Bus route 180 to see electric vehicles: rerouting to North Greenwich scrapped?
A new contract has been awarded that will see a mix of new electric vehicles and existing hybrids used on bus route 180.
The route runs from Belvedere through Abbey Wood, Plumstead, Woolwich, Charlton, Greenwich then on to Lewisham. It was planned to divert the route away from Lewisham to North Greenwich from 2018 but that never happened, and a TfL tender document still shows the route as Lewisham:
If I’m wrong here please let me know. I know there’s a few bus drivers and experts wo read the site.
The contract is due to start in October 2021.
The switch from Lewisham to North Greenwich was controversial given it was the only bus link to Lewisham from some areas that already have a number of routes to North Greenwich.
There were always question marks over capacity at North Greenwich. The current bus station is due to be demolished in plans approved last month which would see a new bus station constructed, but that is some way off. Plans announced for a new bus station announced in 2017 never progressed and were scrapped in 2019.
London’s first all electric bus route commenced in February 2020. While the 180 will not be solely electric, this will help air quality through areas of high pollution and busy High Streets.
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Route has been tendered as Lewisham to Belvedere as the new contract will commence under the current route structure.
As and when Crossrail comes up and running the route structure will change under a Service Change Specification (aka minispec) which revises the contract agreement.
So no, the change has not been scrapped.
Thanks for that. Do you know about the other routes?
All still planned to go ahead whenever Crossrail opens. When that will be, who knows?
@Bus Operations Controller: terminating at North Greenwich is still on the cards then?
This is good news if the 180 stays as a Lewisham to Belvedere route, the changes made zero sense and would have left the 177 as the sole route between Charlton and East Greenwich and too much pressure would have been added onto the 180
Gosh, I remember when the 180 buses were Routemasters in the 70s.
I think that rather than divert the 180 to North Greenwich, it would have been better to have the 129 start at Lewisham and end at North Greenwich.