To think that something has gone seriously wrong with our public transport policy if despite high petrol prices its now cheaper for me to drive to work?

[headfairy]

Last week I was on a course so didn't have to go up to town and I'm probably coming to these train fare rises a bit late.... My single train fare is now more expensive than driving to and from work (I get my transport home paid for as I usually finish work after midnight)

Thats got to be all wrong hasn't it? If only from an environmental point of view.

YANBU. DS1 goes to school 1.5 miles away. DS2 goes to preschool 2 mornings a week a further 1/2 a mile away. A weekly bus ticket for me and ds1 costs £31 a week. When it goes up next week we will have to walk.

In Japan, one reason the vast majority of people use public transport, apart from the fact that it is fast and reliable, is that in order to register a car you have to have a registered car parking space. The police come round and measure your garage or parking space to check it exists and is big enough for your model of car before you can actually get a car. Only a minority of houses and flats in Tokyo come with a parking space, so most people have to rent one, at around £250-£400 a month, depending on the area.

There is no free on- street parking in Tokyo (and most urban areas in Japan) so as well as having to have a designated parking space at home, you need to budget for parking at your destination too. That has made public transport a much better option for most people, and of course the more people use it, the cheaper it becomes, and the easier it is to justify investments in improvements. Unfortunately in the UK the feedback-cycle is working the other way - ticket prices are going up, which puts people off (unless they really have no choice, like commuters to central London), and so prices rise more and the service gets worse.

But I can just imagine the outrage if anyone dared to propose a Japanese style approach to paying for parking here, so that is just not going to happen.

How much do you want for your Ka Charmingly? I'll give you a monkey for it

Seriously!

Northern - I actually told DP I'd love a monkey after DSis sent me .

Arf!

Nope YANBU. The total cost of us having a car - petrol/tax/mot/insurance/wear and tear, is still cheaper than the 4 bus passes I would have to buy to get DH to work and me and the dds to school. I's ridiculous! It would cost nearly £25 a week in bus passes just for my 2 dds to get to school, add on to that my bus pass (as they're 8 and 5 so I obviously have to with them), and DH's pass to get to work it would be almost £60 A WEEK! We're actually saving money by having a car.

sugarpaste that's a very valid point you've raised there too... we might argue the toss about the depreciation costs etc associated with driving, but does anyone estimate the economic cost of doubling people's journey time to work? My drive to work is 50 mins door to door, train journey door to door is 90 mins.

Someone much cleverer than me recently worked out the cost to the economy of our poor transport infrastructure, and I think it amounted to billions of lost revenue a year, one huge reason why our economy is still dragging it's heels while for example the German economy has grown faster (Euro crisis notwithstanding)

So before deciding to buy our second car I sat down and worked out my total public transport costs and the complete costs of running a second car (I used the total cost of my car, I didn't subtract it's resale value so in fact overestimated the cost). It costs me six pence per week more to run my car but it saves me between five hours at worst and seven and a half hours at best travel time a week - that's an extra day!! So if I actually attached a monetary value to my time I would be saving a huge amount.

That is a travesty of the cost of public transport. Not just the train but the tube and bus services that I use as well.

To get the bus to my hospital appointment is a round trip of 2 hours and twenty minutes. By car it would be 25 mins.
I work for myself and charge for my service by the hour, so my time really is money.
I am really angry at my local authority allowing buses to be privatised and then run into the ground.
It is insane that so many people who do not want a car are forced to get one because of circumstances such as these.

I prefer the bus and train but train fares are ridiculous. And my poor health means I cant plan and buy weeks in advance for the cheap tickets. Geting to London is £40 return now with a railcard. If we all went it would be hundreds. So we dont travel anywhere.
I dont understand why fares are so high. And bus fares! £5 a day for ds to get to school. Its 5 miles, not on the moon.

And dont get me started about the 2 wheelchair spaces being at opposite ends of the train.

So how does Europe manage decent clean trains and much lower fares. I was looking at the train fare to Venice the other week. Cheaper than getting some places in the UK

£2.50 minimum fare on the bus here. YANBU.

It's not just the cost, although that is bad. It's also not the fact that it's unreliable, although that is also a factor. For me the major drawback is that the buses round here are dirty and smell very stale while the trains are incredibly overcrowded which makes them unpleasant to travel on. Over the last 5 years I have complained to our local bus company 3 times, once about a rude driver, once about crawling insects on the seats and once when the bus ran over a cat and failed to stop ; I have never had the courtesy of any reply or acknowledgement

I have also, on occasion, seen very poor behaviour and horribly bad language from other passengers to which I prefer my family not to be subjected.

I would like to use public transport in theory but, in practice, no.

kal I don't want to get all political on a thread which is turning in to a jolly nice place to vent spleen about our collective travelling woes, but I blame the thoroughly botched privatisation of the rail network... Separating rail infrastructure and train operators was a big mistake, plus as one train operator runs one line, there's no real competition, so the benefits of a free Market (lower fares, higher performance) don't happen.

I run a car anyway so I suspect occasional long journeys don't add that much to my maintainence and tyre bills. Our horribly rough unrepaired lanes see to that.
Nearest city is cheaper by train, because it's a subsidised route and car parking for a day is such a rip off.
I've priced a day trip to London and it's a joke. It's pointless unless you use a "peak time" train, and to do that you need to take out a second mortgage.

peak time is beyond a joke. The price jumps to £160 then. For 90 minutes hire of a small seat. I could stay in a hotel and get room service for that!

Quite apart from the unreliability, cost and inconvenience of public transport, it can only work for the commuter if they are travelling during 'normal hours' and from a town / city to a town / city.

For anyone who works unsocial hours, lives (or works) in a rural area or has to travel as part of their job, the only answer is the car.

I drive to work. This means I am out of the house of the house for 7 hours.

If I catch the bus (no trains here) I would be out of the house for 11 hours.

It is a 16 mile journey.

Let get involved