The 310 is a new bus route that begins in Stamford Hill and ends in Golders Green — two famously Jewish enclaves in London. It will run from 7am to 7pm as part of a year-long trial. New bus routes are burgeoning at the moment, serving those slowly being weaned off cars by the Congestion Charge, yet initiatives like Superloop rarely hit the headlines. The 310 is different — largely due to its start and finish destinations.
Initial reporting on the new route placed anti-semitism as its primary reason for existing. The BBC’s headline stated: “Bus service to help Jewish Londoners feel safe”, while GB News’s headline began: “London forced to introduce bus route..”. It’s easy to see why journalists went there: reactions to the war in Gaza have destabilised life for Jewish people in London for almost a year. And at the launch on Monday, the Mayor was happy to make that link explicit: “I know there have been concerns about safety given the terrible rise in antisemitism and this route will provide a safe, sustainable and affordable route for local residents,” he’s quoted as saying.
Yet as Rabbi David Mason tweeted in reply to a man decrying the 310 as an emblem of a divided city: “Safety was never the main reason”. Buried in most reports was the fact that the 310’s route was first proposed 15 years ago, by GLA member Brian Coleman, to “connect families and friends in the Jewish community and enable them to get to community events going on in those areas”. It’s not a new concept — nor a sticking plaster in a post October 7th world. The reports made it sound like a religious shuttle or a strictly denominational Waterloo & City line, ignoring the fact it’s still a regular bus — servicing residents of Highgate Village, Archway, Finsbury Park and Manor House in between.
At the launch, Mayor Khan flagged Finsbury Park as part of the problem. “When I heard stories about those who live in Stamford Hill not being able to see their friends at Golders Green because they have to change buses at Finsbury Park…that broke my heart” he told reporters. In December last year, a man in his thirties was violently attacked close to the station by someone shouting “Kill the Jew” as he beat him.
What we’ve seen in the last week is both utterly sad and almost grimly comic: a brewing panic, fuelled by disinformation, over something as innocuous as a new bus route. Prominent Jewish thought-leaders online saw the headlines and expressed outrage — that a city was so unsafe it required a special bus for Jews. Did they need to wear a yellow star to take this bus, some asked? In a thread about transport on Reddit, one user casually wondered: “I’m worried that either the bus will be attacked or that it will become de facto Jewish only.” It got to a point where I just wanted to see it all for myself. And so I went.
Such was the clamour online, I was expecting a small race war as I arrived at Golders Green bus station on Thursday morning. What I got was a sweet, middle-aged bus-spotter called Richard, identifiable by the big camera around his neck and the bigger grin on his face as he watched the bustling bus bonanza outside the station. Richard has been photographing buses since 2012. He was excited for the new route, but the only controversy for him was that it wasn’t badged under the Superloop scheme.
As Richard kindly showed me where the route begins, our interaction perfectly set the tone for a day riding a bus that’s simultaneously controversial online, yet distinctly harmonious in reality. The first passenger that arrived was a pregnant orthodox woman. Based on the online reporting, I made assumptions she’d be travelling end to end. Of course, she was just on her way to Whittington Hospital, 14 stops on from the start, for an antenatal check-up.
There were a couple of passengers of Orthodox faith on each journey I took, but no more. If I had to guess, the drivers were of Asian descent on each journey (it’s only a guess — I didn’t want to hassle a working driver, obviously). Quite improbably, TV’s Dermot O’Leary got on at one point. He wasn’t hosting a live segment on contentious buses for This Morning — I think he was just with his family. They seemed to enjoy the new bus as much as everyone else.
At Manor House, an elderly woman who didn’t want to give her name got on, laden with shopping. She’s ecstatic: the 310 connects her almost door-to-door with her oldest friend of 62 years. They meet up most afternoons. She tells me she’s not aware of the backstory behind the 310, and when I tell her, she just says: “Great!” and walks off cheerily. Nobody I spoke to knew anything about the religious roots of this service. Sure, everyone had views — why does it have to end at 7pm, wouldn’t it be better if it went through to Clapton, why oh why do two busses always turn up at the same time — but they were so completely at odds with the online and media rhetoric that the bus began to feel almost like a haven. A reminder that Londoners, for the most part, are a staggeringly cohesive bunch.
Which isn’t to sideline anti-semitism for a second, but more a reminder that there’s sometimes as much value in talking to a stranger on a bus as there is in social media. An orthodox passenger named Freedman made this explicitly clear. He pointed out that on Casenove Road, near where he lives, is both the Masjid Quba mosque and the Hackney and East London Synagogue and that he’s never been exposed to any animosity caused by this coexistence. He too didn’t know the origin story of the 310, but was surprised. He says he feels safe in London, that respecting other people is the only way for us to live, that he shuns extremist communities that do otherwise.
Based on what I’d read beforehand, I boarded the 310 expecting it to be a form of segregated, almost apartheid-esque transport. What I saw were regular bus things: a child in a pushchair almost managing to ring the “stop” button. A man with a big rucksack on the seat next to him huffily agreeing to move it after a small glare. I’d never want to downplay anti-semitism for a moment. Yet when people evoke it in an almost unthinking way — to get clicks or to get votes — there’s a danger that it has real-world effects. It has the potential to cause serious bumps in the road, on an otherwise extremely smooth and pleasant journey.
