AIBU to think that the UK is unlikely to reduce fuel emissions until we sort out public transport?

[GHFan]

Because most people who have a choice won't choose mode of transport that is both unreliable and expensive. Which most public transport outside of London is. For example we visited my parents yesterday. Fairly easy drive of just over an hour each way. Had we gone by train, it would have cost £70 for the (two) tickets, taken 2 hours 20 each way and to get to the station taken at least another forty minutes and cost another £5 each (so £10) for a day pass. So that's an additional 4 hours travelling time altogether and an additional £50 cost. No one in their right mind would choose to do this.

Why are we fucking around with initiatives that make driving difficult instead of initiatives that make public transport cheaper and better?

But if people aren't paying the fares at the moment then how will it be funded? Direct investment from government and operating at a loss with the hope that one day more people will use it?

YANBU but there are plenty of obsessives who will say all cars should be banned immediately.

If I was to go get the bus into the nearest city right now with DH and four DC:

• adult return, £6.40 x2
• child return, £3.20 x4

so there's £25.60 before we've gone anywhere.

If we lived over the boundary line, that's operated by a different travel authority and I'd be able to get a family return ticket but even then that ticket is £16.

Its a 45 minute journey (more if there's traffic) on a noisy, smelly, usually crowded bus. They're frequently late, often dirty, and are always either boiling or freezing with nothing in-between, nowhere really to put shopping or bags other than at your feet so you're limited in what you can carry with you too.

If I go in the car it's a 15-20 minute drive and parking is roughly £5 for four hours.

But if people aren't paying the fares at the moment then how will it be funded? Direct investment from government and operating at a loss with the hope that one day more people will use it?

Our local bus company is owned by an investment company that made €5.3 billion in revenue last year. They can afford to invest but choose not to.

Exactly. Your man who owns First Buses isn't short of a bob or two. Didn't he buy a load of billboards so he could tell everyone his hot take on politics a few years back? And all the rail operators already get tonnes of government money, and also aren't running at anywhere near a loss, even during pandemic. There's plenty of money. Money isn't the problem. It's more that public transport is just really terrible and expensive.