It's time to kill off another London bus route, the fifth such erasure this year. Routes 347, 118, 414 and R6 have already been extinguished and at the end of this week it's time for the 283 to join them at the big terminus in the sky. Except it's all smoke and mirrors.
The actual route disappearing is the 72. TfL's cunning plan is however to retain route 283 but renumber it 72. This is because they've learned that Londoners complain more if double-digit numbers disappear, so it's better to kill off a three-digit number instead.
The 72 and 283 are both runty routes that operate between East Acton and Hammersmith, a distance of four miles. They used to run much further across Hammersmith Bridge, the 72 to Roehampton and the 283 to Barnes. But Hammersmith Bridge has been closed to traffic since 2019 so TfL have finally decided to bite the bullet and scrap one of them. Cutting the total number of vehicles will ensure a tidy saving. The issue for locals is that the 72 goes the quick way via Westfield and the 283 goes all round the houses, quite literally, so cutting the faster route helps absolutely nobody. I've been for a last ride.
London's next dead bus 283: Hammersmith to East Acton Location: west London, outer Length of journey: 4 miles, 30 minutes
We begin in the gloomy confines of Hammersmith's upper bus station, a glum glazed island encircled by double deckers. As many as four different routes follow the first leg of the route to Shepherd's Bush, so most potential passengers just hop on the first that arrives. My sole companion is a chatty lady with a lot of shopping who'll be deeply engaged in a telephone conversation for the next fifteen minutes. We exit via the concrete ramp and escape onto the gyratory, where I see Riverdance 30 is playing at the Apollo until Sunday. A glittery tunnel in the shape of a steam locomotive has been jammed into the entrance to the shopping mall for reasons not entirely apparent. The town centre remains busy with pre-festive shoppers, only a few of whom choose to board our 283 in preference to the 220 and 295 in front.
It's not hard to buy brunch at the foot of Shepherd's Bush Road, although it gets harder as the restaurants are followed by several public utilities and a school playing field. The stop at Brook Green marks the passage of the long-buried Parr's Ditch, whose path is now marked by a long recreational stripe dotted with planes and limes (the former trees, the latter bikes). Local residents are very much at risk of paying mansion tax on their £2m+ homes according to the Evening Standard, although that's the price you pay for living so close to bijou patisseries and indie cheese shops. An unhealthy man boards and chooses to sit in the seat immediately behind me while continuing his coughing fit, which immediately makes him my least favourite passenger. Gosh there's a lot of hotels along here.
Shepherd's Bush Green is a doddle to negotiate if heading north, but takes many minutes longer in the opposite direction because you have to crawl round the whole thing. I immediately take against the Hoxton Hotel for having the audacity to suggest that 'Friendsgiving starts here'. Route 72 currently continues straight ahead past Westfield and Television Centre but from next weekend will have to turn left and slum it down the Uxbridge Road where the entire economic outlook changes. The street here is lined by non-aspirational brands and hopeful independents like Sports Dimension, Vape Box and 99p Or Less, also the fruit-filled bowls of Shepherd's Bush Market. Ocean Collection isn't a bad name for a fishmonger but I wouldn't have chosen Sham Land as the name of my supermarket. That said this is now prime bus territory and a lot more passengers have piled aboard.
The 283 is now attempting to find the optimum road to turn right into the estates of White City. It can't take Loftus Road where the football stadium is because that's always been a dead end. It can't take Bloemfontein Road because southbound 283s come that way and there wouldn't be space to pass. It can't take the next six roads because they're too narrow and so we eventually find ourself negotiating into Wormholt Road, kindly flashed on our way by a patient Superloop driver. Here the houses are mere terraced semis, then genuine council houses, and because this is 283-only territory this is where many of those on board want to get off. It's farewell to the chatty shopper and the thoughtless cougher, also the slightly weird man who made a point of announcing "all the way" four times just before he sat down.
This is off-piste White City, a parade of shops adrift amid a maze of streets so contorted that the central bus stop serves route 283 in both directions. The retail offering includes takeaways and a laundrette but also a much-needed and well-disguised foodbank, The Hub @ 75. Tucked beneath a stack of modern flats is what was once a lido, then a council swimming pool but is now the Parkview Centre for Health & Wellbeing. One last turn should permit our escape, this past the ugly blue and grey hodgepodge that houses Queens Park Rangers football club. Only one of the letter 'a's is almost falling off. Anyone considering living locally should be aware that the Queens Tavern only opens on match days, so most of the time the only drinking options hereabouts are overpriced bars on the footprint of former BBC premises. One last push and we'll finally escape onto Wood Lane, twenty minutes down.
And here come the roadworks. The junction with the A40 Westway is currently a mess of cones and rubble so takes longer than usual to queue through. A set of temporary traffic lights then stalls us awhile before we can turn left into Du Cane Road, then another set stops us again barely a hundred yards later. We're now on the far side of the Central line, otherwise uncrossable for the best part of a mile, and barrelling due west for the second time. A lot of ugly things have been built here on the edge of Wormwood Scrubs, most notably an austere prison and a hospital whose multiple extensions would win no architectural prizes. TfL like to send lots of buses to hospitals and Hammersmith Hospital currently merits five. Those aiming for White City or Wood Lane stations can catch two but when the 72 disappears they'll only have the 272, a lesser service with an unhelpful 16-minute frequency. Squeeze in everybody.
Only three passengers remain aboard after HMP Wormwood Scrubs as we slip back into classier residential territory. This is the Old Oak Estate, an appealing cottagey nod to Ebenezer Howard's garden city movement, all terribly conveniently located around East Acton station. One last burst up Old Oak Common Lane will finish it, just two stops before bearing off into the commercial dead end of the Westway Estate. This is where they filmed Reggie Perrin's workplace Sunshine Desserts, but don't come looking because that's long gone and what's here now is a loop of cash and carries, food prep outlets and tool hire warehouses. The 283 terminates alongside the 72 at a bespoke pull-in stand complete with proper toilets, shared additionally with West-End bound route 7. From Saturday it'll be just the two routes, indeed they've already whipped off the 283 tile from the bus stop like it never existed.
London's actual next dead bus 72: East Acton to Hammersmith Location: west London, outer Length of journey: 4 miles, 35 minutes
What I did next was ride all the way back again but on the route that's really being killed, the existing 72. I assumed it'd be quicker because it goes direct but instead it got caught up worse in the roadworks, then took eight minutes to negotiate round Shepherd's Bush Green, then waited three minutes more for a change of driver. It was also much busier than the 283 I'd caught before, being particularly popular with hospital patients and the Hammersmith-bound, with all seats taken long before we reached Westfield. Those who haven't read the notices are going to be mighty perturbed when it hares off round the backstreets on Saturday, still labelled 72 but very much no longer the Wood Lane stalwart.
One nuance I haven't mentioned is at the southern end of the route where the existing 72 continues from the bus station to the north end of Hammersmith Bridge. The new 72 will be doing this too, so technically it's not a complete renumbering of the 283, it's a renumbering of the 283 plus one extra stop at the end. Only three of us made the pilgrimage to the terminus on my journey, everyone else bailed by the shops, but having one route that does this stumpy extra is useful for anyone thinking of walking across Hammersmith Bridge. Six years after it was closed to traffic, scrapping the 283 for a 72 that's really the 283 is seemingly the best way to go.
And a final word to whoever it is at TfL who maintains bus stop infrastructure, because the terminus at Hammersmith Bridge is a disaster zone of mis-signed stops, misplaced facilities and unhelpful information. Buses still terminate at a dolly stop on the edge of a roundabout with no indication of departure times and no shelter from the elements. Two former shelters remain 100m closer to the bridge, both now entirely useless because they're no longer served by buses, so if the closure's going to be permanent then maybe remove one and shift the other.
One of the defunct stops still has a '72' tile despite no 72 stopping there for six years, also a map of Bus changes from August 2019 that's now factually incorrect and two maps from 2020 falsely claiming that the bridge is closed to pedestrians. Meanwhile the Countdown display at bus stop S patiently displays all 72 departures despite the fact the bus stop doesn't display a 72 tile and drivers don't stop there, and if they did then passengers would be turfed off just 100m later at the end of the route. If anyone with half a brain stepped out of their cosy office and actually looked at the bus stop set-up north of Hammersmith Bridge I hope they'd be ashamed enough to do something about it, ideally soon.
