Monday, May 05, 2008

New Routemaster buses: I was there before Boris

From my essay in Liberalism: Something to Shout About, which was published at the 2006 Liberal Democrat Conference:

[Public] order is best seen as a by-product of people going about their ordinary business rather than the result of enforcement action by the authorities.

Perhaps the next Lib Dem London Mayoral candidate should campaign for a new generation of Routemaster buses and promise to employ conductors on them.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Didn't hear Paddick talking about this?...

Tim McLoughlin said...

Was you main point though that Routemasters were better because they had a conductor?

It is an unavoidable fact that the capacity of the Routemaster was woeful, accessibility woeful and that they were hideously out of date. They looked nice though.

Any alternative needs to match the speed of boarding and capacity of bendy buses for over subscribed routes like the 25, 38 & 73. Otherwise we're simply imposing a 1950s solution onto 21st century London.

Jonathan Calder said...

Conductors, the freedom to jump on and off between stops, an iconic part of Swinging London...

I find 1950s solutions increasingly attractive.