38 The London Bus
of transport in the capital. By
the late 1990s, when around a
dozen Routemaster routes still
converged on the street, by far the
majority of bus routes elsewhere
in London were run by much more
modern buses. But open-platform
Routemasters were kept on these
high-profile routes precisely
because of their accessibility and
speed of boarding.
It couldn’t go on forever.
They finally disappeared from
London’s premier shopping street
between 2003 and 2005, replaced
for the most part by rear-engined
double-deckers, but also in some
cases by articulated bendybuses
or other single-deckers.
Those modern buses continued
to parade along Oxford Street
in prodigious numbers for the
next 12 years. Bendybuses
disappeared in 2011, but double-
and single-deckers thrived.
You couldn’t hop on and off, of
course, but at least you could
board or alight somewhere on
the street.
New Routemasters did briefly
revive the hop-on/hop-off conceptin 2013. Two routes serving
Oxford Street gained buses with
this capability – the 10 and the- But the hop-on facility was
withdrawn in 2016, so although
New Routemasters continue to
serve Oxford Street to this day,
the doors stay closed between
stops, and you can only board or
alight at bus stops, as with all the
other modern buses.
Radical plans
All this began to change in 2017,
after the Mayor of London, Sadiq
Khan, announced radical plans
that could alter the character of
Oxford Street forever.
The aim is to remove buses
completely from most of the
street, starting with the western
half – partly to reduce pollution,Oxford Street
ABOVE: Metroline
livery — essentially
the addition of
a discreet blue
skirt and radiator
grille — applied
to Routemaster
RML2728, making
its way west along
Oxford Street
on route 390,
which was created
when route 10
was split into
two overlapping
services.
RIGHT: For a
few months in
1979, bright
red and yellow
Routemasters
provided the Shop
Linker service
connecting Oxford
Street and other
West End retail
attractions with
Knightsbridge.