Hurrah for common sense. I find nothing as dangerous whilst cycling as a London Bus. I'd much rather have a motorcyclist in a bus lane than a bus.

Don't be so bloody stupid. If we are going to promote cycling in this country and joyously embrace the bicycle as a viable alternative transport the last thing we need are fatuous ill informed opinions/unbalanced arguments about what form of transport we should get rid of instead. Many peoples lives – particularly the old and less able – are enriched by their mobility and their access to workable forms of transport which includes buses and dare I say.. cars. Like you, I want to see more people on bicycles in London and across the UK. I just hope that this is achieved through positive views on the benefits of cycling rather than narrow minded diatribes about London buses.

I'm afraid that's a crazy idea. When I lived in London the buses were full most days and the tube (central line) was absolutely packed to capacity. Do you really think that people choose to take hot, uncomfortable public transport if 'a third' of them could walk? There is no way you should remove buses from the network. Here in Miami there are bike racks on the front of buses. This allows people to take a bus and then ride on to their destination, extending the use of bikes for people who can't ride 10+ miles. This scheme also helps promotes bike awareness to bus drivers.

Dare I suggest that Andrea was perhaps being a bit provocative on purpose ?

Besides, you could keep half the buses. It'd only take half the black hole to fund cycling at a rate of £37 per person per year in London (£300M for the 8M population) – which is enough that London might start to catch up. The current rate of funding is only about a tenth of that, which is absurdly low given how much catching up there is to do.

We live in Assen, which spends 27 Euros per person per year on new infrastructure. Funding for maintenance, cycle training, cycle hire schemes, around new developments, and even for future maintenance of new developments comes from other sources, so this gives quite a chunk of money for actual new stuff of a high quality. It's working. Assen's cycling rate continues to increase.

The only time I've ever ridden in a bus lane here was when it was closed to buses due to road works having disturbed the cycle path.

As for bikes on buses: It's a very nice idea while you have few cyclists, but it doesn't scale very well when you have lots of cyclists. On many services here, the majority of bus and train passengers arrive by bike. They can't all take their bikes on board.

Andrea, you are once again putting forward idiotic ideas which make you and the cycling community as a whole look like morons. How exactly does getting rid of buses help the thousands of people who can't afford to go on the Tube, or who do not live near a Tube, but still need to go further than they can walk. Oh, of course, they can all get on a bike – all the unemployed people, pensioners, disabled people and pregnant women for whom buses are a lifeline could easily pop down to Velorution and drop the best part of a grand on one of your bourgeois wet-dreams which are easy to cycle for those in poor health. Easy!

Your worldview seems to revolve around everyone either being like you in terms of wealth, health and lifestyle, or not worthy of consideration. Just like your previous rant about dark-skinned people being banned from the roads (now deleted but without apology), you betray your fascistic intellectual grounding. I love cycling and I want more people to do it, but as jctickle says, no single mode of transport is right for everyone.

Is this a “Modest Proposal”?
If it isn't, then Hackney and all of South London would be totally buggered.

Never under-estimate the adaptability of man. Stop the buses and people will adjust. I can guarantee that overall people will be healthier and wealthier.

Sorry but this is a really rubbish idea. Whilst I'm a keen cyclist, there is at least one day a week where I want to have a few drinks or need to get somewhere after work and I don't fancy chaining up my bike anywhere on the street unless I can see it, as unfortunately bikes tend to get stolen a lot in London.
I live in Hackney and the nearest tube station is a good 15 to 20 minutes walk from me. I could catch the overground just a few minutes away but then I'd have to catch a tube too for a total cost of £3 each way. Even if I did walk, I'd still have to pay the £2.00 or so each way it costs to catch the tube. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't see how I'd be wealthier when I can currently catch a bus outside my front door for £1 each way.
What about those who can't afford to catch the tube? Or can't walk long distances? What are they supposed to do with no buses?
Lastly, whilst I've had my fair share of run-ins with buses, I've had them with taxis, white van drivers and normal cars too – Perhaps we can ban them too?

1. London is quite unique in charging less for buses than the Tube. It doesn't have to be this way.
2. You are going to be wealthier because at the moment, by using the bus one day a week, you are subsidising all the people who use it everyday.
3. People who cannot walk long distances should live near tube stations.
4. Once we learn to live with no buses, we will probably learn to live with no taxis, just electric rickshaws.

Dare I suggest that those who cannot cycle, and cannot walk to tube stations (the elderly, the infirm, or those with young children) would be completely screwed by this proposal?

Investing money in revamping tube stations for accessibility, at the current speed of development (see the cross-city line for an example), would result in all these people being stranded, without transport, for the “how long is a piece of string” time period (you may substitute “indefinite” here) required to get these stations up to scratch.

London buses already cover far more ground than is feasible by tubes, are accessible to all Londoners, and are relatively cheap and comfortable (comfort factor on bendy buses non-withstanding).

Additionally, as a cyclist and on a personal level: I find the roads dangerous enough already due to the amount of cyclists cycling dangerously around me. I'd rather not shove a third of London's population onto bikes to totter past me and through red lights willy nilly. We already have a bad enough reputation as is. An additional troll point can be won by me by re-quoting your “driven by people with scant respect for pedestrians” quote in the context of cyclists in London.

Ha ha! A Modest Proposal indeed!

I'd sooner eat my own children than see buses removed from the streets. I would have to take more cabs, maybe buy a car, and if others do the same, there would be even more cars on the streets.

The author of this post is clearly bonkers.

Bradley,
1. I am a father with three young children and I am almost 50. I take the children everywhere in London and never take buses. I use a tricycle.
2. If elderly people would regularly cycle, they would be much healthier and would not need to rely on buses
3. The infirm can use electric wheel chairs and other clever mobility tools.
4. Copenhagen manages to have 35% of people on bikes; and the Danes are top of the 'happiness league'
5. I agree that many cyclists need to be much more considerate towards pedestrians.

If I am bonkers, what do you call cannibalism?

It's a fact that buses are fantastically dirty and over-sized for London's streets, but I can see that they are a necessary evil.

A compromise would be to ban buses, taxis and motorcycles from bus lanes and allow only bicycles.