Superloop reaches the Thames

Sunday 25th February 2024

It’s the London Borough of Bexley’s residents’ turn to enjoy the delights of TfL’s Superloop limited stop ‘express’ buses now traversing their home patch.

New route SL3 began yesterday linking Bromley, Sidcup and Bexleyheath with Thamesmead (just over the border in the Borough of Greenwich).

It brings the metaphorical clockface Superloop network round from 5pm to 3pm where it meets the River Thames which obviously acts as a barrier to riding a complete circuit around London. However, those who love a challenge can now ride Superloop routes from Thamesmead all the (clockwise) way round to Walthamstow, and when the SL2 begins, onwards from Walthamstow down to North Woolwich where you’ll get the closest you will ever do to completing a full round London Superloop loop.

Here’s the map showing the new SL3’s route as originally proposed. This being TfL, there’s no post consultation map available now the route’s been introduced as that would be far too sensible and helpful for potential passengers.

From Bromley North the route parallels the all stops 269 via Chislehurst and Sidcup to Bexleyheath then it follows the B11 via Bexleyheath railway station to Abbey Wood (thankfully missing out that route’s full circuit around Lodge Hill and Okehampton Crescent – see bottom centre of map below) before heading straight to the ‘town centre’ of Thamesmead using the previously bus-less northern section of Carlyle Road…

… rather than taking a circuit east or west of this large residential area as all other bus routes do so they can get closer to where people live.

Looking at the above extract from Mike Harris’s excellent map you might wonder why the route doesn’t also use Knee Hill which would provide a more direct route south of Abbey Wood station…

… but I suspect TfL’s cautious route planners considered it too narrow with too many trees.

But ironically New Road, which the SL3 uses (along with the 301 and B11) instead, is also narrow, and comes with the added frustration of parked cars.

As with the SL5 between Croydon and Bromley, TfL are again introducing a new route without any compensating reductions in parallel routes, so it’s a straight increase of a substantial 15 vehicles. That works out to a lot of £1.75 bus fares to attract to make the service viable.

As you can see, the vehicles are New Routemasters too, made available from recent cut backs on other routes.

Only in London would you find buses fitted with three doors and two staircases operating express limited stop bus routes. It wasn’t exactly what the buses were designed for, but that’s what happens when a high profile politician interferes with the design of buses and another one wants to make an impact weeks before an election.

As with the SL5, the south western end of the route between Bromley, Chislehurst, Sidcup and Bexley was once the preserve of half hourly Green Line route 725 on its way from Gravesend to Windsor before it was joined by a sister route 726 to Heathrow.

The new SL3 runs every 12 minutes (15 minutes evenings and Sundays) with a span of day from 05:00 to 01:30. It’s operated from Stagecoach’s garage in Bromley so the first four departures from Thamesmead between 05:00 and 06:00 see buses run out of service from the garage all the way to the route’s northern terminus.

Peak hour journeys are given an end to end journey time of up to 83 minutes reducing to an hour during the off-peak and as little as 47 minutes late at night and in the early hours, so it’s somewhat misplaced optimism for the bus stop display at Thamesmead to promote a 46 minutes end-to-end journey time.

I took a ride up and down the route yesterday morning to get a feel for how it’ll pan out.

Sometimes it’s all about perception when it comes to making a bus route attractive.

Despite there being just 13 intermediate bus stops on the 14 mile route, thanks to the nature of the roads used by SL3 buses, it feels you’re not getting anywhere very quickly. The average speed for an hour’s off peak journey is 14 mph. My late morning return journey back from Thamesmead took 72 minutes making for an average speed of around 12 mph. Thats not what I’d call “express”. I also noticed some significant gaps (25-30 minutes) in headway during the day.

It’s not helped by two sets of roadworks – Thames Water’s emergency sewer works – with temporary traffic lights in Chislehurst…

…. and gas repair works in Penhill Road, Bexleyheath necessitating two different routes (northbound and southbound) due to a temporary one-way traffic order in place.

Thamesmead bound journeys are using Penhill Road and then instead of Blendon Road are accessing the A2 to at least get up some speed for a a short stretch …

… before coming off on to Arbuthnot Lane used by route 269 into Bexleyheath.

Bromley bound journeys are turning into Parkhill Road and Hurst Road following the 269 route, almost touching Bexley Village, as buses can’t head south down Penhill Road. The earlier map (when the SL3 was out for consultation) showed buses using Blendon Road (as the 132 does) to access Penhill Road.

As an indication of the frustration of being an “express” in just name, we’d followed that 269 in the above photo of the roadworks in Chislehurst from Bromley all the way to Sidcup without being able to overtake it.

Yesterday’s late morning Saturday shopping traffic also made for slow progress approaching Bexleyheath (particularly from Thamesmead).

It took 12 minutes to travel between Bexleyheath station and library, a distance of just three quarters of a mile making for a speed of 3.75 mph on that section. And then we did a small loop to serve the library bus stop – which buses in both directions do, just to keep passengers waiting there on their toes.

I noticed there wasn’t such comprehensive coverage of Superloop roundels on the tops of bus shelters this time, and many bus stops didn’t have the usual first few days presence of Superloop Ambassadors.

One surprise was to find usb sockets added to the rear of the seats in the New Routemasters, which is a welcome addition although I’m not sure what Thomas Heatherwick thinks of their rather crude placing ….

… and all the buses in use were dressed in their Superloop branding.

The SL3 meets the SL5 in Bromley but interchange is only possible at Bromley North station, and even there, not at the same bus stop, for continuing journeys in the same direction.

The SL3 is not my favourite Superloop segment and it’ll be interesting to see how it performs compared to its siblings, particularly once the current roadworks are completed.

I’m not convinced it’s the best use of an investment of 15 additional buses.

Roger French

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