In an extraordinary announcement, Boris Johnson's new transport advisor admitted that the new generation of Routemaster buses may never be built at all.
The Mayor's Director of Transport Policy Kulveer Ranger
told the Evening Standard that:
"The plan is to have them on the roads by the end of his first term but we're not doing this just for the hell of it. If we find there are initially no suitable bids we will review [the policy]."
Even if a new generation of buses are built, Ranger admitted that they would be unlikely to follow the Routemaster design. According to the Standard:
"The new design would not necessarily be "hopon, hop-off" with a conductor, as on the old Routemasters. (Ranger) said: "Whether or not we have a conductor depends on the design of the bus. We want people to be creative. Our brief is very flexible."
Now call me pedantic but I would have thought that the brief to
'build a new generation of Routemasters' was not a particularly flexible one and would at the very least involve building a bus with an open back.
Maybe he's going to channel her.
I wondered when he was going to be summoned.
