To think that no-one will choose to swap cars for public transport when it's still easier / cheaper / faster to drive?

[BogstandardBelle]

Since starting a new job 18 months ago I have used public transport to get there and back 3 days a week. I leave my house, walk 10 minutes to the metro, spend around 20 minutes on the metro with one change in between, then walk around 15 minutes at the other end to arrive at work. I always assumed that (living in a big busy city) it was cheaper and easier to travel this way and never really considered driving.

This morning I needed to take some heavy bags into work, so I decided to drive. I left around 15 minutes later than usual and still arrived at the same time! And I didn't need to walk anywhere or share my space with hundreds of coughing / sneezing / inconsiderate / odd people en route. The cost was negligible compared to the 64 euros I spend each month on a metro ticket.

I'm really disappointed! I know that the exercise is good for me, and god knows the air pollution problem in my city doesn't need yet another single occupancy, short distance car journey being added to it. But it was so much easier / more pleasant than using public transport... and now I know how easy it was, there's going to be a little voice saying "just take the car...".

So it is unreasonable to expect people to give up their cars when public transport is actually more expensive, less convenient and overall harder work than driving? I used to think that all the motorists clogging up the roads / causing the pollution were BU, but now I'm not so sure.

Horses for course, FIL/MIL live 300km away, we can drive there and back (takes around 5 hrs each way) and costs around US$ 150 with petrol/tolls round trip.

Or we can grab a bus to the metro/metro to the train stn, intercity train it, metro from train stn to their place and walk the last 5 mins. Takes around 3.5hr total and is US$ 200 round trip - for two people. Bit of a no-brainer really, that US $ 50 would probably be used by us for coffee/cake in a service station. But for me the remarkable thing is we can use well interconnected public transport for 300km (bus/metro/intercity train/metro) and only have to walk 200m at each end. Cracking service.

It's almost always going to be easier and faster to drive, Tbh.

But many of the price comparisons on here are just comparing the fuel cost. The government thinks 45p per mile is a reasonable assessment of the cost per mile to drive, which takes into amount the cost of the car, repairs, insurance etc. That's a more reasonable comparison for most cars on here I would guess, than just the fuel cost.

For my job being a car driver is classed as esstential - involves home visits and often lugging heavy expensive equipment around. And we cover 3 counties - one of which is big and largely rural.

I clocked 160 miles yesterday and about 4 and a half hours driving. Google reckons I could have done it on public transport in about 12 hours.

I’m disabled and lots of places I want to go don’t have accessible stations. The ones that do often have a lift out of service or unmanned stations. I have to phone a station in advance to have somebody around to have a ramp available but it doesn’t always work out. Buses only have room for one wheelchair which can be full up and they are uncomfortable.

In comparison, my car is always available, it’s comfortable and I have a blue badge so parking is never going to be a problem. I will never use public transport again because if I can’t drive or get a taxi/lift I won’t go.

I do think though if i just had to travel to my base and i stayed there all day then i would look at public transport. It would mean a walk, bus, train, tram and then reversed back.

For me its the driving around for work that scuppers me. And the equipment.

The issue is that as car drivers we don't have to pay for the external negative effects of our choices - yes we pay some extra tax but not near enough to cover the impact of pollution, of congestion, of the amount of land spent to provide parking for the huge majority of cars that are not in use for most of the week.

If all of these were priced in to car ownership and journeys - and public transport was then subsidised appropriately - there would be far more public options available, with more routes, more frequency and fewer traffic jams, and it would all make a bit more sense.

I didn’t get a car until my 40s. I tried with public transport for years but realised I was wasting my time.
Lots of places I need to go require 3 different buses. I assume whomever does the routes doesn’t use buses themselves.
Often this means 2 different bus companies so you can’t have day tickets etc.
I’d love to teach DC to use public transport but where I live it is just a fortune and impractical.
I can park in town on a Sunday for a few pounds, or pay £4.50 for a unreliable bus. If there is 2 of you it’s economically unviable.

My journey to work by car takes 15 mins, if I went by public transport it would be 2 buses, 15 min walking and about an hour in total on the buses.

My dp goes by bus as he works in the town centre - there’s a very long main road that runs from our area straight through the centre. Less than 10 min drive. There’s atleast 3 bus services that go from here to town and not one goes directly down this road, even though there’s bus stops every few meters.

Although I don't like the cost of the buses in my area, it's the ridiculous changes to timetables that makes my blood boil.

When we first moved to this area, about 15 years ago, there were two bus services going to two separate towns. The first has remained pretty static, the odd 10 or 15 minute change in time table. Two buses an hour. So if you work in that town (about a hour on the bus), you're OK.

The second town's buses are run by a different company (both are big bus companies). They run a bus on one route to collect passengers from one set of villages, then a different route to collect a different set of village residents. What they used to do was one bus an hour on each route. So you'd have bus A calling at little village etc and bus B calling at tiny village etc. At the beginning of the line - the main village/small town, this meant you'd have an half hourly service similar to the bus to the other major town.

So far this past year they've:

Changed the timings of routes so that the buses alternate their hours. So if you're in the main village/small town at the start of the timetable you still have one bus an hour. If you're in one of the villages on either route though, your bus timetable is reduced to one bus every two hours - as bus A now goes two hourly and bus B does the hour in between.

The first bus in the morning now leaves at 7.15am. Gets you into the major town at about 8am. But that only calls on route A. If you live on route B you have no bus. The next one leaving from the main village is now at 9.15am. It's the first bus on route B. So if you live in the main village/small town and need to be at work at 9am ish you've either got to get into work about 8am or not get in until 10am. If you live on route B you're stuffed. Same for the kids going to the local college which is in the main town.

We also used to have a little run around bus that started from the major town and ran to our local cinema complex. It was great - 10 minute intervals between buses. You could get the kids on the bus, change in the major town and they had their independence.

But, of course, despite this being packed with customers at certain times in the day (it ran to local shops and estates too plus the large business park on the route), they've dropped it.

Now the only bus runs every hour (assuming it's not held up as it has an hour plus journey before it gets to the major town). And it doesn't run after 7pm (the little bus ran until 10.30pm) - so having a cinema night after work is now out as you can't get back to the major town unless you get a cab. And the bus doesn't run on Sundays!

And apparently that's an acceptable service.

We have almost 1000 new homes being built in our area. I can't imagine the road chaos when all those people need to travel and start using cars because the bus network is crap.

We went on holiday to Devon last year and in a little museum there was a railway exhibition. It listed all the little rail stations that had been closed. The town we were in used to have a railway that went straight through to London. They closed it. Put on a bus service connecting to the next town. That eventually closed. Now the nearest railway is miles away and the buses from the town we were in were patchy As the exhibition said 'and they call that progress...'

I agree about the comparative cost and the fact that car drivers don't pay a representative cost for the pollution etc

BUT just making it more and more expensive to drive won't help. What does anyone actually think I should do to reduce my reliance on my car? Seriously? I'd be happy to use public transport if it was possible but it genuinely isn't in this area.

If I am in town I cycle to our local station and then jump on a train - it takes 65 minutes door to desk and the same on the way back. I have free city centre parking but choose to use public transport because the same journey by car can take anywhere between 50 minutes or 3 hours dependent on traffic conditions. The other advantage of public transport is that I can read papers, make phone calls, respond to emails so it means that I start work 20 minutes after leaving home if I need to saving staying late in the office or logging in when I get home. The cycling element means I get my exercise without having to find time for it.

If I had to use a bus / train combination I would lose the will to live because the bus arrives at the station 3 minutes after the train leaves and 1 minute before the train arrives on the way back. This timetabling means it adds 3 hours to my commute (and £5 per day)

And YES to the train lines being closed. Our tiny village used to have a station from which you could get direct trains to various towns and one major city. It closed in 1959 and the old track is now a cycle path. If that line still existed we would use it probably daily, and my older child would have a choice of two decent art colleges instead of the shitty local FE college she has to go to because it's the only one with a bus service. It would open up so much opportunity for people here, and definitely reduce reliance on cars. But nope. Instead billions is going into making it 10 minutes faster to travel between London and Manchester, like anyone gives a fuck about that? Why not make it easier for people to visit their granny 2 villages over, or to go to college in their nearest city - that's where the changes are needed!

The single thing for me that would make public transport more attractive is being able to take my bike. We have a train and tram stop where we live but they're a 30 minute walk away, add in the 20 minute walk at the other end and the journey takes an hour 10 - in the car it would be between 30 and 45 mins depending on traffic. Being able to bike the bits I'd currently have to walk would make a big difference.

What does anyone actually think I should do to reduce my reliance on my car?

Improve the integration of services - buses, trains and trams all timetabled to work together.

Bike racks on trains - and being able to put bikes on trains without pre-booking

Secure bike parks

Better services at transport hubs - well lit, secure, undercover and with toilets

Integrated payment - like in London where you can change your journey half way through without having to buy an entirely new ticket. With capped daily payment

Cleaner trains & buses

More frequent services

Subsidy for services - divert part of the road building budget.

Change in attitude from them and us - especially between drivers and cyclists. Not all drivers are aresholes and not all cyclists are angels or vice versa depending on your chosen method of transport. This would encourage more people to cycle as a transport method as it would be safer.

The problem with public transport here is that it can involve multiple changes and is expensive. There is also the issue of reliability, buses are sometimes really late or don’t turn up at all. Trains are overcrowded and frequently cancelled. I have to use public transport as I can’t drive due to medical reasons and it is awful. I have to pay £6 for the train a day because when I used to get the bus I was late frequently and I couldn’t get an earlier one as first bus was 6.30am.

My DH now walks 45 minutes to work because the first bus often didn’t come at all. They have now cancelled the bus he used to get as it was not used enough to justify it - I wonder why

I agree Soulrider

I use my electric bike because I struggle to walk - so getting a train means my final destination must be close by where I get off - even London is difficult because of the walking on the underground

I've worked out I can cycle to my aunties in london....once I get the train to stratford

But they are reducing the number of bikes on trains

I also think better town planning. Large housing estates in the middle of nowhere with no amenities or nearby train station or decent bus routes are inevitably going to increase traffic on the roads.

My car is a safe place for me. Sometimes I go there to meditate. I couldn’t cope with having to use public transport, maybe one day I will

My car keys will have to be prised from my cold dead hands.

I will always drive if it's an option. I detest public transport. My car is clean, only has me in it, it has air con and heating. Delays are generally less. I obviously have a seat.

I don't pay road tax, insurance, parking permits, for Mots, and breakdown cover so my car can sit outside my house unused.

I know it has an environmental impact but I try to offset this in every other aspect of my life.

God yes barbedbloom!!

My local station has secure bike storage

But they gave all the key fobs away 10 years ago, have no process for regaining them and virtually no-one uses it and all the bikes are piled haphazardly outside (at risk of weather/theft)

The issue is private car motoring is being subsidised and the cost of public transport is rising

If you track back to 1983 a packet of cigarettes and a gallon of petrol we’re about the same price.

If a litre of petrol had risen at the same rate as a packet of cigarettes it would cost £2.22 but fuel has been frozen since around 2010

Not really a fair comparison, and certainly not showing that cars are "subsidised". Both these items have had extra tax added over and above other items. For a pack of cigarettes that tax burden in 2017 was £6.98 on a pack costing £8.50, so approximately 85%. Tax burden on petrol is "only" around 50% of the cost. Tax rates on almost everything else we use are VAT at 20% or 5%, excluding necessities such as food. Services are at the 20% VAT rate.

Public transport in London gets 31% of it's income as a grant from the Government, plus is partially funded by the congestion charge which is an addition onto motoring costs.

@Unescorted - I agree with everything you've mentioned. But none of that is anything I can do. I'm a single parent with a child with additional needs and a difficult teenager and I work as well. All I can do is add my voice to those asking for change and use my vote wisely when I am offered a chance to! I can't make public transport better, much as I wish it was. I can't integrate a transport system, or renationalise it or any of the stuff that would make a difference.

It's not fair for people to point the finger at the individual car users. Mostly, they're doing the best they can and don't have much option but to use their car.

I mean I'd vote for someone who made it a central pledge to do all that. Show me that person though?

Anyway, I'm vegetarian (about 60% vegan in fact).

That probably offsets my driving according to lots of studies.

Ha! I realised that when I pressed post. Only the last one is something you can directly change. However you can ask your MP and local councillors to prioritise them when they are looking at transport budgets.