Mayor scraps Routemasters
Iconic buses introduced by Boris Johnson now dubbed as ‘too costly’
THE iconic Routemaster buses introduced by Boris Johnson have been dropped by Sadiq Khan after being called ‘too costly’.
As the Labour London Mayor looks to balance his books, the decision was made to no longer purchase the modernlooking buses.
Despite being a legacy left by the former Tory mayor, the Transport for London (TfL) business plan states ‘new capital investment will be reduced significantly as we discontinue purchases of new Routemaster buses’.
Wrightbus, the Northern Ireland firm that makes the vehicles, said production lines would have to close if there were no more orders, something Mr Khan had indicated during the mayoral election.
During the fight for City Hall, he had said the money used to purchase the more expensive buses would be put towards a rail freeze instead.
The decision to go ahead with the removal of the buses comes as the mayor promotes the freezing of rail fares across the tube networks.
Mr Johnson paid £354,000 per bus for a bulk of 600 in 2012 and around £325,000 for another 200 in 2014.
The new fleet was attacked however for being a ‘vanity project’ by Labour Assembly members after cutting edge green technology was revealed to have failing batteries in some of the vehicles.