To think there's no point in complaining at people about the environment when the trains are ridiculously priced?

[NoHolidaysforyou]

I'm oldish and I'm going back to uni to be a nurse. This is great but the uni that has accepted me is 30 odd miles away.

I am in my 30s and will not qualify for a rail discount. I will get a maintenance loan but the commute on a train would take more than half of it (£280 per month for a season ticket). Luckily I do not need the maintenance loan to pay the mortgage or anything, just to pay for the remainder of childcare and my commute.

I would love to take the train but £280 per month for a 50 minute journey is ridiculous. Why are people trying to make others feel bad about grocery bags and kids when we haven't even got the biggest fundamental of rail down?

I will have to get a car. It will be so much cheaper to drive than take the train. I will be able to afford a car payment, tax, insurance, petrol and childcare with my maintenance loan. That's it. For me to buy and maintain a car, is the way forward and I couldn't do childcare as well as a season ticket on the train financially. It's the worst option for the environment though.

I just don't get it, I feel like a lot of these arguments made for being green are in bad faith (or for profit) if they don't make train prices the biggest focus. It's just asinine to me.

AIBU to think there's no point in complaining at people about the environment when the trains are ridiculously priced?

Trains usually are quite expensive, but £280 a month for a trip that is 30 miles each way does not sound that bad if you have to go in each day (which I suspect is not far from the truth for a nursing degree). That works out at around £7 per trip (two trips per day five times a week). If you were to drive the 30 miles each way, then it could easily cost £4 each way in petrol, then add on the cost of buying, insuring, taxing, and maintaining the car. The train might well be cheaper overall.

Its the whole bloody complicated fare system that seems so antiquated.

With careful planning and advance notice and travelling off peak you can get from Manchester to London for less than £100 return.

But if like lots of us sometimes you have tp travel short notice and you need to get there early expect to pay extortionate. I paid £392 day return to Croydon last week as I had an urgent meeting

I agree there does need to be more done to deal with public transport, particularly trains, in cost and accessibility. It is a bit ridiculous sometimes when people in the government or such going on about people doing their bit and doing so little about transport or other systemic issues that would have more of an impact.

I don't see how that means no one can bring up environmental issues at all though. Part of the reasons the environment is deteriorating is because of policies that make it cheaper to use a car (though would add some funds for repairs to that list of expenses) than to use public transport long distances.

YANBU. The trains are laughably overpriced!

When me and DH and 2 others wanted to go to Southampton (from up North Cheshire,) it was going to be £450 return in total.

450 fecking quid!

I cost us £55 in petrol!

These train prices should be outlawed.

Buses are just as bad. We live 10 miles from our closest city. The bus takes an hour (!) and costs £24 for a family of four there and back. Or, we can drive in half the time - to the exact location we would like to go, and pay a fiver or so to park. Why would we take the bus????

YANBU. The pricing means people will not choose the train, if they can even figure out the pricing system in the first place.

It's £35 one way for a 40 mile journey with one change.

If I was to drive 10 miles to the change it would cost £12.50 of a ticket for the remainder of the journey.

Yet I can pay £9 to get a separate ticket to the change therefore £21.50 for the whole journey ( takes about 45mins total on a local train that stops around 6 times OFF PEAk. Or I can put £15 in my car and get there and back in less time. Absolutely ridiculous.

The railways in this country are utterly appalling and the way they are run and managed is revolting.

But I don’t think that should be used as a get out of jail free card to not give a shit about the environment at all. You see this whataboutery a lot on MN - ‘Sandra from down the road isn’t a vegan, and the trains are expensive, so there’s no point in me walking 10 minutes to the shops instead of driving.’ There’s still plenty you can do in spite of the shocking train system.

I haven't RTFT, but I agree. The infrastructure is not in place to 'save the environment'. It's not going to happen. I'm sick of consumer guilt, when there aren't viable 'green' options for this society. You aren't going to keep a job if you are continuously late for work because you had to catch 3 buses which weren't on time. Average prents can't afford to clothe families in clothes made from natural fibres to avoid plastic microfibre shedding during washing.

I say this as a qualified and experienced Environmentalist, not someone who 'doesnt care'

Agreed. It costs £10 for myself and three DC to get the train to the nearest city, I definitely don’t pay that in fuel.

There's lots and lots of green campaigning that focuses on the need for the provision of affordable and effective public transport.
But plenty of people still use their car when they could find alternatives, with a little more effort.

If being more environmentally sustainable was easy, most people would already be doing it. We have to make some tough choices which are going to make us worse off, and most of them are vote losers (more expensive food & fuel, carbon rationing, energy switching, recycling etc) so no government will ever seriously implement them and most people won't take them up voluntarily, ergo we (and the environment as we know it) are screwed.
I'm feeling pessimistic today.

We regularly travel Bristol to Bolton and the variation in price is unbelievable, if we travel at stupid times (getting back at 2330) it's so much cheaper than the one back an hour earlier.

You will qualify for a 16-25 railcard as a full-time student, but for journeys before 10:00, there's a minimum spend of £12 (except in July and August). My card has been useful, but not for everyday use.

I qualify as a nurse this year. I've just bought a car this week, because getting the train to hospital adds more than an hour to my journey each way. I have to leave the house at 05:30 to get there in time for an 07:30 start. And I don't get home until 21:30.

It's eight miles away.

I agree about our poor rail system. No excuse for going half a mile in the car when you are able bodied, none for flying for a weekend away, none for avoiding locally grown food.

Petrol duty not increased in six years but train fares have been, which is wrong. Having the most incompetent minister as Transport Secretary does not show a desire to improve matters.

ihaventgottimeforthis there is a significant proportion of the population that will never make a less convenient/more sustainable choices, because they don't care. Not because they need educating. They just don't care about the natural world/environmental quality/longevity of humans etc. Our economy/society is capitalist. So, really it is surprising ANYONE cares. Capitalism relies on growth and individualism. Short terms gains, quick rewards.

A significant proportion of sustainable 'choices' are not choices at all for the majority of the population. They are for the priveleged. There is a disgusting number of children living in poverty in the UK, and WORKING parents relying on food banks. Single mums trying to cram in a days working hours between school runs, can't afford to wait for infrequent/unreliable/extortionate public transport. I cycle, I have always cycled. But, I don't blame anyone who doesn't want to risk their life on a bicycle on the roads in the uk

Plus, you have to balance the poor family of 5 who drive to work, with the middleclass do-gooders who cycle everywhere, but eat their body weight in avocados (water consumption of a small country) and take multiple foreign holidays every year

Totally agree. What I find massively annoying is the fact that you get exploited if you work part-time, or go into the office/workplace part-time. A season ticket is massively expensive, but there is no equivalent if you travel part-time and unless you only go in 1 or 2 days a week it is still cheaper to have a full time season ticket. Utter madness - for the passenger, not the rail company, obviously.

Unless a claim is made under the Equality Act as women are more likely to work part-time nothing will change.

The other thing that is ludicrous, if it is still the case, is tax relief. Years ago I had a job where you either got a free season ticket for a town centre car park or the equivalent towards a rail season ticket. I took the train option. The car park ticket was tax-deductible, the money for the rail ticket was not. Madness when you want people to use public transport because it is better for the environment. I also think season tickets should be tax deductible.

The trains are joke and buying a ticket online is so stressful and confusing 😣

Not quite the same, but, My teen daughter and I were quoted over £300 return from Bristol to Manchester, so we went with megabus and it was £42 return for both of us, ok, it was basic, but it had a toilet on board and air conditioning.

I normally side with the public transport option and living near work has always served me well, but YANBU. I have a nursing student in the family who would not be able to get to her placements by public transport (without adding extra layovers that the expenses would not pay for), and a nurse who can only work nights as public transport doesn't exist for the start of a day shift.

Perhaps car sharing would be possible?
Be prepared for the high parking charges though!

Plenty of point "going on" about the environment. Millions of our children and grandchildren are going to die because of it if we don't. Rather than feeling pointlessly guilty why not lobby your MP or vote on the basis of environmental policies? Politicians will only act when enpugh people demand change, moaning on here alone won't change anything.

Got to go to Lincolnshire from Southampton later this year. The train is £122 return with a few changes. Coach is £20 return one change. It takes about 30 minutes longer by coach, subject to traffic.

Agree trains are extortionate. Especially if you already have a car and for more than one person travelling together.

But for OP, I think you may be underestimating the cost of running a car. It's going to cost around 12-15 pence in fuel per mile. Plus there may be parking charges at the uni (or no parking available at all for students, as at my uni, meaning £5 a day in the multi storey).
Then you have buying the car, tax, insurance, servicing, MOT, breakdown cover, repairs, occasional parking fines etc. Cost wise there will probably not be much in it (although you might need the car for placements anyway)

we shouldn't have to rely on people caring for the environment, we should set things up so that they are incentivised to behave in ways that protect the environment and promote sustainable living

I don't think it's enough to just hope that people will do the right thing, generally speaking people respond to incentives, we need to make it in their interests to do the right thing

Forty journeys each month (fives days, times four weeks each month is twenty, plus return journey is forty) £280 dividend by 40 is £7 for each journey.
If £7 makes uni out of your price range, you need to re-evaluate. It’s nit a lot.