In April 2024 Sadiq Khan proposed introducing an express 'Bakerloop' bus route in lieu of a Bakerloo line extension. It was part of a proposed doubling of the Superloop network.
BL1: Waterloo → Elephant & Castle → Burgess Park → Old Kent Road → New Cross Gate → Lewisham
In January 2025 TfL launched a consultation for the Bakerloop route and also covered a double decker with brown vinyl to promote the occasion.
Yesterday TfL revealed the consultation results and confirmed that the BL1 will start in the autumn.
There are only two tweaks.
• The northbound stop outside Lewisham station has been removed to help speed up the route. This leaves three stops in central Lewisham, one at Loampit Vale which is 150m away from Lewisham station, so it's no great loss.
• Route 453, which shadows the BL1 between Elephant & Castle and New Cross, will have its frequency reduced. We don't know by how much. It currently runs 8 times an hour for most of the day.
The press release doesn't mention a start date, only "the autumn", but it's almost certainly going to be Saturday 27th September because a separate announcement yesterday confirmed that's the day the contract to operate the BL1 begins.
Much more interesting, for those of us who like to look ahead, is that the press release confirmed TfL's intention to extend the Superloop brand into the teens.
This is the map of 'Superloop 2' that the Mayor tweeted in April last year as part of his election campaign, but I've recoloured it.
In grey are the ten existing Superloop routes, SL1-SL10.
In brown is the new Bakerloop route, BL1.
(I've had to extend it to Waterloo because that wasn't the original plan)
In blue are the five proposed Superloop routes that now have a number, SL11-SL15.
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. Introducing it will actually save TfL some money. The consultation for the SL11 closed in April.
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. Most innovatively the Rainham terminus will be at the remote estuarine Ferry Lane industrial estate. The consultation for the SL12 closed in May.
SL13: Ealing Broadway → Hanger Lane → Brent Cross → Hendon
This is new Superloop territory. All we know for definite are the two endpoints, Ealing Broadway and Hendon. However last year's map indicated this route would also stop at Hanger Lane and Brent Cross, which strongly suggests the SL13 is going to be zipping along the North Circular. Most likely it's an express 112, and quite what it means for the frequency of that route remains to be seen.
SL14: Stratford → Walthamstow → Chingford Hatch
Stratford to Walthamstow definitely merits an express route, given potential passenger numbers and the lack of a direct train. But the eventual alignment is a proper mystery, there being so many possible routes a Stratford-Chingford route could take. Unexpectedly yesterday's press release specified Chingford Hatch rather than Chingford Mount or Chingford station, both of which I'd have said were more likely termini. My hunch is that the SL14 will follow the 69/97 corridor out of Stratford and then entirely replace the 357, but only the consultation will tell us that.
SL15: Clapham Junction → Eltham
And this is another quandary. On the Mayor's map last year the route was Streatham → Tulse Hill → Lee → Eltham but the start point is now Clapham Junction which is a couple of miles further on. The SL15 looks like it'll be the South Circular bus, just as the SL13 will join the SL1 and SL2 on the North Circular. But whereas the North Circular is a speedy arterial, the South Circular is alas anything but, so let's see how this inner orbital turns out.
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 five are numbered all over the place in order of introduction.
That leaves five yellow routes, notionally SL16-SL20, which could/should follow on later.
• Harrow to Barnet (via Edgware): There are many possible routes from Harrow to Edgware so the chosen path is hard to call but I suspect it'll follow the 186, then the 384 from Edgware to Barnet.
• Barnet to Chingford (via Enfield): This outer orbital will probably shadow the 307 to Enfield, then 313 to Chingford, maybe.
• Richmond to Wimbledon (via Roehampton): This'll head round the east side of Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common, most likely shadowing the 493 and then the 93.
• Ealing Broadway to Kingston (via Richmond): This is plainly an express 65, a busy frequent route on roads often clogged and slow, so it's not clear how it'd be much faster.
• Hounslow to Hammersmith (via Great West Road): The clue here is 'via Great West Road' which strongly suggests an express H91, potentially also using the A4 to skip the traffic in Chiswick.
Currently ten, eventually fifteen, maybe twenty, and even less of a Loop than it ever was.
