When the Mayor announced the ULEZ would be expanding to cover the whole of London he also promised a million extra kilometres of bus services to help mitigate the effects. Yesterday TfL announced what 400,000 of those extra million would be, and let me tell you, they won't be mitigating anything.
For a start...
• 40% of the proposed expansion is being gifted to just four locations, nowhere near where most drivers live.
• One of those four locations is inside the existing unextended ULEZ, helping nobody new.
• Most changes are relatively minor, connecting to new housing developments.
• In fact no routes are getting more frequent services.
• Two routes are to be withdrawn.
And also...
• One million km of bus services sounds a lot but it isn't. Over 180 TfL routes already run more than 1,000,000 km in a year, so what's being promised is ultimately no more than one fairly average extra bus route.
This is good news for some Brent residents, sending more buses past the Grand Union development where Berkeley are slotting in 3300 homes. It also a restores a link to Wembley which TfL lopped off in a previous consultation when shortening route 224. It's bad news for anyone who used to catch the 79 to Alperton Sainsbury's because it won't be going there any more, but the lost two stops will now be made up by route 83 extending there instead. [map]
839 homes are being built here on a site only marginally served by the meandering G1. This is a significant seven-stop extension, additionally boosting frequency between Balham and Tooting Bec. But unless you happen to live in this corner of Wandsworth it's not going to solve your ULEZ woes. [map]
The uber-massive Brent Cross Cricklewood development was always going to be served by bus, so this smacks of "we were going to make these changes anyway but we've shoehorned them into a ULEZ press release". Routes 102, 210, 232, 266 and C11 will be diverted on their approach to Brent Cross shopping centre, inconveniencing very few through travellers. Meanwhile routes 316 and 326 will be extended to the new Brent Cross West station, one on either side of the tracks, likely arriving long after the station opens. The 189 will additionally pass the station along roads as yet unfinished. And all of this occurs just inside the North Circular, i.e. within the current ULEZ, so go figure. [map]
How great this sounds, unless that is you've ever ridden the two buses being scrapped and the one bus being extended, which hardly anybody does. This is TfL faffing around with three of the least used routes in London and attempting to build something more resilient from the ashes. It has its upsides but it has its downsides too. [map]
Currently... 346: A brief arc out of Upminster linking the outer reaches of Cranham to the tube. Runs every 15 minutes. The 10th shortest bus route in London and the 19th least used. 347: London's least frequent bus route. Runs only four times a day (and never on Sundays). Connects Romford to Ockendon via Harold Wood and Upminster. Gets a bit rural. Exits Greater London. The only bus to run north or east of Upminster. The kind of bus where the driver knows their regulars. The 7th least used bus route in London. 497: A runty route from Harold Wood to Harold Hill. Introduced to connect to Crossrail, two months before lockdown. Never took off. Runs every 30 minutes. Services a new estate within easy walking distance of Harold Wood station. Has always been nigh empty every time I've used it. Economically suspect. Has already been the subject of a consultation asking 'should we scrap it or should we extend it?' Was subsequently extended a mile to the driver's loo stop. The 11th least used bus route in London.
The plan is to withdraw the 346 and 347 and to extend the 497.
The 497 currently turns round awkwardly at Harold Wood station. In future it'll extend south along the 347's route via the delightfully-named Cockabourne Bridge and speed down Hall Lane. A handful of residents will see a massive boost in frequency from every two hours to twice an hour. A mile short of Upminster station the 497 will divert off into Cranham to follow the 346's peripheral route. Residents here will see a nasty cut in frequency from every 15 minutes to every 30. The bus will terminate at Upminster station having accessed the high street from the south via St Mary's Lane.
The death of the 346 and its replacement by the less frequent 497 creates a poorer service for folk living on the very eastern edge of the capital. They could always catch the much more frequent 248 and walk the last bit, collateral suggests, but only if they're up for walking.
The death of the 347 throws up far more issues, although as London's least frequent bus they apply to very few passengers.
• It's all fine between Romford and Harold Wood because three other bus routes do that.
• It's more than fine between Harold Wood and the edge of Upminster because frequency will quadruple.
• It's less good approaching Upminster station because the bus suddenly goes off on a 15 minute detour.
(TfL have thought about this. The consultation includes a suggestion that the 497 might head to Upminster station before Cranham, tagging the existing 346 route onto the end. But this would require highway changes and the installation of a drivers' toilet on the Upminster Park estate so don't count on the better option happening)
• It's very bad on the exclusive 347 section between Cranham railway bridge and North Ockendon because the intention is that six bus stops will never see a TfL service again. Some residents on the Cathedrals estate will suddenly find themselves 600m from a bus stop. TfL's impact assessment notes that the footway to the nearest stop "is a pedestrian only connection with currently no lighting". I don't think I'd risk walking it from Franks Cottages after dark. As for the stops beyond the M25 on Clay Tye Lane these are additionally served by Essex bus service 269 but this operates with even longer gaps than the 347 and doesn't take you to Upminster, only Brentwood and Grays. These remote stops "generate less than 10 trips per day" so you could argue who cares, but a lot of that is down to the 347's incredibly infrequent service, and we are still within Greater London at this point.
• And it's all fine between North Ockendon and South Ockendon because the 370 runs that way regularly, admittedly not to the station but onwards to the much more useful Lakeside shopping centre.
The current bus network on the edge of Havering is a bit weird so the introduction of a regular 497 should simplify things. It'll also create a reliable link between Harold Wood and Upminster, a screaming gap in current provision, so it'll be interesting to see how many people want to make use of it. But the lengthy twiddles may not be attractive, parts of Cranham are being royally stuffed and hundreds of London taxpayers are being explicitly abandoned.
Whether the sacrifice of the 346 and 347 encourages modal shift remains to be seen. It certainly won't do so in any significant numbers, ditto the other bus proposals announced this week which are really part of a smokescreen to make it look like the Mayor is doing something. If you own a non-compliant vehicle then across 99% of outer London he's as yet doing nothing.
