You can’t accuse London Transport of failing to have a sense of humour.
As the wind, rain and autumnal slush begins to blight commutes across the city, TFL announced its 'sexy' new Routemasters are finally to get windows that open. Finally.
Because if you sat on a Boris Bus during the more humid dates of this year, chances are you, like thousands of others in the capital, will have felt the double whammy of non-opening windows and frugal air-con circulation. Which by comparison made running for the tube at rush hour feel like a chilly Antarctic landscape.
Thankfully that won't be the case for much longer: the sealed windows currently fitted on the 550 fleet of Thomas Heatherwick-designed buses are set to be replaced at a cost of £2million - a move which has been welcomed by Heatherwick’s studio, who actually designed the windows to open until TFL thought otherwise.
Classic TFL.
"We were aware of passenger concerns about the cooling system on the New Routemaster," said TfL director of buses Mike Weston regarding the change. "The mayor asked us to work with Wrights to look at possible design options to improve passenger comfort.”
Which roughly translates to: 'As always, we thought that we knew better than actual experts or the general public that use our products. We didn't, and we don't. As such we're reverting back to the original plan.'
Now let's all look forward to the three weeks a year when we'll benefit from them.
