Sucess for the Music Free Buses Campaign

Leyton residents Tom and Valeria, organisers of the 'music on buses' campaign

Regular visitors to this website will remember that back in November, I posted this story about an energetic campaign being run my one of my Leyton ward constituents, Tom Wright (pictured above left) and his partner Valeria Martinelli (pictured above right) to get loud music on buses banned.

A couple of days ago, I received an email from Tom and Valeria informing me that, as a result of their excellent campaign, Transport for London (the body that runs London’s buses) has now changed its policy and has finally agreed to prohibit all playing of openly loud music on buses!

This is really excellent news and shows what can be acheived when people who feel passionate about an issue take action and campaign for change.

Very well done both!

Here’s to a more peaceful bus journey the next time I take the 69 🙂

Below is the text of Tom and Valeria’s email

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Hi everyone,
We just wanted to share some fantastic news regarding the Music Free Buses Campaign. As you may remember, in March, Transport for London told us that new signs would be installed on all London Buses to combat the problem of loud anti-social music. The signs read “Please keep your music down.”

We wrote to both the Mayor and to TfL to express our utmost dissatisfaction with the proposed sign, indicating that it was both ambivalent and inappropriate. We honestly did not expect anything to change as TfL’s representative had told us in no uncertain terms that the sign would not be altered.

Imagine our satisfaction and surprise then when we received the following message from TfL last Friday:

You?’ll be pleased to know that we have now changed our on-bus publicity regarding the playing of music. As you can see from the attached PDF files, the signs, which are now mandatory on all buses, clearly ask passengers to turn off music that could be played through a speaker; while those with headphones are asked to use them with consideration.

The general bulkhead notice will be updated in all our buses over the next 4 months. And the specific Turn it off; Keep it down notice will also be posted inside the bus, at the back, on both decks; as this is where the inconsiderate playing of music tends to happen most.

We are so pleased! We never thought this would happen, but it seems that our efforts have been rewarded in the end. TfL have eventually listened to their customers and taken an active step to try and discourage one aspect of antisocial behaviour. We look forward to seeing the signs on London Buses soon…and to pointing them out to the mindless few who think it is acceptable to share their noise with everyone on the bus. We have enquired as to whether the signs will also be displayed on the tube network but as yet we haven’t had an answer.

Kind regards
Valeria Martinelli & Tom Wright
Music Free Buses…and Trains!

3 thoughts on “Sucess for the Music Free Buses Campaign”

  1. Yep, that’s a pet hate of mine. It’s always a particular variety of dodgy garage or rubbish happy hardcore too.

    Bleedin’ chavs.

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