‘For the more vulnerable a reliable bus would transform our lives’

Open letter to Transport for London

• NEWS that the government has offered £7.7million in “levelling up” cash to improve cycling and walking in Kentish Town must be wonderful for the fit, young, guys there… but for the more vulnerable a reliable bus would transform our lives. The UK population is aging after all.

The C11 from Parliament Hill Fields to Archway has been diverted for weeks. Looking at your app… it still appears to not be running, though a friend texted me to say she caught it earlier.

There’s been information about disruption to the service around Swiss Cottage but none about the absence of service towards Archway from Gospel Oak due to (totally unnecessary as far as anyone I know thinks) pavement remodelling at the bottom of Swains Lane.

Having spent half an hour waiting in the freezing cold for a bus that never came then hobbling home in pain on crutches a couple of weeks ago I haven’t been able to go anywhere in case I can’t get back.

C11 is an eccentric service anyway. Sometimes they arrive in pairs and often, especially in the evening, it can be a 25-minute wait. Or the bus indicator says 25 minutes, so you start walking then the thing flies past you between stops. It’s a lottery.

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