Brickbats fly after Boris unwraps his Routemaster

London mayor Boris Johnson's proud unveiling yesterday of a futuristic new London Routemaster bus, which he dubbed "a slinky, beautiful machine", has been met by his political opponents with two words: Vanity project.

Johnson's promise of an updated hop-on, hop-off Routemaster to replace the controversial "bendy buses" introduced by his predecessor Ken Livingstone was one of the cornerstones of his 2008 election campaign. And he showed off the new design yesterday with all the excitement of a small boy unwrapping a new model railway engine.

He said the updated the new design would give passengers a "greener, light and airy" service when the first buses are introduced at the end of next year, with hundreds more rolled out in time for the 21012 Olympics.

But critics say the first five new Routemasters will have cost £7.8m, which is hardly value for money. They say it's nothing more than a vanity project that will waste London taxpayers' money at a time of increasing economic hardship.

"In good economic times people might forgive politicians and their vanity schemes and we would even argue there could be merit in designing an iconic new London bus," said Val Shawcross, a Labour member of the London assembly and deputy chair of its transport committee. "But when Londoners are worrying about their jobs going, services being cut, and their taxes going up, this could look like a very expensive bit of folly from a mayor who is out of touch with ordinary Londoners."

A spokesman for Johnson said the £7.8m figure included one-off initial costs of design and development, research, prototypes and testing. The unit cost could be expected to drop to about £300,000 per bus as hundreds came into service.

That was still not a good enough answer for Caroline Pidgeon, leader of the Liberal Democrat group on the London assembly. "When everything is so tight it just feels like he is throwing money away," she said. "A normal double-decker bus costs around £190,000 but we are paying a staggering £7.8m to design and build five vehicles that if we are honest don't seem to be that different to an ordinary bus."

Last word to Boris: "This iconic new part of our transport system is not only beautiful but also has a green heart beating beneath its stylish, swooshing exterior. It will cut emissions and give Londoners a bus they can be proud of, complete with cutting-edge design and the freedom of an open platform. I expect... cities around the globe to be beside themselves with envy for our stunning red emblem of 21st-century London." ·