The Number 30 bus line links London's affluent West side with its low-income eastern neighborhoods. It begins in Hyde Park, at a place that was once the site of public hangings. As the saying goes, when a criminal was sentenced to death, the executioner would "take him down to the Marble Arch and send him to the promised land." Today, the only reminder of this eerie execution spot is a snow-white marble arch.

It's Friday morning, a normal business day in London, but no one is waiting for the Number 30 bus at the Marble Arch. Thirteen people were torn to shreds yesterday when a bomb exploded just a few stops farther down the Number 30 line.

In heavy morning rush-hour traffic, the empty bus makes its first stop at Portman Street, but no one boards. The street is lined with maples and chestnut trees. Then the bus stops at Montagu Street. No one boards. Number 30's third stop is Crawford Street. The bus remains empty. Office buildings, apartment buildings and doctors' offices line the street. The bus driver, gaunt and almost surly, tightly grips the steering wheel. It's easy, driving the empty Number 30 today. "It's a completely normal day," says the driver, "and we won't change a thing, just because of what a pack of idiots have done. You just have to keep on going."

Karol, a 24-year-old Pole originally from a town near Gdansk, boards the bus at its fourth stop. He's only been living in London for the past eight months. On this morning he's taking the bus to the restaurant where he works. He can't afford a taxi. "I was only afraid for a second, when I got on the bus," says Karol. Now that he's sitting down, he says, his fear has disappeared and he feels safe.

Edmond Tahire, 24, feels quite differently. He takes the Number 30 every day to his job as a clerk in a grocery store on Baker Street. Boarding the bus today was difficult for the Albanian-born Tahire. It was "scary," he says.

The Albanian has been living in London for five years. The only reason he wasn't riding the Number 30 when yesterday's bombing occurred is that he had been talking to his girlfriend on the phone and left his house later than usual. By the time he was ready to head to work, the buses had stopped running. He was upset at first, but today he knows just how lucky he was to have missed his bus. Edmond Tahire stares through the window at London's elegant facades and reflects on why he was spared.

The upper deck gradually fills with passengers. Rob Johnson, 31, sits in the first row, incessantly chewing his fingernails. The bus approaches Tavistock Square, where a Number 30 bus was ripped apart by a massive explosion only 24 hours ago. "As far as I'm concerned, we just have to keep going!", says Rob Johnson.

"Traffic is more dangerous than anything else"

Suddenly there's an accident. A man on a bicycle hurtles full-speed into a pedestrian -- directly in front of the bus. The woman's sunglasses fly from her nose, a shoe catapults through the air, and the bicyclist and pedestrian crash to the pavement. "That's what's so dangerous about London," says Rob, "and it's far more likely to happen than a terrorist attack." Somehow, Rob sounds relieved.

The bus is taking an alternate route today. The area around the bombing site in Bloomsbury is still hermetically sealed to traffic. The Number 30 turns to the left, passing a war memorial with an inscription that reads: "In Memory of the Dead." It approaches Euston Station, which was evacuated a few minutes earlier in response to a bomb threat -- a false alarm, it turns out. By the time the Number 30 reaches the British Library, one stop past the bombing site, it's finally as full as any other bus.

Pedestrians crowd the sidewalks along the Number 30's route. Two women carrying bunches of flowers stand out from the river of Londoners walking from the Library down to King's Cross. "We are taking these flowers to King's Cross to honor the dead," they say.