Buses are too expensive

[MrsCremuel]

From my house to town it’s a 25min walk with a baby and toddler so I tend to drive. I’ve been trying to cut out local journeys and either walk or take the bus but Jesus, it’s expensive. For a 10min bus journey return it’s £6. For two hours parking in town it’s £3.50 plus fuel plus a lot less inconvenience.

Where is the incentive for drivers to take the bus? AIBU to think how are we going to help tackle climate changes when fares are so expensive and we are just relying in people to make the ethical choice?

Yep it's stupidly expensive and always going up. I don't drive but walk my ridiculously long work commute mainly for this reason.

That's expensive. Ours is £6.20 ret (well one day pass) but it's 9 miles

Where I live it's a £6.90 return to town, either a 20 minute journey or a 50 minute journey depending on whether we go to the small town or the city. Children's fare is 50% of the adult fare. If I was to get the bus with DH and the DC it would cost us £27.60 before we've even gone anywhere.

I agree, when I lived in London it was much quicker, cheaper and more convenient to take a bus rather than drive anywhere, now I live in a northern city and its the opposite - if I want to go into the city centre it's quicker and cheaper for me to take the car and pay for parking than it is for me to catch the bus.

Yep, my son has to pay either a £6 "day rider" ticket if he's doing 2 different journeys (or more as it's unlimited) or a whopping £4 return fare for just a 5 minute journey to the nearest supermarket a couple of miles away, and that's reduced student rates. They've just gone up last month.

Next term he's taking the car!

It is stupidly expensive. I was out with my two teenage daughters and it started to rain so we jumped on the bus. To travel just over a mile cost £18 !!!!!!. Uber for me in future.

I agree. I could get public transport to work, most of the time (I work sometimee work shifts) but it is approx £22 return a day (so much more than my overall car expenses) using a variety of transport methods and would take me 90 mins (longer if I walked some of it to cut costs) to be sure I'd make it on time, rather than leaving half an hour before I start work. I don't live in the sticks, public transport options where I live are very good, but just completely impractical and too expensive for me to consider for anything other than a one off.

The pricing structure is crazy. It's only "cheap" for longer journeys and multiple journeys (i.e. day riders). Prohibitively expensive for short one-off journeys. They need to start providing incentives for people to do short journeys, of say, just a mile or two, or, say, up to 5 stops, just to fill the otherwise empty buses, especially outside the usually busier town centres. I live a mile from work, takes 20 minutes, just 3 stops. I usually walk. On rainy days, or when I'm carrying a heavy bag (laptops, files etc), I often look at the virtually empty bus as it passes me and wonder why they're so stupid as to not offer a "short" journey ticket as I'd happily pay a pound or two, but not the £4 that they'd charge, for barely enough time to sit down before it's time to stand again. I understand it if the buses were full, but most of the times, there's never more than a handful of people on it - I presume it fills up as it gets closer to the town centre.

Agreed. I'm
Also a 25 min walk into town or £2.40 bus fare. I usually walk but if I do t the on street parking is cheaper than return ticket.

Yes, I agree.

It costs £4.25 each way to our nearest main town which is about 4.5 miles away. They don’t do returns so it’s £8.50 each.

They’ve also main parking a massive ball ache and you can’t park for more than 2 hours in an effort to get more people on the bus.

All that’s happened is, no one bothers and the town is now dying a slow death.

Even little local journeys are ridiculous. I was out in our nearest town on Saturday night. Bit pissed so couldn’t be arsed to walk up the massive hill home. Went to get a cab but none on the tank so hopped on the bus. £2.75 each for a journey that normally costs £4.50 between 4 of us in a cab.

it's ridiculously expensive, unless you're in London.

It's ridiculous in many areas. My job is transport policy related, and it's a fruitless task trying to encourage people to travel by bus when the fares are so high relatively.

OMG just checked our bus prices and it’s GBP7.50 into the nearest city from here. So if our family of four wanted to go via bus it would be GBP30.00. Also checked local cab firm which is only GBP18.00. Insane.

Other way round for me. Two hours’ parking would be about £9. Return bus would be about £3.30.

Agree bus to our in catchment school is £5 a day, for 3 miles. This is not commutable as you have to cross a very busy A road with no crossing, there are no cycle lanes for the busy B roads (or pavements)

Wow I didn't know buses were so expensive! In London they're just over £1.50 per trip and if you get on another bus within the hour it doesn't charge you again.

@TyrannysaurusXXrightshoarder

OMG just checked our bus prices and it’s GBP7.50 into the nearest city from here. So if our family of four wanted to go via bus it would be GBP30.00. Also checked local cab firm which is only GBP18.00. Insane.

Jesus. That. Is. Crazy. I hate bus prices as it is but that's awful.

That's expensive
I could buy an all-day ticket for £4.70.
Dd(6) gets free travel in Scotland introduced in Jan. I never use buses but she wanted to go on with her travel card.
We spent the day going into town then back on the bus to the local shopping centre then back on the bus again to go for lunch then home.
I gave a guy waiting at the bus stop my all-day ticket he was very happy.

My dd complained if the Megabus was 10 from Cardiff London

The issue is that most journeys are not (and are not allowed to be) subsidised as I understand it. Here we have an unusual situation as our council run the bus co (£2 for a one way journey) but even so it cannot be loss making. I don’t understand why buses aren’t subsidised like other public transport as they often are much more accessible than trains from areas where people may be less likely to have a car (appreciate I’m talking about urban areas)

Sorry for all the brackets!

Train fares the same. Just prior to Covid our family of four and our friends went to see an exhibition in London. From our coastal town it was cheaper to hire a private taxi (9 seater) and driver for the whole day (return journey and sightseeing during the day) than it was for us to go by train (not even including the tube fares throughout the day). And not just a bit cheaper either. It was one third of the cost.

@VapeVamp12

Wow I didn't know buses were so expensive! In London they're just over £1.50 per trip and if you get on another bus within the hour it doesn't charge you again.

£1.65 now, it's just gone up. Still much cheaper than outside London though.

We will never give up our 2 cars for that reason. It costs us £16 to travel 5 miles to the next town. It also takes over an hour each way and 2 buses each way. London is the only place I would be car free as public transport is cheap and easy there compared to the rest of England .

£16 for one adult and one child .

Buses used to be a public service. They were privatised in the 80s and subsidies dropped/reduced. Unless you live in London where there is some subsidy and far more central control because of TfL, plus buses are naturally more efficient due to population density, you will pay an absolute fortune.