Camden New JOurnal - Letters: Stop the bus

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Camden New Journal - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published:9 August 2007

Stop the bus, we want to get off

• OH dear! London Buses is really making a habit of taking a good idea and ruining it in practice. Over the past couple of weeks we have heard about the initiative, tried out on the 168, for giving voice announcements of the next bus stop. This is really useful for blind people, strangers to the area and even for us locals when it is dark.
But they have spoiled it all by driving us potty with repeats of the number of the bus and its destination, which we knew when we got on the bus anyway, at what seems like 10-second intervals.
Before that, they announced that there would be a new extension to the 393 route to link Kentish Town with Chalk Farm – a gap in the orbital network which has been obvious for years. But, as we have heard from Kentish Town residents, they have made a point of taking the route down the narrowest and most unsuitable roads.
From July 28 the new 393 extension is running. When I looked at the actual timetable, I was astonished to see that it is supposed to take just six minutes to travel between Chalk Farm and Kentish Town Underground stations. And how is this achieved? By leaving out the bus stops to serve us locals, which would have meant the route had a point in the first place. At our end, there is not a single stop between Chalk Farm Underground station and St Silas Place, way up Prince of Wales Road.
So my hopes of easy bus trips to Kentish Town have been dashed and the same applies to any other would-be bus travellers from this part of Haverstock Hill and around the Maitland Park area. Hey ho!
AILEEN HAMMOND
Haverstock Hill, 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.

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