Lots of mention of Brexit in this article, and not many mentions of the fact that the owners of Wrightbus were pumping huge amounts of money into religious organizations, as well as giving themselves large bonuses while _at the same time_ laying people off and declaring large losses.<p>I'm not saying that business owners should not be allowed to donate to religious groups, but when the donations in a given year are greater than the amount of money the company is losing, there is something seriously wrong.<p>(source <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/former-wrightbus-workers-angry-at-donations-to-evangelical-church-1.4032990" rel="nofollow">https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/former-wr...</a>)
This project was doomed from the start, and was yet another vanity project for Boris.
Great Gaurdian article which references the design flaws from the get-go: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2016/jul/27/bikes-buses-bridges-boris-johnsons-biggest-design-blunders" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design...</a><p>As I understand, from a friend at TFL, they could have replaced the whole fleet of buses with electric ones for the same price as this vanity disaster.
The new Routemaster is really terrible in a few important ways, very cramped with zero ventilation making it an oven in the summer, although the two sets of stairs and three doors makes boarding slightly better - yet encourages fare-dodging. A classic vanity project.
I think it's a shame they didn't leave the back open so you could hop on and off like the old Routmasters. I guess in the health and saftey age you can't risk someone falling over but the old ones were really handy for places like Oxford St where the traffic does like 4mph.
The Sterling has fallen by more than any trade tariff that I know of (at least for any sizeable market where I’ve seen approx 10%) so whenever I read a business blaming their own failings on Brexit I just can’t take it seriously. I believe service businesses could rightly claim Brexit as a concern but a manufacturing business would benefit more from a falling pound
At least London continues being a city. New York has long since given up on that. It's just a collection of car parks and business locations now (including the overpriced apartments).
Double deckers are awesome. I don't understand why there aren't more of them in the world: double the density of commuters should be desirable in congested cities.