273 counts too.
Arguably Lewisham has 16 terminating routes.
Arguably Lewisham wins.
But if we're being pure the winner is Bromley North.
I'm aware I've probably got the finer detail of this wrong.
I'm also aware I could check all of this more carefully on Mike Harris's excellent bus map.
But I don't have the latest April 2024 map so I haven't checked it.
If you're one of the half dozen people who genuinely cares, hello.
Feel free to do your own research and tell me I'm wrong.
But quite frankly you should have stopped reading ages ago.
Most readers already have, it's a lovely day.
