The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah!

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Fri 12 Feb 2010 15:02
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - mustangman
Living in greater Birmingham, last Saturday evening SWMBO aand I decided to go the green way into the city centre.
As some may know there is a frequent service along main routes every 10 mins or so.

Not having travelled by bus for several years, I noticed the following points.

> The return fare, £ 3-80 each was higher than I though it would be.
> The driver(s) seemed to be a surly type, barely a nod as you pay etc.
> The bus was very jerky, both stopping & starting, though this could be the driver.
> The driver appeared to corner as fast as possible.
> Your fellow passengers include drunks, foul - mouthed yoofs & the like.
> Your seat is hard & narrow with little legroom.
> I was glad to get off, feeling a bit queasy.

> On the plus side, I did not have to drive or park.

So as an alternative to the car, not very impressed, won't do it again in a hurry!
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Fri 12 Feb 2010 15:06
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - Lud
Has no one heard the story of the elderly backwoods peer who was prevailed upon by his children to set a good example by taking public transport? Initially reluctant, when in a good mood one day he boarded the first bus he saw, held out a crisp fiver to the conductor and said:

'House of Lords, please.'
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Fri 12 Feb 2010 15:12
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - pyruse
We have buses which are supposed to run every 10 minutes, but in practice you often wait 30, and then they need to change drivers or something.
It's no wonder people end up getting back in their cars.
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Fri 12 Feb 2010 15:28
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - 1400ted
I've not used a bus for many years but in the last few months I've been on them quite a lot in connection with my new ' career ' for a car share club.
I was surprised to find the system in South Manchester very good, I don't know if Rats will be listening and concur with that. Lots of new buses, clean, warm and comfy. Not crowded at the times I travel and generally going in the right places for me.
I always say 'Good day' to the driver and 'Thanks ' when I get off...they seem to appreciate it. I notice a lot do the same.
The beauty of it for me is, like the train and the tram, it's all free !...being a ' twirly '
I can get any train I like free from Stockport, where our body repair shop is, to Manchester.
Last week I was on a local twice, then a Pendolino and a cross country Voyager from Paignton!

All passenger trains have to stop at Stockport due to a covenant in the 1840s...very convenient !

Ted
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Fri 12 Feb 2010 15:17
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - diddy1234
I bet if you factor in the costs of insurance, fuel etc (over x amount of miles you drive) the car would be cheaper.

Public transport cheaper, yeh right !

Where is the incentive to be 'more green' ?

If you look at other countries public transport infrastructure (Germany for example), the system is government run and the fares are discounted hence more incentive to use.

If it is too costly to run a government subsidised system here then the government must be gauging costs wrong (the subcontracting of bus services to private companies just hows).

i.e. a public transport system will not pay for it's self (in terms of revenue) it never will but it would work in terms of relieving congestion on the roads and a more timely service.

Unfortunately councils and the government do not look at public transport in this manner.

When I was in south Germany the bus and train infrastructure was excellent and very punctual.
I could buy my ticket to go to Austria at the train station but I could either take part of the journey via train, bus or boat.

It did not matter how I got to my destination as it was all run by the same company (i.e. Government).
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Fri 12 Feb 2010 15:21
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - piston power
Let the Train take the strain.

Trains much nicer for the longer journey than a coach or bus but prefer to drive.
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Fri 12 Feb 2010 15:27
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - Stuartli
>>Public transport cheaper, yeh right !>>

If you live on Merseyside and are 60 or over, then you can use the buses, trains and ferries FOC and have been able to do so for around 20 years or more. The area covered is vast.

My local bus service runs every 10 minutes up to 6-30pm and, unless there are exceptional traffic conditions, runs to time. The punctuality of the train services is around 93 per cent and improving all the time.

Edited by Stuartli on 12/02/2010 at 15:28

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Fri 12 Feb 2010 15:45
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - ForumNeedsModerating
Just to add to the 'Bus? Pah!' consensus, every experience I've had of PT over the past few years has been (in no particular order): expensive, overly time consuming, uncomfortable, socially unpleasant (i.e. boorish & noisy people/kids/pets etc.) & inconvenient (in terms of ability of services to 'mesh' & cross-connect etc.)
One exception might be the Newcastle metro/bus system, which at least co-ordinated services & wasn't too expensive.

Compared with the time I spent in Sweden in the early 90s - the contrast couldn't have been greater. I actually looked forward to using the variety of buses, trams & boats ( yes boats - in Goteborg the PT extended to cross-connections via boats to smaller islands)

Trams tended to run on the main thoroughfares, while buses branched off to the more circuitous routes & suburbs - all perfectly co-ordinated too. You could buy a ticket that covered any combination of the above, or a carnet (a day/week/month pass) at very,very reasonable cost. Using a car for anything but long distance simply wasn't necessary & was generally more hassle.

I feel totally sorry for people who have to rely on PT in this country - especially the older and/or poorer folk with few alternatives. In addition, many of the people who seem to work on PT seem singularly unsuited to a job requiring interaction with other human beings.



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Fri 12 Feb 2010 16:17
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - slowdown avenue
the last time i caught a bus several years back, i sat next to a lady wearing fur coat. when i walked into my kitchen and stood there , a flea jumped off my arm onto the worktop!
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Fri 12 Feb 2010 19:47
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - zookeeper
are you sure it was a flea and not a body louse? (women in fur coats and all that entails) :)
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Fri 12 Feb 2010 20:57
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - Sofa Spud
But is having noisy anti-social youths on the bus any worse than being tailgated by White Van Man while driving in city traffic? If I lived in a large city I'd use public transport as much as possible - plus walking or maybe cycling if there's a safe route. I'd only use my car to escape from the city - plus doing the weekly shopping.

Edited by Sofa Spud on 12/02/2010 at 21:00

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Fri 12 Feb 2010 21:04
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - Rattle
Or where I live all you do is spend your time giving way to on coming traffic on Edwardian streets. City driving is horrible but I am used to it now.

A choice between a bus and the car from surburb to suburb I will always take the car anyday as its so much quicker. Car to city centre then the bus wins as the buses are so regular and parking is so expensive it dosn't make much sense.

However by far the best way of traveling for me is the tram but most cities don't have a big enough network and Manchester's will only cover most the city by 2015 when it will be one of the biggest light rail networks in Europe, it will be brilliant.

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Fri 12 Feb 2010 21:01
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - Rattle
Without a doubt for me public transport is cheaper but the nature of my job means access to a car is essential. It costs me more in lost business than having to pay high insurance costs does.

A weekly bus pass for me is £11 and I still buy them because I go out at the weekend and the buses run till 3:30am, the weekly bus pass costs the same as a taxi would cost.

The bus I usualy get the runs about every 3-4 minutes and most are 57-59 reg, the old clapped out 56 regs are now being cascaded to poorer cities.]

No doubt in March we will get a new batch of 10 regs.

Most the passangers on my route are fine, very rare to get drunks but other bus routes are a bit of a nightmare, the 192 for example can be bit frigtening and is claimed to be the busiest bus route in the country, and just 1 mile to west of that is the busiest bus corridor in the country.

My main problem with buses is they are slow and after 6:00pm apart from the main city centre route (which then runs every 10 minutes) they are patchy. This evening for example I walked two miles as I could not be bothered waiting for the bus which was due in 10 minutes time, I had a race with the bus and the bus won by 1 minute.

I usualy get the metrolink or trains though and drive to the stations. The Stockport station is handy as its a 20 minute drive (including parking) and then its about 1 hour 40 minutes to London on a good run on the train.

The main issue with Manchester's bus system is it needs to be regulated like London but its not, so it gets a nightmare with tickets. You buy one ticket from one company and its not valid on the other.
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 22:32
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - Nsar
>>1 hour 40 minutes to London on a good run on the train.

The fastest London train is the 07.00 and that's 1:50 from Stockport. The others are two hours at best.
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Mon 15 Feb 2010 07:22
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - grumpyscot
The bus I usualy get the runs about every 3-4 minutes and most are 57-59
reg the old clapped out 56 regs are now being cascaded to poorer cities.]


First Edinburgh just took delivery of some new buses - a "G" reg, an "H" reg, and a "J" reg. No wonder people on the outskirts of Edinburgh use their cars to go to Edinburgh's Park n Ride where they can then get a Lothian Bus - without doubt the best fleet in the UK, clean, good drivers, and almost always on time. And no - I don't work for them!
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Fri 12 Feb 2010 21:02
The bus as an alternative - daveyjp
"You could buy a ticket that covered any combination of the above, or a carnet (a day/week/month pass) at very,very reasonable cost."

You can do this in this Country. The problem is most people who rarely use buses don't have a clue what tickets are available and private bus companies won't give you information on how to get the cheapest ticket - it costs them money. Our bus day rover is £3.80. A single into town is about £3. Why advertise the £3.80 ticket, when you can get £6 from the same punter?

The only place I've used a bus where this isn't the case is Cardiff - every bus stop tells you the fare. £1.50 single trip, £3 day rover - the Council still run Cardiff buses.

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Fri 12 Feb 2010 21:31
The bus as an alternative - Rattle
Its the same story in Nottingham and Warrington I have always been impressed with how good their bus services are. Guess what. They are owned by council too.

In Manchester it is funny, back in 1994 a weekly ticket cost £10 a week. Stagecoach took over and the ticket fell to £6 a week and Stagecoach really pushed it. 16 years later the ticket costs £11.00 and its not bad value really considering the huge network it is, they have over 650 buses and covers an area with more than 1 million people (south Manchester and east Manchester)

However some of the single fairs are so expensive but it is done on purpose because those people slow the bus down. You can flash a pass (it takes about half a second) or you can ask the driver to destination xx please which takes at least 20-30 seconds to deal with. If you have six of those getting on a few stops the bus can easily be 10 minutes later on a 3 mile journey.
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Fri 12 Feb 2010 21:40
The bus as an alternative - alfatrike
being a country bumpkin as i am on a recent job up to newcastle i used a bus. prices varied between the 4 or 5 or more operators who work the city. one way was 1.60 and the way back was 3 quid with another. there didn't seem to be any connecting or matching services and no freely available information from one source.

at least down here in devon we know there aren't going to be any buses and go by car.
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Fri 12 Feb 2010 21:47
The bus as an alternative - Rattle
Thats sort of what has happened in Greater Manchester but the ten councils are work with each other Greater Manchester has become power enough to put a stop to this. In a couple of years time we will more less have the same system as London.

I seem to be remember Brighton having a very good bus service too.
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Fri 12 Feb 2010 21:58
The bus as an alternative - freddy1
in my hometown (preston) stagecoach came in , almost shut the local company down , then bought them out , all the new stagecoach buses disappeared , prices went up

latest news is they have been told they are not allowed , and preston bus is up for sale , shambles
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Fri 12 Feb 2010 21:59
The bus as an alternative - harib
My experience of buses in various cities:

London: Pretty good. Cheap with an Oyster card and run at all hours. The night buses aren't for the faint hearted though. Full of drunks and weirdos. Travelling around school finishing hours isn't nice, however.

Birmingham: Not great. A fair amount of buses along main routes into the centre. Can be helpful as driving into the centre of Brum is an absolute nightmare. I haven't been there for a while, but you couldn't get change, so if you didn't have the exact fare you were paying a premium! The upstairs of double deckers always stank of weed day and night

Edinburgh: Brilliant. Lothian Buses are probably the best company I've travelled on in the UK. If the timetable says that the bus will be there at 19:28, you can see it in the distance at 19:26. Again, exact fare on most services.

Portsmouth: Blaaday awful. First and Stagecoach run competing services, with Stagecoach being slightly better. Some of the First buses are literally eligible for scrappage. Turn up when they feel like it, or not at all. Obviously a return ticket on one company won't work on the other, so you either have to buy two singles or watch a perfectly good bus go by.
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Fri 12 Feb 2010 22:19
The bus as an alternative - Hamsafar
My car is broken at the moment, so I decided to use the bus (in Nottingham).
It's better than a few years ago, but still pretty terrible:
The problems are the timekeeping is poor, so you wait and wait and give up and then see it arrive as you are walking to catch a different bus elsewhere.
There are LED displays on the stop telling you when the next bus is due, but it appears to just tell you the same as the printed timetable rather than being 'dynamic' or 'live'.
The clientele includes the intolerable and unbearable.
The bus ride is extremely noisy, jerky and bumpy, much worse than the old buses I remember as a youngster.
The seats are too small and your knees are jammed against the seat in front.
The price is expensive. £3 all day any bus ticket, but there are several bus operators, so you have to change at a stop and pay another £3 to go on their bus. If there were four of you, it could easily top a total £24 for a £3 car journey.

At the end of they day, there is no public transport in Britain, only a communal transport system for the profit of shareholders.
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Fri 12 Feb 2010 23:39
The bus as an alternative - Stuartli
>>This evening for example I walked two miles as I could not be bothered waiting for the bus which was due in 10 minutes time, I had a race with the bus and the bus won by 1 minute.>>

Oh come on Rattle, even you at the age of 27 can't walk that fast....:-)
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 00:44
The bus as an alternative - Rattle
I didn't explain properly.

I got dropped off by a friend at 6:25, the bus was due at 6:35 so I started walking instead so I had already made up ten minutes, the bus was also a bit late. The bus got to stop I would have got off at just one minute before I walked past the stop. The bus also had to pick up passengers and get in stuck in traffic. The bus was probably doing an average of 8mph while I was walking about 3.5mph.

If the bus was there at 6:25 then the bus would have beaten me by a good 20 minutes :).

Edited by Rattle on 13/02/2010 at 00:44

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Sat 13 Feb 2010 15:53
The bus as an alternative - notathletic
However some of the single fairs are so expensive but it is done on purpose
because those people slow the bus down. You can flash a pass (it takes about
half a second) or you can ask the driver to destination xx please which takes
at least 20-30 seconds to deal with. If you have six of those getting on
a few stops the bus can easily be 10 minutes later on a 3 mile
journey.

>>

The tightness of timetables and the fact that no extra time is factored in for passengers getting on and paying doesn't help. One of our routes (on a twenty minute frequency) picks up just near a secondary school, it arrives there on time and there are normally about 30 pupils there. All with £1 coins (they might have a pocketful of small change but are too thick to be able to add the coins up to the 70 pence fare).

The bus gets into the city centre at least 12 minutes late and by the time they all get off and the bus refills with fresh passengers it's probably at least 15 minutes late. The next one on this service is due in five minutes so you've probably picked up quite a few passengers who would (if you were on time) have got the later bus.

So as you're driving out towards the suburbs you're picking up and dropping off your passengers and also his. The bus behind is trundling along with nobody on board and catching up with you all the time, you're getting all the hassle from passengers who have been waiting for you to turn up at your allotted time and then they wonder why there is another grumpy bus driver on the bus.

Oh, I wish I had a stress free job - I knew I should have been a teacher.
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 07:41
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - L'escargot
In my younger days people used to choose the location of their job to suit the location of their abode (or vice versa) to enable them to be able to use either a bicycle or public transport to get to work. They had to do that because very few people could afford cars. Now that every Tom, Dick and Harry can afford a car, people are becoming more difficult to please.
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 08:48
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - b308
Just a few general comments... its a myth that PT is miles cheaper on the Continent than over here, there may well be countries which are (but where the standard of living is less such as the Czech Rep), but on the whole PT in Northern Europe is similar to ours - two years ago we went to Dresden, one day we parked the car up and used the train, mile per mile it worked out more expensive than a trip from Kiddy to Birmingham in this country...

Buses into Birmingham... it very much depends on the bus company, the main ones are pretty new, but some, like Diamond, use some ropy old things...

I drive into Birmingham every day, and other than during rush hours I'd say it was one of the more civilised cities to get into and park, certainly not the nightmare an earlier poster says!

I recently went up to Aberdeen and took both their city buses and (I think) Stagecoach, both were fine, price middling, but I wanted a drink so no choice!

I agree that if you travel regularly a weekly or monthly is a bargain, but these "dayrangers" are as well if you make full use of them...

The "state" of the person next to you is probably the best argument for not using PT, and the reason people "spread out" when using trains and buses... "personal space" and all that... did you know that it also applies to lifts as well... next time you use a lift watch how everyone behaves... one into the far corner, one into the other corner, next into the left hand one and so on...!
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 08:51
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - b308
BTW the OP forgot the biggest plus to using PT... the ability to be able to sit back with a good book whilst someone else gets would up about the state of the traffic... not possible if you have a bad bus driver but fine on a train...
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 08:58
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - Pugugly
Dismal experience - I caught a bus home from town the other night, rickety old thing, bus driver wearing an iPod - three of us on it.......horrible experience.

13 quid for a taxi for the same route and 2.20 for the bus.....almost worth the difference. Mind you it was bang on time at each end of the journey.

Edited by Pugugly on 13/02/2010 at 08:59

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Sat 13 Feb 2010 09:01
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - b308
As far as I know using an ipod is against the Bus Company's rules, certainly is for driving a train... I'd report it if I were you.
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 11:22
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - Rattle
Yep they are not even allowed mobile phones to be switched on in the cab. They all have CCTV over the driver here too, and the CCTV even points at the road so if there wasn an accident it helps with evidence.
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 12:04
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - Bedhead

In Belfast the buses are a nightmare, the city buses "metro" are £1.40 at peak times and the longest journey is about a 4 mile radius from the city centre. Some of the buses are new double deckers and a mixture of single deckers going right back to the early 1990's, in times of "tension" they have been know to wheel out old 1980's buses!

The drivers are a nightmare, most haven't got a clue how to drive smoothly and the standard mirror-signal-manoeuvre has been replaced with manoeuvre-signal- hit horn and give "V" sign.

Worse still is that they have been known to hit parked vehicles and drive on, I've seen this twice with my own eyes, the first driver denyed everything when I caught up with him, despite leaving a big pink mark on the car he hit, the second just said "Phone the depot, I'm late enough".

If the management try to discipline a driver, they walk out en masse, which is no bad thing because the last time the buses were off the road and the bus lanes given back to all traffic for the day, it was the easiest journey to work I've ever had in the car.
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 12:14
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - mike hannon
When we lived in the UK (Dorset) we used the bus regularly and found it reasonably priced, reliable and acceptably pleasant. That was the Firstbus Portland/Weymouth route that used up-to-date Volvos that even knelt down for old folk and mums with pushchairs. In my opinion it beat an often unreliable taxi service that eventually cost 16 quid-odd (plus tip!) for the return trip of 4.5 miles each way.
That was seven or eight years ago so it may be different now, of course.
Three years ago we were staying in south London and commuting by whatever they call London Transport now. We found it cheap, reliable and friendly. We hadn't realised until then what an interesting place Brixton is...
Just as an aside, you can travel from the Italian border at Menton on the Mediterranean coast, via Casino Square in Monaco and the Cote d'Azur all the way to Nice - or anywhere in between - in an air-conditioned bus with coach seats and pleasant muzak for one euro or a little more each way. The journey takes an hour or so and no-one in their right mind would travel any other way.

Edited by mike hannon on 13/02/2010 at 12:16

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Sat 13 Feb 2010 13:40
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - Bromptonaut
This dormitory village of 3500 souls has just an hourly service comprising a call on the Daventry to Northampton route. Stagecoach run (mostly) modern low floor buses and the £5 return fare is cheaper than parking at the station.

If it ran three times an hour and after 6pm I'd be able to get rid of one of the cars.

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Sat 13 Feb 2010 15:31
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - notathletic
The "state" of the person next to you is probably the best argument for not
using PT and the reason people "spread out" when using trains and buses... "personal space"


The other way round this is, as a passenger approaches you grin widely at them and pat the empty seat next to you. Guaranteed to ensure that they scuttle past you.
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 15:36
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - b308
What do you do if they sit down next to you then.... ;)
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 15:58
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - notathletic
What do you do if they sit down next to you then.... ;)



Then you've got a friend for life who will always wave and shout to you across a busy street (but don't expect a Christmas card off them though).
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 16:30
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - Sofa Spud
QUOTE:...""The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah!""

Wouldn't a bus be a bit difficult to park in your drive or in a normal parking space? Certainly it wouldn't fit in a domestic garage. Also it would take much longer to clean and polish on a Sunday morning.

Edited by Sofa Spud on 13/02/2010 at 16:32

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Sat 13 Feb 2010 16:34
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - freddy1
think of all the legroom in the back!
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 17:01
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - oldpostie
I try to use the bus if I can, now that I have an over 60s bus pass. The buses are expensive and I would use the car if I did not have a pass. The downside is that you sometimes have an unexpected walk or long wait. This is East Northants, and our service is fairly reliable. The car is more reliable, and does not involve standing at a bus stop in the cold, or having to arrive five minutes early because drivers won't wait if they are early.
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 17:21
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - freddy1
3 yrs to wait? I,m 57 now , oh I do hope the bus service improves ?


been on 3 buses in the last 35 yrs ,

baa humbug last time i was on one , there was a thing to strike your matches on , on the back of the seat infront ,,


don,t suppose ,,,,
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 17:48
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - David Horn
I used to be able to walk the 4 miles into Leeds faster than the bus could get me there on a weekday morning.
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 17:56
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - freddy1
walking is for donkeys*** , this IS a motoring forum after all?

*** unless you owned a metro
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 18:19
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - old crocks
By walking I'm keeping my car off the road, being selfless and helping others to enjoy their motoring. :-))
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Sun 14 Feb 2010 03:42
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - Rattle
I complety agree with you but I have two cars out there, one with a failed head gasket and one that drives by its self. In this weather both cars are more appealing than walking but my idea of walking to a job is a job that is 4 miles away :)

I usually walk at least 2-3 miles a day :) On average I probably drive 10 miles a day. When I do use public transport it is only for long distances (e.g 20 miles), any where north of the city, or into the city centre.
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 18:27
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - spikeyhead {p}
I'm using buses very regularly whilst living in the Netherlands. £2.20 return into town isn't bad, cheaper than parking a car for an hour. If the backstreets weren't as icy I'd cycle more, however especially for the evening journeys to the pub I'd rather not be cycling on ice and packed snow after a few beers.
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 18:45
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - kenny'n'deb
Locally (Yorks) the bus service into town (about 2.5 miles) costs about £1.50 return. Alternatively driving in costs less than £1 in parking plus negligible fuel cost - and I'm paying tax and insurance whether the car is used or not. Plus there's a limit to what you can carry on the bus.

Working in London I prefer to use buses over the tube but they have a habit of chucking the passengers off as soon as the bus gets behind schedule. The bus turns about and goes back over the route. This has happened to me a dozen times over the course of a few months and means that passengers are dumped off waiting for another following bus which - surprise - is running late and has also been turned round. Result - take a taxi.
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Sun 14 Feb 2010 12:38
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - mike hannon
>baa humbug last time i was on one , there was a thing to strike your matches on , on the back of the seat infront <

Wasn't that called a 'stubber'? Well it was on Western National anyway. Not that I ever used one - which is why I can now afford (should I choose) not to catch the bus...
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Sat 13 Feb 2010 19:09
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - JH
Well we have 4 buses per day, at two hour intervals, in one direction and another four in t'other direction. Nothing on Sunday. You can't leave the village after 6, not if you want to get back anyway.

On a recent visit to North Yorks we took the bus and walked back along the coastal path. I had a fiver in my hand for the journey of about 3 - 4 miles. I needed quite a bit more. I think it was about £3.80 each, one way!

JH
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Sun 14 Feb 2010 10:04
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - JH
and don't try getting on if you've bought a can of paint. I wonder what else is on the banned list?

tinyurl.com/ybohosg

JH
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Sun 14 Feb 2010 12:33
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - Badwolf
and don't try getting on if you've bought a can of paint. I wonder what
else is on the banned list?


I think that that's fair enough, actually. I once had someone spill a can of paint all over the floor and seats of the bus I was driving. Naturally the bus had to come out of service to be cleaned which meant that all the passengers waiting further up the road had to wait an extra hour for a bus. Hardly fair on them, is it? And I think that the gentleman needs to take a reality check if he seriously feels that 'his human rights have been violated'.

I once had someone who wanted to get on with the jerry can full of petrol, minus a lid. He really couldn't understand why I wouldn't let him on.
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Sun 14 Feb 2010 12:45
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - ifithelps
...tin of paint on a bus...

With that sort of story you never know what the guy said to the driver.

He might have become instantly indignant, rude, sarcastic, or all three.

Might not, of course.

Were I in that situation, I like to think speaking to the driver pleasantly would resolve the situation.

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Sun 14 Feb 2010 13:22
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - DP
There's nothing wrong, in principle, with the bus/tram/train as an alternative to the car. The problem is, in this country, on the whole they are appallingly run.

I have been in Germany, France and the Netherlands for up to a couple of weeks at a time on business with no car, and have had no issue getting from A to B conveniently, relatively cheaply, and comfortably. In Hannover for example, the tram system is superb. It runs 24 hours a day, is clean, safe, punctual, reliable, and the routes actually go where you need to go. I was there for two weeks, and not once did I miss having a car.

Here with competing operators, an overcomplex and disjointed ticketing system, poor punctuality and reliability, creaking, ancient fleets, and uncompetitive pricing, public transport is a whole different proposition.

I know there are isolated systems which work well here, particularly in the big cities, but as a whole, the public transport infrastructure in the UK is appalling.

Edited by DP on 14/02/2010 at 13:22

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Sun 14 Feb 2010 15:57
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - Badwolf
>> Were I in that situation I like to think speaking to the driver pleasantly would
resolve the situation.


You'd be surprised how many people don't think to do that. Asking me nicely always get better results than telling me point blank, if you know what I mean? I'm a great believer in 'do as you would be done by'. If someone is nice to me then I will do my utmost to help them. If they are unpleasant then I will do what I have to do and no more.
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Sun 14 Feb 2010 15:49
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - JH
B,
"a jerry can full of petrol, minus a lid" - yes, I'll believe that. There are some odd folks around. At least he wasn't smoking! :-)

I must admit, if it had been me, it would probably not have occured to me that it may be a problem, but if it had I would have been "discrete" and careful. I remember my mother getting out of the car and dropping one of two cans of paint she was carrying. By some miracle it all hit the road, none on her or the car. The lilac paint (well it was the 60s!) was still on the road many years later when it was resurfaced. Good stuff. Valspar I think.

JH
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Sun 14 Feb 2010 16:21
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - freddy1
There are some odd folks around. At least he wasn't smoking! :


smoking on a bus!


(upstairs please!)
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Mon 15 Feb 2010 10:00
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - BrummyC5
Birmingham public transport:

If you go out midweek in birmingham, you won't get a bus from the city centre between midnight and 5am. If you are traveling on your own you will pay for a taxi or have to walk. Black cabs are approximately £25 to where I live and a private hire roughly £9-£10 (Only about 4 miles from the centre). I may be being unduly cynical here but I wouldn't be surprised if the Taxi Lobby are quite happy with the poor quality and security of public transport in Birmingham.

Almost every bus on the Coventry Road has had its windows "engraved" with "artisitic" tags. (This is the same road that Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Boris Yeltsin, Romano Prodi, Jean Luc Chretien and the other leaders of the G8 drove along from the airport when they met in Birmingham)

Parents sending their children to schools more distant than the local school tend to pay to for privately run or special services to try and guarantee some security.

My wife and daughter use the bus daily, at rush hour when you would expect a good service, and have been let down numerous times.

I would be happy to use public transport if it was safe and reliable. Lets have public transport run by government with better security.
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Mon 15 Feb 2010 14:06
The bus as an alternative to the car -- pah! - b308
And who is going to pay for this service? Also where is it so dangerous... I've read more stories of people getting robbed or attacked in minicabs than on PT...

The days of providing a service no matter what the cost have long gone, whether privately or publically run...

The main issue with PT is that people have to plan their movements to its timetables, the problem is that most people won't, they want it there and then, not in 10, 20 or 30 minutes time... and they want the PT to turn up at frequent intervals despite the fact that there would not be the demand for it (the village of 3500 souls earlier)... and finally they want it cheap... really cheap... but they don't want to pay the cost of providing such a service...

Trouble now is that people's expectations are far higher than PT would ever be able to provide, certainly not without unlimited funds... a car is so much more convenient and will remain so... the only cloud on the Motorists' horizon is that the Gov start to really punish the motorist in the way of sky high taxes forcing the increased use of PT, but I honestly can't see that happenning in the near future...



BTW DP, I entirely agree with you... so-ordination of the various forms of PT is something someone needs to get a grip on and quickly, though I'd say it was the Local Council's issue, rather than national Gov...
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