London Buses route 15 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, United Kingdom. The regular service on route 15 is currently contracted to East London and operated with modern double-decker buses. Heritage route 15 operates using traditional Routemaster buses over a shortened version of the regular route.
[edit] History
The 15 is a particularly touristy route as it passes several major attractions en route from one end of central London to the other. It serves the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, the 15 being the only route to serve these places apart from three more city-oriented routes, as well as Oxford Street, St. Paul's and Trafalgar Square.
As part of the Mayor's policy of replacing Routemasters with modern low floor buses, he also implemented two "heritage tourist routes", which now service parts of the routes 9 and 15.
OPO conversion allowed the route's transfer to Bow garage, freeing up additional space at Upton Park for other routes previously run from Bow.
These days the 15 runs between Paddington and Blackwall Station. The latter is not much of a traffic objective, but terminating here means buses on route 15 can miss the severe congestion in the Canning Town area where the A13 crosses the Lee Valley.
The 15 has had a long association with route 23, although the 23 disappeared for a while. As well as running east to East Ham, and on to Dagenham via the Barking By-Pass, buses also ran west from Paddington as far as East Acton via Ladbroke Grove. The former is now covered by route 115 during the day, and the latter by routes 7 and 23.
On 26 February 2006, it was announced that this route would be extended to the new developments in Paddington Basin (North Wharf Road). This extension was continuously deferred, with the extension taking place on 13th October 2007, in order to free up stand space at Paddington for the newly introduced route 332.
From 27 June 2009, Route 15 including heritage services will be transferred to West Ham Bus Garage
[edit] Current route
[edit] Route departing Blackwall | [edit] Route departing Paddington |
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
