Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 26, 1994 TAG: 9403260034
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIRK BEVERIDGE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LONDON LENGTH: Medium
But bus fans who feared the lumbering red vehicles would become an endangered species, or even extinct, this week saw some of their worries put to rest.
Bowing to pressure from the tourism industry, officials will insist that private operators keep painting the buses red.
"It's a good PR exercise," said lawmaker Steven Norris, the minister overseeing transport in London.
But the top deck - preferred choice of most visitors - might still vanish. It already has disappeared on some routes through London, where operators find they can do better with a shoebox-shaped single-decker.
Some operators might want to keep using double-deckers anyway, after the government sells operating rights on the bus routes, he said.
The top deck appears be an innovation that dates to 1842, when the government revised the taxes imposed on horse-drawn omnibuses, charging them on mileage rather than the number of passengers they carried. Operators responded by packing people onto the top.
During Britain's early postwar years, the heyday for motorized buses in London, the extra space was useful.
Now, with plenty of bus seats available most of the time, Britons who are daily riders prefer the lower deck. It is common to see the double-deckers running through town in the middle of the day with nobody at all on top.
Tourists see things differently. For them, red buses, like London's old-fashioned black taxis and red phone boxes, are part of the charm of the British capital.
Virtually all tourists want to ride on top, perhaps not knowing that this is where dogs must ride unless their owners get special permission.
"It wouldn't be London without the double-decker buses," said tourist Frances Stoker of Vancouver, Wash. "That's what London's about, like seeing the queen."
Many buses moving through London are green, white, yellow and other colors, but those are on suburban routes and not affected by the central-London rules on red paint.
The government won't say how much money it hopes to get by selling the 10 companies that operate London Buses, with a total fleet of 4,600 vehicles, 75 percent of the greater London market and annual revenues of $572 million.
But Norris says the initiative of private operators will make services better and the government will still maintain control over routes and fares. The deal is expected to be completed by year's end.
by CNB