"By C�sar G. Soriano, USA TODAY
Fri Nov 4, 7:49 AM ET
Few cities are identifiable by their public transportation. New York has its yellow cabs. Venice has its gondolas. San Francisco has its cable cars. And for 51 years, London has had the red, double-decker Routemaster bus - a streamlined work of art.
But last week, the Route 38 Routemaster was replaced by a behemoth known here as a Bendy bus. Except for two token "Heritage" tourist routes, the double-decker will all but vanish from London's landscape as of Dec. 9, when the last route is shut down.
The double-deckers are being replaced by the two-part Bendy buses and by angular, modern two-story buses that have all the charm of a brick with wheels.
Transport for London, which runs the capital's public transportation system, says the Routemaster outlived its usefulness. For one thing, the bus is inaccessible to wheelchairs. There also is a liability problem. One to three people a year are killed by falls from the platform. About 25 people per 100 Routemasters are injured every year, compared with five for every 100 modern buses.
It's a risk that many still would be willing to take, including John Clarke, 71, of Cambridgeshire, about 50 miles north of London.
"It's an absolute disgrace," Clarke said of the decision to mothball the Routemaster. He made a special trip to London last week with daughter Jeanine Swanepoel, 35, to ride the Route 38 bus for the last time. From his coat pocket, he pulled out a faded photo of his daughter posing in front of a Routemaster 18 years ago.
"In many ways, the Routemaster was ahead of its time. They are economical, reliable and still in service after half a century," Clarke said.
'One of the little joys'
For about $1.40, passengers could jump - literally - onto the back of a moving Routemaster and ride clear across town.
The most distinctive feature: the open-air platform. It allowed riders to hop on and off at will; they didn't have to wait for designated stops. Even men in three-piece suits and women in skirts and heels chased the bus, grabbed onto the yellow pole and hoisted themselves onto the platform.
Among other things that distinguished the Routemaster: slatted wooden floors, tartan plaid cloth on the seats, a real bell that signaled a stop and a rear seat in the upper deck surrounded on three sides by aluminum sheeting and often occupied by young lovers.
Frequent riders knew the best seat was the front row of the upper deck, with its spacious legroom and giant windows that offered unobstructed views of the capital.
College student Rebecca Bouckley, 22, was sprawled there last week, where she simultaneously ate fried chicken nuggets and tackled her homework. "I just like the style and lines of the bus," she said, "and being able to jump on and off wherever I want."
"Internationally, the Routemaster is as symbolic of London as much as the black cabs and Big Ben," says Travis Elborough, author of The Bus We Loved: London's Affair with the Routemaster. "It's one of the little joys one takes in ordinary London existence."
Londoners are not letting the Routemaster go quietly. Ben Brook, 28, has launched a save-the-Routemaster campaign. Brook, a publicist, and other critics want Transport for London to build a modern, accessible bus that retains the styling of the old Routemaster.
More than 11,000 people have signed his petition urging Mayor Ken Livingstone to reconsider. Livingstone once made a campaign promise to keep the Routemaster.
In the end, the Routemaster could not be retrofitted to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act. "By the end of the year, every bus on the network will be wheelchair-accessible, which is a fantastic step forward for London," says Mike Weston, director of operations for London Buses.
