It's time to extend the Superloop, on this occasion with a rail replacement bus.
Welcome to the Bakerloop, an express route shadowing the unbuilt Bakerloo line extension.
The plan is to introduce a fleet of brown double deckers between Waterloo and Lewisham, essentially only stopping at places with a Bakerloo line station or where a Bakerloo line station might be. The route'll be numbered BL1 and should be introduced in the autumn, subject to a consultation which launched yesterday.
It's been a long time coming. Last April Sadiq announced he'd introduce the Bakerloop if he was re-elected Mayor (which he was, so he is). Way back in 2019 he launched a consultation for a proper Bakerloo line extension to Lewisham, seeking views on stations, worksites and tunnel alignment. This followed a previous consultation in 2017 asking where the stations and ventilation shafts should go, and that followed an initial consultation launched by Boris in 2014 asking what route the proposed extension should take. Alas ten years later the extension remains fundamentally unfunded so we're getting a bus instead, possibly as a long-term temporary measure, probably as a replacement.
We have a proposed route.
Waterloo → Elephant & Castle → Burgess Park → Old Kent Road → New Cross Gate → Lewisham
It's not going to stop much because plenty of other buses fill the gaps. Effectively it mirrors what a Bakerloo line train would do, but skipping Lambeth North because that would slow the route down. There'll be two stops at Elephant & Castle and lots in Lewisham, some near the station and some near the shops, assuming this is what's eventually agreed. Whoever designs the route diagrams on the side of Superloop buses should stop being so literal about including every single stop because this is not a helpful way to depict the route.
The intention is for the BL1 to run every 12 minutes, which is what most other Superloop routes do, creating connections unavailable by train. It'll help fill one of the largest transport black holes in central London, the Burgess Parkgap, in the absence of the tram Ken Livingstone wanted to send here but Boris cancelled. Instead of being red and white the buses will be brown and white, so a striking presence on the street, plus they'll have the same moquette as Bakerloo line trains because everyone loves a seating gimmick. There is essentially no downside, other than that it's a bus route rather than a tube train capable of reaching Lewisham in minutes.
There's also now a separate consultation page for expanding the Superloop network further. Sadiq teased this as part of his re-election campaign last year suggesting ten more routes might be introduced. The Bakerloop is one of these and we now have tantalising details about two more.
SL11: North Greenwich → Woolwich → Thamesmead → Abbey Wood
The eleventh Superloop route will be an express version of route 472. It will in fact replace route 472 but only stop in select locations, with other routes picking up the slack at unserved stops inbetween. The 180 can mop up everything west of Plumstead. I think this souped-up 472 is intended to be the bus transit scheme the government agreed to fund in the 2023 Autumn Statement, in which case that'll help pay for improved highway infrastructure. It's not yet clear how many stops there'll need to be on the circuitous loop round Thamesmead, but expect all to become clearer when a proper consultation is launched later in the year.
SL12: Gants Hill → Romford → Elm Park → Rainham
The twelfth Superloop route is out east because Sadiq's keen to finally gift a bauble to the borough of Havering. Its western end looks like an express version of route 66, which from experience is already pretty speedy as it hurtles along the A12. The eastern end will be a very welcome north-south link in a borough whose railways run west-east and where existing bus routes have a tendency to meander rather than run direct, so this half looks like a winner. Again a proper consultation will follow.
I see we've abandoned all pretence that Superloop routes are numbered in a logical way. The first ten were supposedly numbered clockwise starting in the north, whereas these two are numbered anti-clockwise starting in the east.
The SL11 and SL12 won't be arriving before next year and the BL1 not before the autumn. But look out for the brown bus rumbling down the Old Kent Road because there's no expectation a brown train will ever rumble underneath.
