One of the biggest controversies in London in the past few years was the decision by the former Mayor, Ken Livingston to take the classic Routemaster Bus out of service and replace it with the hated bendy buses, despite promises to do otherwise.
Well, last year Ken was pushed out and a new mayor, Boris Johnson was elected on a campaign based on bringing back the beloved London icon. As soon as he took office, he launched a competition where anyone would have a chance to design the new Routemaster.
Well a couple weeks ago, the winners of the contests were announced. And some pretty heavy hitting names were chosen as the overall winners.
Two winners were chosen, actually.
The first was the acclaimed British Architects Foster and Partners who designed this futuristic looking bus:
The other bus was designed by Capoco Design, UK and this is their mockup:
So what’s next? When will we see the buses on the streets of London? It will take a few years, obviously. It’s now up to British manufacturers to build working prototypes and then a contract will be awarded for one of the buses. They hope that will happen by the end of the year and project the new bus to be on the streets by 2011, just in time for the 2012 games.
I’m partial to the Foster design myself. It’s futuristic looking, yet harkens back to the nostalgia of the Routemaster.
And if you never got a chance to ride on one of the old Routemasters, you still can in central London. London Transport runs a special heritage route where they still use the Routemaster. You can find information on this website.
See all the winning Routemaster Designs on the Mayor of London’s Website.
Read about the Iconic Routemaster on Wikipedia
Author Info - Jonathan is a consummate Anglophile with an obsession for Britain that borders on psychosis. He keeps Anglotopia running in his spare time, always dreaming of his next trip to England, wishing he lived there - specifically Dorset - and is always trying to figure out a way to move to England. It will happen one day. Keep up with him on Twitter here. Read more from this author
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Anglotopia was founded by Jonathan and Jackie Thomas for people who love Britain - whether it's British TV, Culture, History or Travel - we cover it all. Anglotopia was started to get us back to the UK for a trip and it did that in 2009. Now, the goal is for Anglotopia to make our dream of living in the UK a reality.
I’m with you. I like the Foster design. Good for Boris. I loved the Routemasters and was very upset when I found out they were being taken off the road. I also wish BT would can the glass phone boxes and go back to the old stand-by, the iconic red phone box.
I’m with you there. Nothing says England like a Red Phone Box.
Iam asking if i could borrow the picture of the bus for my project. thankyou very much!
Go ahead!