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Camden News - by DAN CARRIER
Published: 5 March 2009

Jon Snow

Bus stop? Snow way it’s a good idea, warns TV presenter Jon

‘Ban cars and replace them with buses’

HE is one of the borough’s best-known cyclists but Channel 4 newsreader Jon Snow has left his bike at home and waded into a rumbling row over cars and buses.
The anchorman from Kentish Town warned on Monday how “elitist” car drivers were trying to drive away the new 393 bus route linking Holloway and Chalk Farm.
In a row which has pitted neighbour against neighbour, the future of the route hangs in the balance with Transport for London (TfL) canvassing views on how its first year has worked.
People living in Leighton Road have fought a furious battle to have the route changed, arguing that the 393 should head along Agar Grove instead of their road.
Mr Snow, who lives just off Leighton Road, says the complaints are a case of Nimbyism.
“The resistance to this bus is elitist,” he told the New Journal.
“The people who are against the route do not travel by bus themselves. I just do not understand the reasons to object to it.
“It is a key east-to-west route that serves people very well. There are traffic-calming measures which have helped slow down traffic, but the bus isn’t the real problem, it is the cars: I’d get rid of the cars on Leighton Road and keep the buses.”
TfL are due to ask for people’s views on the future of the route this month and a 700-signature petition to keep the bus has been collated by the pro-bus camp.
Health food shopkeeper John Grayson sold his car on the strength of the 393 service.
Mr Grayson, who once ran the Bumblebee food shop in Brecknock Road and set up a health food shop in Kentish Town Road, said: “I used to have a car to take my daughter to her school in Primrose Hill. It used to be really difficult to get over there from here, but no longer.
“The 393 brings people into the high street from a different direction to other buses. It has been a fantastic success.”
However, Sue Prickett of the Leighton Road Neighbourhood Association, said her group had outlined why the bus should not use Leighton Road last spring – and nothing had changed in the year the bus has been running.
“The bus has changed the character of Leighton Road,” she said. “This is a residential street with a 20mph speed limit and a ban on seven-and-a-half ton lorries.
“We have had buses become stuck as they go along. We have surveyed how much the bus has been used and we have found seven passengers per bus – that is half the London average.
“The road is too narrow for the bus and the service is not well used.”
A TfL spokesman said: “The route has met TfL’s passenger usage forecasts. However, some residents are unhappy with buses running along some of the newly served roads and have suggested an alternative route for the buses to take.
“TfL will be reconsulting those originally consulted in order to better understand the views of users and residents.”

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