London Buses Now So Slow TfL Announces New "Walk Beside the Driver" Express Service
Route 22 clocks in under 6 mph as the capital quietly redefines "public transport" as "public waiting"
LONDON, ENGLAND — London's famous red double-decker bus, once a symbol of British mobility, urban confidence, and the ability to transport 80 human beings without first asking them to remove their shoes, has entered an exciting new phase of its development.
It has stopped moving.
Not completely, obviously. That would make the problem easier to diagnose, and easier problems are not really London's brand.
Instead, London's buses have mastered that uniquely British form of progress in which something continues moving just enough to prevent anybody officially describing it as stationary — the transport equivalent of "resting your eyes" during a work meeting.
According to The Guardian's September 23 investigation into London's slowing buses, average bus speeds across the capital stood at 9.18 mph in 2025–26, the lowest level since comparable records began in 2013–14. Route 22 was particularly heroic, averaging just under 6 mph during 2025.
Six miles an hour.
At six miles an hour, you aren't really riding public transport.
You're participating in a parade. A very slow, very red, entirely involuntary parade, with no marching band and no free sweets.
Thinking About London Buses
- London's Route 22 averaged under 6 mph in 2025, meaning the bus is no longer transportation so much as a very large red waiting room with wheels.
- A Guardian reporter spent 40 minutes stationary during a 108-minute trip, which technically makes the pavement London's fastest-moving infrastructure project.
- TfL says London buses average around 9.2 mph, a speed normally associated with jogging after realizing you left your wallet at the pub.
- The Route 207 averages 7.4 mph, reportedly slower than a beginner cyclist, although the cyclist has the unfair technological advantage of being able to move.
- 578 of roughly 700 continuously comparable London routes became slower over the decade examined. At some point this stops being congestion and becomes British transportation methodology.
The Route 22 Has Become London's Most Elaborate Park Bench
The Guardian put a reporter aboard Route 22 and recorded a journey lasting 108 minutes, 40 minutes of which the bus spent stationary.
Forty minutes.
That's not a bus ride.
That's a hostage situation where everybody keeps tapping their Oyster card, as though contactless payment might somehow appease the traffic gods.
Imagine explaining this to somebody from 1926.
"We've developed satellites."
"Wonderful."
"Computers fit in your pocket."
"Remarkable."
"We can video-call Australia."
"Incredible."
"How fast does the bus go?"
"Well..."
Technology has apparently advanced everywhere except between Putney and Oxford Circus, where the Industrial Revolution is still pending environmental review, a second consultation, and a strongly worded letter from a resident's association.
A passenger boarding the 22 can now reasonably pack provisions.
Water.
Phone charger.
Change of clothes.
Power of attorney.
Perhaps a small note to the family: "Don't worry. Traffic has started moving near Piccadilly. Tell the children I love them. Feed the cat. I may be recognisable by the year 2027 by my beard alone."
London Invents the World's First Stationary Electric Vehicle
This is where the story becomes beautifully modern.
London buses are becoming cleaner, quieter and increasingly electric. Some newer vehicles offer USB charging, better seats, skylights and improved interiors.
Excellent.
Because if you're going to spend 108 minutes travelling several miles, you absolutely want upholstery. Preferably reclining. Possibly heated. A small mint on the pillow would not go unappreciated.
Eventually they'll install showers.
The logical progression is obvious.
First charging ports.
Then Wi-Fi.
Then coffee machines.
Then studio apartments.
By 2032, Rightmove will advertise:
"CHARMING ONE-BEDROOM PROPERTY, ROUTE 22, CURRENTLY APPROACHING KNIGHTSBRIDGE. £2,700 PCM. MOVING VERY SLOWLY WEST. NO ONWARD CHAIN, BUT NO ONWARD MOVEMENT EITHER."
There will be commuters who boarded before Brexit and refuse to leave because their bus has appreciated 14% in value and the neighbours, three seats down, are lovely.
Economists Discover That Slow Transportation Makes People Stop Using Transportation
Here comes the scientific breakthrough.
Research cited by Transport for London's own performance data suggests that a 10% decrease in bus speed can correspond with roughly a 6% decline in demand. Meanwhile, passenger journeys in London are hundreds of millions below earlier levels despite population growth.
This required research.
Apparently somebody received funding to formally prove that when a bus takes longer, fewer people want to ride it — a discovery ranking somewhere between "fire is hot" and "queueing is unpopular" in the canon of shocking British science.
Next year's study will examine whether restaurants attract fewer customers after replacing chairs with hornets. The preliminary data is not encouraging for the hornets.
There is an economics principle buried here: consumers occasionally notice when the product becomes worse.
We conducted our own highly irresponsible newsroom survey by asking several imaginary commuters whether they preferred a bus arriving in 20 minutes, a bus arriving in 40 minutes, or dying naturally at the stop. The responses were inconclusive because the bus arrived before the survey did, which the imaginary commuters agreed was itself a form of miracle.
London Now Has More Roadworks Than Roads
Officials cited congestion and roadworks as major causes of delay. The Guardian reports more than 1,000 roadworks obstructing London streets on an average day.
One thousand.
London appears to be excavating itself.
Nobody knows what's underneath.
Probably another London. Possibly a smaller, faster one that got tired of waiting and dug down to escape.
Every London road now contains three essential British institutions: a traffic cone, a temporary traffic light, and four workers staring thoughtfully into a hole.
Nothing reassures the public quite like five men surrounding a trench while one man points at something underground.
"What is it?"
"Pipe."
"Should it be there?"
"Apparently."
"When will you finish?"
"Thursday."
"Which Thursday?"
"Don't complicate things."
London roadworks have achieved quantum status: each project is simultaneously under construction and awaiting construction until observed by somebody from the council, at which point it briefly becomes "delayed pending review" and reverts to its natural state.
Meanwhile, the Bicycle Has Won
London has dramatically expanded its cycling infrastructure. The Guardian says the city now has about 450km of cycleways, compared with roughly 90km a decade ago.
Cycling itself isn't the joke.
The comedy arrives when a £400,000 electric double-decker carrying 70 passengers is overtaken by Nigel from accounting, riding something he bought secondhand on Facebook Marketplace and has never once oiled.
The Route 207 averaged 7.4 mph in 2025, slower than what the Guardian describes as the average beginner cyclist.
That's psychologically devastating.
Nobody wants to look out the window of public transport and see a man in fluorescent trousers slowly disappear over the horizon.
Especially when he gives you a little wave.
The passenger immediately begins reconsidering civilisation, several life choices, and whether a Brompton is really so expensive when you factor in the years of your life you'd get back.
Fifty Years of Progress Has Added 30% More Bus
Economist Alexander Jan examined a selection of routes and found scheduled journey times are now, on average, 30% longer than 50 years ago.
That is magnificent.
We've spent half a century improving transportation technology and produced additional transportation — more of the same journey, generously stretched, like a joke told by your uncle at Christmas.
Imagine buying a new microwave every year and eventually discovering potatoes now require 47 minutes and a small apology.
The brochures would still sound positive:
"NEW FOR 2027: SLOWER THAN 1976, BUT NOW WITH APP CONNECTIVITY."
Your phone will tell you precisely how late you are, in real time, with a small animated bus icon that appears to be enjoying itself far more than you are.
In the old days you merely wondered where your bus was. Now an £800 smartphone displays a tiny red bus icon that hasn't moved since breakfast, accompanied by the word "Live," used here in its loosest possible sense.
The Timetable Has Given Up
TfL acknowledges that network reliability has been under pressure for several years, while its own published performance data confirms bus speeds remain in decline.
Eventually, honesty demands a new timetable. Not "11:42, 11:51, 12:03," but rather: Morning-ish. Probably after lunch. Look, we're doing our best.
Bus-stop electronic signs could become philosophical.
"3 minutes."
"3 minutes."
"3 minutes."
"Life itself is merely waiting."
"3 minutes."
Passengers wouldn't complain. They'd achieve enlightenment, or at minimum a very deep familiarity with the bus shelter's advert for a personal injury lawyer.
TfL Plans to Make Buses Faster by Allowing Them to Move
There are serious proposals afoot.
Traffic-signal technology can increasingly prioritize buses. Authorities are expanding lane-rental schemes intended to encourage faster, better-coordinated roadworks. Officials also say they want to improve reliability and bus speed, according to the Mayor of London's transport strategy office.
All perfectly sensible.
But conceptually, London has reached an extraordinary moment. The revolutionary solution to slow buses is: make the buses go faster.
Transportation policy has finally circled back to transportation. It only took a decade, several consultations, and one very determined Guardian data journalist.
A consultant somewhere undoubtedly required 146 PowerPoint slides before arriving at this conclusion.
Slide 1: THE FUTURE OF URBAN MOBILITY.
Slide 83: STAKEHOLDER SYNERGY.
Slide 127: MULTIMODAL OPTIMIZATION.
Slide 146: BUS GO VROOM.
£740,000, please. Invoice to follow, eventually, at roughly 6 mph.
The Real Problem Is the Vicious Circle
Behind the jokes is an inconvenient piece of arithmetic.
Slow buses can drive away passengers. Fewer passengers can increase pressure on funding and frequencies. Reduced services can make buses even less attractive, creating what industry figures describe as a "vicious circle of decline."
And buses matter disproportionately to people who cannot simply hail a cab, work remotely, or live beside an Underground station.
That's why this particular absurdity matters.
A six-mile-an-hour bus is funny until somebody has to use it every morning to reach a hospital shift, supermarket, school, or care job.
Then it's not transportation trivia. It's somebody's unpaid extra hour, every single day, forever, with no loyalty points.
TfL's own data recognizes bus performance as important to everyday Londoners, with buses regularly used for work, education, shopping, and essential services.
So perhaps London's grand urban objective needn't require futuristic robotaxis, airborne taxis, or an artificial-intelligence traffic algorithm named Geoffrey.
Perhaps start with the large red object already sitting in traffic.
Make that move.
London's New Transport Motto
For generations, London buses represented reassuring predictability.
You waited. One didn't come. Then three arrived. It was inefficient, mysterious, and somehow comforting, like a relative who is always late but always brings biscuits.
Now three arrive together because all three have been trapped behind the same roadworks since 2024, and have by this point formed something resembling a support group.
The iconic double-decker remains one of London's great symbols.
Big Ben tells you the time.
Tower Bridge crosses the Thames.
Buckingham Palace houses the monarch.
And the red London bus reminds you that wherever you're going, you probably should have left yesterday, ideally by bike.
Transport for London says its 2024/25 average bus speed was about 9.2 mph and maintains extensive performance statistics on bus speeds and reliability, viewable at the reader's leisure — of which, on the 22, there will be plenty.
At this pace, London may finally achieve the ultimate sustainable transportation network.
Nobody will technically be driving anywhere.
They'll just be sitting in environmentally improved vehicles, thinking about it, very slowly, together.
10 Humorous Observations Before We Board
- Scheduled bus journeys are reportedly about 30% longer than 50 years ago, proving humanity successfully invented GPS, satellites, electric vehicles and mobile computing so that Grandma could arrive first.
- London has more than 1,000 roadworks obstructing streets on an average day, because apparently beneath every road is another road London urgently needs to inspect.
- Cycleways have expanded from about 90km to 450km in a decade, resulting in the unusual spectacle of bus passengers watching cyclists disappear into the distance while sitting in an environmentally responsible traffic jam.
- London wants people to abandon cars for buses, but first the buses must successfully pass the cars they are stuck behind. This is known in transport planning as "Step Two."
- TfL has electric buses, charging points, skylights and improved interiors. At 6 mph, passengers may eventually request kitchens, mortgages and voting rights.
- Bus ridership has fallen substantially from pre-pandemic levels. Transport planners seem surprised that passengers occasionally prefer transportation that transports them.
- Researchers say slower buses can reduce demand, demonstrating an emerging economic theory called people don't enjoy waiting forever.
- Bus timetables have become so padded that eventually the printed schedule will simply say: "Tuesday."
- Traffic lights may increasingly give buses priority, suggesting London has finally discovered the radical transportation concept of allowing the bus to go.
- The traditional London question was once, "When will the bus arrive?" The modern answer appears to be, "It has arrived. The problem is leaving."
Disclaimer: This is satire. The transportation statistics and reported policy issues are grounded in published reporting from The Guardian and Transport for London; the imaginary passengers, surveys, PowerPoint consultants, mobile apartments, and philosophically exhausted bus signs are comic inventions.
This story is entirely a human collaboration between two sentient beings: the world's oldest tenured professor and a philosophy major turned dairy farmer, neither of whom recommends attempting to overtake Route 22 while carrying a pint. https://prat.uk/london-buses-now-slower/
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