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?

Walking adds an hour onto the journey with a baby who has to be worn in the sling and a toddler who will have had enough and misbehave. It’s all uphill on the walk back and my stress levels and back can’t take that. Like I said I walked before kids but the point of the thread was the cost of the bus fare rather than my personal choices.

Not just expensive but also unreliable and not very regular.

For example, in my immediate area we have:

Bus 1, goes from City A to large town A and back. There is one bus every half an hour between 6am and 6pm, then one an hour from 7pm to 11pm.

Bus 2, goes from small town A to small town B. Runs every half hour until 6pm when it stops.

Bus 3, goes from out shopping centre A to shopping centre B. Runs once an hour until 6pm when it stops.

On a Sunday the only bus running is Bus 1 and first bus isn't until 9.30am so unless you drive you're fucked if you start work before then.

There are no buses at all on a bank holiday/public holidays. Over Christmas when we had the four day bank holiday due to Christmas being on a weekend? No buses for four days.

They take buses off all the time too. There are roadworks in the village this week and the bus company decided that using the detour route would add too much time to the journey so as a consequence we have literally no buses this week, the closest available stop is two miles away.

Oh and due to the funding changes we're completely losing Bus 3 from next month and Bus 2 will only run once an hour.

@FirstTimeSecondTime

I didn’t realise that public transport outside of london was so expensive!

It's not expensive everywhere outside London, I'm not in London and prices are reasonable here.

I think l am.rigjt in saying g in Cyprus every journey is €1.50 no matter how far you go. Shame we don't adopt a similar system here.

Train to the nearest city is £5.50 return. Bus to the same place........£7.50!!!!! I'm lucky I live near the station, but if you don't it's very expensive. And rubbish- most of the buses are cancelled anyway!

Bus fares in our area (Northwest) are expensive, and made more so by multiple bus companies operating in close proximity, each with their own ticketing system. There are 'any bus' tickets but of course they're more expensive. Here a day pass for the main company is £5.30 and an anybus day pass is £6.40. Not sure what single fares are but I can't remember the last time I got one as the drivers will always tell you that the dayticket will be cheaper than a return.
In the particular area that I live, the larger bus company that ran our services into town decided that the evening service wasn't profitable enough. So now we have to pay the extra for a dayticket unless we want to be tied to returning before 6pm.

Andy Burnham is trying to get a London style system in place where the bus services would be regulated. It'd be revolutionary if it happened!

I'm going to stop complaining about our bus prices now - I thought they were expensive but it turns out they are relatively cheap.

£5.60 for a day saver
£9.20 for a family saver
£19 for a weekly ticket.

It's expensive because the services are required to run half empty.... because its expensive

The only way around the vicious cycle is for the state to take over bus services, and implement a coordinated transport strategy, including imposing (simultaneously) punitive measures to block driving (massive parking charges etc) and reductions to bus fares based on running costs assuming running at 75-80% capacity. It needs to be state run because it will run at a loss initially until people are discouraged enough from car use.

just checked - it's 5.20 for a day saver.

It’s £5 for a single direction bus journey for an U16 into town from where we are….couldn’t quite believe it!!…

Yep!

And our bus service is shit! Last one is about 7:30pm!

First buses have the monopoly in our area. It's the only one we can get. £5 return for about a 10 minute drive into town 🤦🏻‍♀️.

I know they do all day tickets or first week tickets etc. People travelling with children you also get family tickets which work out slightly cheaper.

I was buying them on the app when I was using day passes as it was 80p cheaper then buying it on the bus!

I think most people would walk 25 mins to town, but it's a bit of a challenge walking back with a week's worth of shopping.

Some of the prices quoted here are outrageous. Once again the people with less resources pay the most.

@OwlinaTree

I think most people would walk 25 mins to town, but it's a bit of a challenge walking back with a week's worth of shopping.

Some of the prices quoted here are outrageous. Once again the people with less resources pay the most.

My double pushchair had a huge basket. Used to get loads of shopping in it.

Until buses run a full 7 day and evening service inc bank holidays people can’t rely on them as an alternative to cars.

A day ticket on the bus to the nearest city 7 miles away is £4.70 for an adult and £1.10 for a child with a permit (the permit costs £5 and lasts until they are 16). The schools are 1 mile away so we walk but it wouldn't cost much less than the above. Trains are slightly more expensive for adults but free for accompanying children under 11. The nearest train station is 3 miles away. The problem here is the lack of frequency of transport more then the cost.

Yep. Small town we used to live in, if there was more than 1 of you, it was cheaper to get a taxi.

I have to say travel in the West Midlands is pretty good. I pay £50/month for my bus pass for all over Coventry and when I'm on lates I finish at 10, and only have to wait 10 minutes.

When I worked in Birmingham it was 100/month for train/bus/tram for the whole region. Saved so much.

It's also maximum £4.00 a day so you tap with your card (if no pass) and you only get charged £4.00 for a whole day. If I'm going to Brum then I get an all day travel pass for about £8 and that includes all transport again.

I pay for ds2s travel to college in Solihull and that costs me about £20/month on a PAYG pass

Where do you live, OP? In Nottingham, I pay £2.52 per day for as many bus journeys as I need. To get this rate I pay upfront for 150 days of travel and this usually lasts me at least a year.

That's great, but I wouldn't get a week's worth under my buggy or even in a granny trolley!

Totally agree. It's £10 for a family ticket where I live (2 miles from town). Parking is pricey but if we're going to be in or an hour clearly we're not going to fork out the price for a bus ticket. We need to stop the financial disincentives.

@Catra

Where do you live, OP? In Nottingham, I pay £2.52 per day for as many bus journeys as I need. To get this rate I pay upfront for 150 days of travel and this usually lasts me at least a year.

Meanwhile 15 miles away it's £3.60 for a day saver. From home, I can only go into town. If I wanted to be at the other end of town to the bus station, by the time I added the 10-15min walk it takes easily double the driving time.

I used to get the bus when I only paid for me and u5s were free as it was a bit fun if we weren't in a rush, but £7.20 for 3 of us to travel 3 miles is considerably more than parking/ driving costs, even factoring in insurance and loss of rubber from the tyres.

If I've got the time and baggage isn't an issue, I tend to park for free at a park and walk in the last mile.

I completely discounted a good secondary school 2 miles away because unless I rule out not working for 7 years to drive the DCs, they cannot feasibly get there. It's either 2 bus journeys via town (x5 the actual distance) or a lengthy detour to walk/ cycle safely on roads that aren't a pavement free, hilly, winding NSL.

I would hardly get anything in my buggy. Maybe a bags worth and I’m not lugging that, myself with 5mo strapped to chest, massive rucksack and a nearly 3 year old up the hill!

@Momicrone

But cars aren't cheap either

It’s definitely expensive running a car but I suppose it depends on usage. I drive on average about 20 miles a day to various places. To do this on public transport would cost me far more than running a car each year. If however I only popped out once a day to the shops , I couldn’t justify having a car really.

Absolutely..
The only cheap buses in our city are the Park and Ride, mainly aimed at tourists. Parking in the city centre is really expensive, bt looks less so if you compare it with the bus fares for three or more people.
So I often drive 20 minutesout of town to the park, patk for free, and ride the 35 mins into the centre for a bargain price of £4.