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?

It costs me £5 for a day ticket for me and DD to pop into town and back.
Can be used for 2 adults 2 kids so good value.

It is a government policy decision, for buses and other public transport. In many parts of Europe there is public subsidy on a large scale.

After reading this I have just worked out how much I have saved since I passed my driving test two years ago. Both DC went to a primary school 5 miles away, 2 busses there and 2 busses back, I took them and picked them up on the bus, so 8 trips a day for me and 4 trips a day for the DC. It was cheaper for us to get the weekly tickets as the return or single fares were astronomical.

All prices are approximate as some have odd pennies on them. The 3 weekly tickets cost a total of £90 per week which is a total of £3,510 over the 39 weeks a year at school. Our area only does family tickets in holiday time not term time, as that would have been slightly cheaper for us. I took over DH's car and the payment for that, including the upkeep such as MOT, service and any repairs etc and filling the car up and the insurance for the car. This comes to a total of £230-£250 a month depending on fuel prices and how many miles I did as some months I did more than others. This is a total of approx £3,000 for a full 52 weeks as opposed to 39 weeks. A saving of approx £500 a year.

Not to mention the 2 hours either side of catching the bus that it took to get to the school and get home and the convenience of the car for both time, ease and the weather.

It isn't financially viable for many to take a bus.

Reading this makes me so grateful to live in London. £1.65 for up to 2 buses if both journeys start within an hour of each other. If I have to wait 7 mins for a bus I think that's a long time

We got the bus once to local town a couple of miles (was a food festival on trying to avoid parking issues) and it was so expensive even driver was embarrassed. Future years we just drive further to the free park & ride.
I’ve started trying to use train to work and it’s jumped to £8.90 return this month. It’s 15 miles and free parking at office so hard to justify using train not car.

@SamBeckettsLastLeap

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)

It costs £6.50 a day for my eldest dd to get to school. Dd2 will be going to the same school this September. The thought of having to spend £65 a week on buses for girls to get to school makes me feel a bit sick.

I can't drive so I have no choice but to take the bus. Unless you are in a situation like mine I don't understand why anyone would choose the bus over the comfort and convenience of thier own vehicle. Taking public transport should always be cheaper.

I’m similar to you op,
I could walk into the city centre from my house in about 30 mins, but it’s not a particularly nice walk (lots of noisy, busy main roads) also not ideal with a 2 year old.
I only have the car one day during the week (dh needs it for work) so I tend to get the bus with my toddler, but it’s £5 for a return (which I think is expensive for just a few miles!)
I usually do that twice a week.

The train is actually cheaper but it’s further to walk to and from.

There are many individual journeys we’ve made on public transport that would have been cheaper and much quicker with a car though overall it’s still cheaper not to have a car at all.

That sits aside locations that are just inaccessible without a car and taxi’s just way to expensive. When DH was in hospital the bus and train times and visiting hours weren’t co-ordinated at all – added to the stress as it was a new hospital on out of town site.

When we had pfb we live just next to a bus stop and at first it was reasonable. It was 15 + years ago so Labour council and government but the local government was having bus subsidies withdrawn - they knew services was in a death spiral but couldn’t divert funds to prevent it. Higher fares fewer people use it and thus fares go up to cover costs. By time we left we walked into city and it was cheaper to get a taxi back – if we couldn’t face the steep hills back.

Covid’s not helped. DD1 travel to college should have worked out with passes at around £50 a month should have taken 10 days to sort pass out for reduced fares took 2 and half months “due to covid” so we paid £5 every week day – when that was sorted the bus drivers were on strike and it was £10 taxi in morning as no trains ran early enough most of the week or £5 train. Since then services have been reduced as well and even more worryingly have become unreliable.

If anyone lives in Leeds you can get single tickets for £2 during the day and £1 in the evenings (no matter the journey length) on the first bus app

I've just realised I haven't been on a bus in over 10 years!

Children 5 to 22 get free travel on buses in Scotland.
My niece saves a fortune going to work now.

In Birmingham if you pay by debit card, the fare is capped at £4 for the day. One journey is £2.40 but you could use any number of buses and only pay £4. I only use a bus occasionally so haven't a clue about the cost of a travel pass.

Oh and I'm sure there are different deals for group fares which work out a lot cheaper.

Unless you live in London where there is some subsidy and far more central control because of TfL,

Up until Covid, TfL was self funded and received no government help. During the pandemic the government provided funding under the Bus Recovery Grant to all bus operators, not just TfL, this ceases in April.

1.65 for unlimited trips in an hour on TFL which is brilliant. Weirdly though, the Boris bikes are more expensive than the bus, so there is less incentive there for me to use those over public transport which is another thing they try and push.

£8 a head to do a seven mile trip to my latest town and a maximum of one bus an hour at peak times only. Woe betide you if you want to, say go into town for the evening and come back after 6.30.

That seven miles takes 40 minutes as the bus goes all round the houses. Strangely the buses are always half empty...

I was shocked to be honest, I had thought it would be a good way to save money at the moment! I haven’t done the maths of diesel vs buses but it really put me off. I hadn’t got a bus in ages, pre dc I walked and pre that I lived in London where, as many people have said, public transport is very reasonable. It’s such a shame as traffic and air quality where I am (a v small, old and cramped city in the SE) are real issues.

I think I’ll only really do it now for a ‘fun’ activity with the toddler as he LOVED it. If my DH had come it would have been more that a tenner ffs.

So your car was free and no maintenance costs, tax, insurance?

Last town we lived in before 9.00 am there were no reduce fares - so no child fares, no student fares and no OPA fares.

I knew a few people caught out with no child fares and getting to school.

There are often group reductions or schemes to reduce costs - same as trains - but of you don't fall into one of them or can't find about about the local ones it can work out very expensive.

But cars aren't cheap either

Expensive and unreliable and they come every 35 minutes where I live. A 9 minute journey into Town using my car takes me over an hour if I go by bus. I'd rather be in the comfort and warmth of my car.

Howtostopthinking, surely the cost of your husband's car comes into calculations as well?

@Momicrone

But cars aren't cheap either

Thing is that once you have a car, then the marginal cost of driving it for a specific journey as opposed to a bus is just the fuel (and maybe parking), which is usually far cheaper than a bus/train.

Obviously completely different if you don't have a car and then have to factor in the purchase price, insurance, road tax, servicing, etc.

But once you have the car, then those costs are "sunk" costs and happen whether you use it or not, so don't form part of the decision process whether to drive or get the bus to go to town or work etc.

I've got a 13 year old car. It "costs" me next to nothing, maybe fixed costs of £500 per year (insurance, road tax and a service), then just petrol costs. An annual bus pass for me alone would cost more than that! Of course, at some future date it will need to be replaced, but it's still low mileage and I have no plans to swap it any time soon, so for my decision making for each journey, it's a very simple comparison of the bus/train against the petrol cost, and the car wins out nearly every time. And that's not factoring in the convenience of driving as opposed to waiting around for buses etc.

Fair enough but most people forget to factor in the cost of buying, taxing, insuring, parking, fuel, maintenance of cars, it all adds up