Bendy Buses farewell

London’s bendy buses will not be seen in the capital’s streets anymore after the 207 from White City to Hayes Bypass made a final journey today.

Mayor Boris Johnson called them “bulky and ungainly monstrosities – more suitable for the wide open vistas of Scandinavian airport than for London’s narrow streets” and was glad to see the back of them.

The bendies were also the fare-dodgers’ favourite, as passengers could jump on the single-decker buses without getting their ticket checked.

Transport for London said the scrapping of bendy buses was expected to save more than £7 million annually as fare evasion became difficult, but it will cost £2.2 million to convert the 29 and 207 routes.

In fact, the 350 scrapped bendies have been replaced with 500 new vehicles, 50 of which are hybrid diesel-electric double-decker buses.

The Liberal Democrats said the replacement of the articulated buses, which could carry up to 140 people, compared to about 85 on a double-decker, meant capacity on the 12 routes had fallen by between five and 26 per cent.

We should expect more crowded bus journeys in the near future, then.

London’s old bendy buses, which Mr Johnson began removing in 2009, are already in use in Leicester, Merseyside and in the Mediterranean isle of Malta.

The Mayor of London had also opted to replace some of them with a new version of the expensive Routermaster, which will start running at the beginning of 2012.

Bendy buses were introduced in 2002 by Ken Livingstone as a way of moving large numbers of passengers amid soaring bus popularity, but they became unpopular by blocking streets and leaving travellers feeling queasy in the rear-facing seats.