Story by Mat Osman, le cool London Photo courtesy Transport for London Non-Londoners look away now. Because there are certain things that the rest of the country finds a little, well, odd about its capital citizens. Like the fact we take the most disgusting of all fish, the eel, as our signature dish and then further ruin them by encasing them in jelly. Or that a person can have a screaming fit on a crowded tube train and not a soul will say a word. And the fact we care about our buses. When the time came to retire the old Routemaster buses – you remember, the ones you could jump on and off when, inevitably, the bus was moving slower than walking pace – there was uproar. And it was a cross-party uproar. Tories didn’t like part of our heritage disappearing. Left-wingers saw it as the people’s will being trampled. And the rest of us just resented sitting in a traffic jam for 20 minutes while the bus stop was just 200 yards away. So come the last mayoral election, with a city sliding into debt, the Olympics hoving into view, and knife crime seemingly endemic, what was near the top of London’s agenda? Boris’s promise to reintroduce the Routemaster, that’s what. So now, deep into the Johnsonian reign – the Routemasters return. It’s a new design from Heatherwick Studio, that in truth bears little resemblance to the old Routemaster, (and, as was amusingly pointed out on Twitter, with a fringe that makes it look appealingly like the first Emo-bus). Reasons to be cheerful? The aforementioned fringe, the chance of swinging casually from the pole by the open back door like some sixties’ Carnaby Street cat, and not one but two staircases to avoid slowcoaches. There’s also a promise of a conductor; good news for a city where the bendy-buses are known simply as ‘free buses’ to millions of passengers. Not so good? Well, the open platform – the very thing that connects the new design with the Routemaster name – can be closed when there is ‘no conductor’ which, given cost-cutting measures, you can bet will be frequently. And these are only mock-ups – the real things won’t on our streets until late 2011. More at: http://www.london.gov.uk/priorities/transport/new-bus-london ———————————————————– Get your daily London fix at Current.com/London Follow us on Twitter at Twitter.com/CurrentUK We're also on Facebook at Facebook.com/CurrentUK added by: lecool
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