Camden New Journal - Letters: 168

Publications by New Journal Enterprises

Home

Archive

Competition

Camden New Journal - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 26 July 2007

Bus torture on the 168

• FOR many years the number 168 bus has been my lifeline to certain parts of London and my favourite London bus.
On hot days one learned to protect oneself with bottled water and pocket sprays against the discomfort caused by the huge expanses of plate glass unrelieved by the few small openable window panels.
The 168 remained my favourite London bus, until last week. But now a journey on the 168 has become sheer torture.
Allegedly to better inform the public, the powers that be have fitted the 168 with an intrusive loudspeaker system which blares out the name of every stop – plus the additional information that one is travelling aboard Route 168 terminating at Old Kent Road, Tesco.
By the time I left the bus on Waterloo Bridge, shaken and infuriated, this information had been dinned into me at maximum blast at least 25 times.
We are being subjected to this intolerably intrusive new system, I am told, on the grounds that strangers and visually handicapped passengers will otherwise be unable to find their orientation. The assumption that a significant number of passengers unfamiliar with Route 168 will be illiterate, incapable of reading the excellent new location indicators, and that they will consequently benefit from the loudspeaker announcements, seems to me far-fetched.
I shall try to find alternatives to my once favourite bus.
CARLA M WARTENBERG
Tanza Road, NW3

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

Comment on this article.
(You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)

Name:

Email:

Comment: