The newly launched Superloop bus routes seem to have been a success. More routes may follow — but where?
Superloop buses only launched 10 months ago, but already the Mayor is talking up plans for a Superloop 2.
The orbital buses, you'll recall, speed between major centres of outer London, making few stops along the way. Nine routes are already in play, describing a near complete circle around the capital. A tenth will start next year once the Silvertown tunnel opens.
The routes seem to be popular, and so now Mayor Sadiq Khan wants to add more. Indeed, he's talking about doubling the network to 20 routes. But where would they go?
Transport for London (TfL) would put it to public consultation, but routes already mooted include:
- Harrow to Barnet via Edgware (yes please!)
- South Havering to Leytonstone via Romford
- Hounslow to Hammersmith
- Streatham to Eltham via Catford
- Ealing to Kingston via Richmond
We can almost hear Khan's policy advisors: "Yes, we really will put it out to consultation, but we're so giddy about this that we've pre-empted all that with this flashy, hypothetical route map"
One of these routes is less hypothetical than the others. The Mayor has already announced the "is this a late April Fools?"-named 'Bakerloop', which will follow the route of the proposed, but much delayed, Bakerloo extension from Elephant and Castle to Lewisham. It's shown in dark green on the map above.
According to TfL, the Superloop has added "more than six million bus kilometres to the capital's bus network since it launched last year, with demand in the initial routes 15 per cent higher than the network average". The Mayor reckons any Superloop 2 could be paid for from within existing TfL budgets, and with extra passenger revenue generated from the new routes.
Of course, it's no coincidence all this has hit the news just 13 days before the Mayoral election, which Khan first has to win before rolling out more buses. It continues the incumbent's extraordinary run of announcing a major policy idea six days in a row, including his full manifesto. His Tory rival Susan Hall has the slogan "Safer with Susan". Perhaps Khan should go for "Superloopier with Sadiq".
