Route 53 to keep Lambeth North link after TfL reverses bus cut plan | Tech Reddy

Plans to cut the 53 bus back to the Elephant & Castle have been reversed, with the route continuing to run from Plumstead Common to Lambeth North as it is now.

Transport for London had proposed to restore the service as part of a large package of cuts to help solve its financial crisis, which had been caused by the scrapping of government funding and the effects of the pandemic.

But most of the plan was scrapped after TfL reached a two-year deal with the government in August, while Mayor Sadiq Khan found an extra £25m in funding from City Hall to keep the bus in operation.

Plans to cut the 47, which runs from Bellingham to Shoreditch, back to London Bridge have also been dropped, while a proposal to ditch routes 12 and 78 entirely through Peckham has also been dropped.

The 53 ran in Whitehall until June 2019, when the first signs of TfL’s funding crisis led to a first round of bus cuts – first revealed on this website – and the service was cut to Lambeth North tube station.

At the time, TfL said only 3 per cent of passengers on the 53 would be affected by the cut, but there has been a wave of protest over the plan. Today Khan said he was “furious” at the service cuts proposed by the organization he chairs.

TfL’s financial problems began under the mayoralty of Boris Johnson, when he allowed the Conservative government – to throw away its annual grant of around £600 million.

This has left TfL – unlike transport operators in other big cities – relying on passenger fares for around half of its income. Johnson’s financial model began to unravel in the late 2010s, when ridership declined, and it collapsed altogether when the pandemic forced people off the network.

Khan said today: “I was furious on behalf of Londoners that TfL had to consider reducing the bus network because of the conditions attached by the government to the funding deal. The strength of feeling across the capital was clear to me, and he was determined that I would explore every avenue available to me to save as many buses as possible.

“This will mean tough decisions elsewhere, but I am very pleased that the vast majority of bus routes proposed to be cut due to government funding conditions can now be saved.”

The routes through SE London are now left untouched, with only one tweak to the C10 from Canada Water to Victoria, which will be modified to pass Waterloo station.

However, there will still be changes to buses in central and north-west London, including the rerouting of route 11 – once known to serve a host of tourist attractions in the city and Westminster – so it runs between Fulham and Waterloo.

Two commuter buses – the 507 and 521 – are among four to be cut altogether. Once branded as ‘Red Arrow’ services, buses were once used by large numbers of workers but have fallen victim to the shift to working from home.

Three main SE London routes – the 1, 21 and 188 – are still set to be modified to make up for a previous series of bus cuts, with the 1 from Canada Water to Hampstead Heath, the 21 from Lewisham to Holloway and the 188 from North Greenwich to Tottenham Court Road.

More details on today’s announcement can be found at haveyoursay.tfl.gov.uk/busreview.

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