to think our local council's 'ditch the car' campaign would be far more successful

[freddiefrog]

if bus fares weren't so bloody expensive!

Our council are heavily advertising a campaign to leave your car behind and use public transport to do your Christmas shopping this year

Just looked up bus fares from my house to our local town (we live in a village, nearest town is about 7 miles away), DH has a couple of days off so we thought we'd go Christmas shopping, have a boozy lunch and a nice mooch around the shops

£4.50 each, each way so £18.00 for the 2 of us with a 10 minute walk to the nearest bus stop

You can't buy return tickets although it gets cheaper if you buy a weekly pass

Or, we can drive into town and park for less than half that, door to door without having to carry shopping

When you've got more than one person going in it is more than likely cheaper to use the car, even where bus fares are reasonable.

However, depending on how long you're likely to be there, it can be cheaper for one person to bus it than pay petrol and parking so maybe it's the single shopper who is their target audience.

Sorry. Missed off the YANBU.

I'd sack that bus idea freddie big time.

£18 for the bus!

YANBU, that price is ridiculous.

YANBU. I can't drive and I pay a small fortune on bus fares.

In our town they have a park and ride that the council wants everyone to use.

Funny thing is the councilors all get to park free of charge any day and all day right in the town centre 50 metres from the high street.

I dont have a car but town councils are just have so many contradictory attitudes on this issue. For example, they want less congestion in our town but if you have any large items you want to dispose of at the local tip you have to drive them there yourself or pay them £20 each item for them to pick up.

YANBU

Our local retail park lays on free buses to and from different towns over Christmas. That's good thinking IMO and I'm even considering giving it a go so that I don't get The Rage in the car parks. All advertised on a well thought out leaflet with a clear timetable. I love a bit of a good planning.

Our council's left hand never seems to know what its right hand is doing.

They should have some sort of discount or something, 2 for 1 or something. There needs to be some sort of incentive

That's crazy, don't they have a day ticket price? Round here a return ticket is a silly price but a day ticket is about £4.80 ish

The council should be encouraging people to spend their cash on the high street, not on getting into town.

They do, but their 24 hour rover is £9 each

It gets cheaper if you buy weekly passes

Wow, £18 to town and back for the both of you. I thought our bus fares were expensive at £2.00 one way, (so £8 all together for me and DH). YANBU! Our council have just reduced car parking fees in council run car parks, so it's now £4 to park all day, which is the same as bus fare.

Yanbu at all.

Where we are, about a mile from town but up a long hill, it's 90p each to get home which is a 3 minute bus ride - that includes my 5yo.

But that bus goes once an hour or less.

If you get the other bus, which is the hospital shuttle, it's £1.30 each, single fare, so £3.90 to get to the opposite end of our road and still have to walk.

It's all very well encouraging people to leave their cars at home but when you cannot, literally cannot walk it, for any reason, you're kind of stuffed or you have to use the car.

Gotta pay for all that free bus travel for over-60s no matter if they need it or not somehow.

At least your Council didn't decide, with no real consultation of the populace or the shops, to reroute all of the city centre streets, including adding an absolutely ridiculous bus lane that no cars are allowed to use, not even taxis or HOVs.

It's so badly done that businesses might actually have to close because their sales have gone down so much as no one wants to drive to city centre and, while they aren't expensive, our bus routes aren't convenient for many many people. I belong to the FSB and the shouting at our last meeting about this issue was not pretty.

Belfast City Council: turning City Centre into a ghost town since 1990.

And what ExPat said. Why give free passes to people who don't want them or need them, like my inlaws who drive everywhere?

All councils seem to want to encourage use of public transport. However, they do not explain how they would cope with the loss of revenue and damage to the economy if a large proportion of people actually got rid of their cars and only used public transport.

The economy relies on revenue from cars- road tax, revenue on petrol,MOT costs, parking costs. Industries are built around selling car insurance & petrol, garages, repair shops, re-sprays, road building & maintenance- cars and everything to do with them are big business. Where would all those people employed in those sectors work if we all did get rid of our cars? They can't all re-train as bus drivers!

Therefore councils are very keen to encourage more journeys by public transport, without actually wanting to make it economical enough to make people dump their cars as this would hit the economy hard.

Those free bus passes are a major issue, but no political party seems interested in anything that might be construed as being negative towards older people

I used to lose an entire day's wages per week paying for my his pass.

Yeah, because 60s really old. It's pure crap! Means-testing them is easy, they have to go into the office to get the pass, anyhow, and bring ID. So bring in proof of qualifying benefit - pension tax credit, disability living allowance, etc. - and get a pass if you're over 65. Otherwise, pony up like everyone else!

I agree,

we NEED to use the bus as we don't drive, before we've even bought anything it costs us £10 to go anywhere :(

and the buses are filthy and stink.

Belfast buses actually aren't too bad, although most of the drivers are mean and rude.

But I do think it's crazy that 60 = free bus. My father in law wouldn't be caught dead on a bus. And my mother in law gets DLA but still doesn't use the bus!

YANBU
We don't have any busses anyway, but £9 each!

The only public transport I ever use is the train, because into our nearest city it's a subsidised commuter line and the fare pretty much equals the parking never mind £10 worth of fuel and the stress of driving there.

Trains to London, however are silly and it's cheaper to drive, certainly it there is more than one of you.