What happened to the London bus?

To understand Sadiq Khan’s tenure as Mayor of London, you need only ride one of his buses. Eight years of repeating that he is the ‘proud son of a bus driver’ have not yielded a single improvement to the experience of travelling by the famous red bus. In fact, many things are worse. 

she suggested I couldn’t have lived in London for very long and then burst into tears

Tap your card and find your way to one of few seats unsullied by chicken bones, unfinished soft drinks and disposed of vapes. Sit down and endure the tinny sounds your fellow passengers deem acceptable to broadcast from their handheld portals to hell. Request that they use headphones and risk being stabbed. Even if you can avoid all this, you can’t escape being infantilised by the recorded announcements. 

‘No standing on the upper deck or stairs please’. ‘Please hold onto the handrails when the bus is moving,’ in case you believe you are surfing. For feckless mothers: ‘Please stay with your buggy for your child’s safety’. For those who can resolve contradictions: ‘Please look up and offer your seat to anyone who needs it more than you. Remember, not all disabilities are visible.’ And the one that makes you want to commit a hate crime: ‘The driver has been told to wait at this bus stop for a short time to help even out the service’.

I once questioned a driver if it was reasonable for passengers to be made late for work to remedy the buses running in twos. In response, she suggested I couldn’t have lived in London for very long and then burst into tears, presumably because she thought she may have committed a hate crime. 

The drivers seem to have got worse. In part this is because every member of the public is treated as a potential assailant and so he (though quite often she) now resides in a plastic cage. But greet him when you embark and he will tend not to look at you. Ask him for basic information about the route or local area and he cannot tell you. Ask him to leave his cage to deal with feral children and he will play coward – I long to witness one of them popping a stink bomb through the air holes. Some wear their own uniform to work – the tracksuit. Most drive off from running passengers and leave grannies eating dust. The only residual function of the bus driver is to drive the bus. Even this he does as if fleeing the scene of a crime.

It is a curious fact that the Mayor has never run a campaign for Londoners to sign up as bus drivers, given he regards being the son of a one as notable and is so fond of advertising. Train in four-to-six weeks, earn more than the London Living Wage, provide a necessary service. Surely a better deal than going to an inner city college and coming out with some bogus qualifications. Why hasn’t the Mayor commissioned a fabulously paid City Hall tsar to produce some hackneyed copy for a bus driver recruitment ad? ‘Your community needs you to drive’, Kitchener style.

Board a bus outside of London, however, and you will find another country. Miraculously, drivers in the shires live in the area. In the great cities they will be Glaswegian, Mancunian, or Geordie. They wear their uniform with pride and are open to a friendly natter. They are not sealed off behind plastic screens, except, understandably, in Glasgow. Even in American cities, where boarding a bus is like being sucked into a Hieronymus Bosch painting, they are yet to fully enclose the driver. Indeed on a recent trip to Boston, I took the bus to Harvard and back. Both drivers were stern but polite. Both explained the route and insisted I rode for free. Perhaps we get the buses we deserve.