To think it's no wonder people use cars so much?

[Parapapampam]

I work in a large city, always try and commute by train, this week, no strikes past 4 days on this line, my train home has been cancelled every single day, tomorrow there are strikes.

Different excuse every time, driver's seat broken, bad weather, staff shortage, or no reason given at all, the train just disappears off the board as if it never existed.

Tonight, my train, and the three after all cancelled, I imagine the later ones will be too (flooded tracks aren't suddenly going to clear whilst still pissing it down with rain).

So, I'm going to have to fork out £35 on an Uber.

This is not abnormal, happens at least twice a week, and the government wonder why people drive rather than use public transport.

So

YABU - keep using the shit trains, it's better for the environment and you can do work, read a book whilst on the train and don't have to worry about parking

YANBU - Start driving to work clogging up the roads (electric car) but get home before 8pm every night and save the £35 uber fee which is clogging up the roads anyway

It's not even just outside of London. I'm in southeast London in an area of relatively poor public transport provision. To get to one of my favourite exercise classes I have to take two buses to cover a total of just over 3 miles. The other week I left the house 1 hour 10 mins before the start time to make sure that I'd arrive on time. The first bus was so late that I eventually had to abandon my journey as I was going to miss half of the class. It's a joke. I do without a car for environmental reasons but it's not even like you get to breathe pure air in some car-free utopia in return for your efforts - the whole environment (including the pavements) is dominated by cars and many are hostile to pedestrians. And when the bus does turn up, you're sat in a bloody queue because of everyone in their warm clean cars going directly to where they need to be. I've started to feel like a mug tbh

Two rail journeys this week for an event arranged months ago.
First day: strike, so the train was packed and I arrived late.
Second day: no strike but two trains cancelled so I took an alternative route so DH had to drive 35 mins to collect or who knows when I would have got home.

The previous time I took the train: rail replacement bus service which doubled my journey time.

Pisses me off. Massive road works on both major arterial roads in the area too so you are basically fucked if you want to travel.

Yanbu and imm about as pro-public transport and anti-car as it comes

the train service where I am (outskirts of a major city, not London) is so unreliable I rarely bother anymore. And I HATE driving into town.I’d genuinely prefer to get the train but can’t guarantee if I will be able to get home again!

I can happily bounce around the South East region on PT no problem. It's when I get further out that I start tearing my hair out. Nothing flows. You can't wait hours at some stations for connections or you have rush from one platform to another like your life depended on it. Or you get off a train and have to walk ages to a bus station. Or you blindly tap onto some buses and not realise they've charged you a King's Ransom to go from one part of town to another. Or, there's no getting out of it, you have to get a taxi, but you should have booked it a week last Tuesday.

One day I will get my driving licence and get a car to save time and money!

@Madameprof

That is shit obviously. But could she perhaps get a moped, or an electric bike? 6 miles isn't far really. Bit far to walk, but easily doable by electric bike, pushbike, or a moped...

Alternatively, if you're able, you could take her regularly. My DDs college was 7 miles away, and the bus came at 7.15am and took til 8.45am to get there! 3 hours a day of travel. Plus another half an hour added on with walking to the bus stop, and waiting. So 3 and a half hours a DAY wasted.

So I took them in the car. Took 10 minutes. 10 MINUTES there and 10 MINUTES back, compared to 3 and a half hours. Ridiculous! No wonder people drive a lot more now.

I need a rest after reading that! How awful. Hope you're OK now.

This thread has prompted me to took into using public transport for my commute.
I live in a city, and work 16 miles away on the edge of the next city.

Takes me less than 25 mins to drive to work

Public transport would mean a walk to the bus stop, bus, train, another bus then 30 min walk.
Total 2.15 hours.

Why would anyone do that?
I need to be in work at 7am. So goole maps tells me to leave home at 4.45am.

Not happening.

We always drove to work as we often had to deliver stuff we sold, but since retiring, we bought a tailgate that gives 30% discount to use the train. We have a 30 minute bus journey to our nearest railway station. Our experience this year.
Feb, few days in London. Train back stopped 30 miles short, bus replacement taking an hour longer than scheduled.
June. To and from airport. Our scheduled train to the airport cancelled as we were on the platform meaning we arrived late at the airport.
August. Day trip to London to do a bit of business. The day before, our return train was cancelled. Offered an alternative 2 days later.
Seotember. Another trip to the airport. Going our, 2 trains cancelled meaning we arrived just in time to check in. Returning, dashed from terminal to station, a 15 minute rush, to catch the next train. Signs sustain due in a few minutes. The time came and went. 15 minutes later we were told the train was cancelled, and the next, and the next. 90 minutes later a train finally turned up, standing room only. This was at Manchester, one of the largest cities in the UK.
So far every journey has not run as scheduled. But we have not given up, we have a couple if days in York this week, we shall see if this journey breaks the mould and runs to time.

My family don't trust the trains any more. I don't remember a journey where the train wasn't delayed or cancelled. When dd comes back from university it's like planning a major operation, with buffer time built in for the inevitable issues. Never travel on the same day as something important. It's a disgrace really yet the fares are comparatively high. And when people don't trust or use the trains, they have even less money to invest.

When we started out business in a Northern town centre in the 80s all the facilities were in the town centre. All shops, banks, solicitors,markets, restaurants, cinemas, supermarkets, and even car dealers and a cattle market. The town was a thriving, busy hub of activity. Workers could go in by train or bus, and walk to whatever they needed to do. Over the following 3 decades, first the supermarkets, then all large shops that could, moved to the 4 out of town retail parks. Then the cinemas and restaurants followed. Then the solicitors and financial services offices moved out. The shops that couldn't move, the long established department stores, the small independents. The cattle market closed killing the trade from the farmers on market day. The market closed and was turned into a contemporary (expensive) food court. All of the movement to out of town has reduced town centre traffic, but spread it to the outskirts. Few of the out of town centres have good public transport connections compared to the town centre which was, and still is a hub for bus and railway connections.

I have a job that requires extensive regional travel. Employer encourages public transport where possible. One too many times I’ve been forced to hang around dark, neglected, unstaffed stations in the evening feeling unsafe and no idea if or when a delayed train might arrive. No other options to get home. I just refuse to do it now so it’s either car or I don’t go.

That's privatisation for you.

London transport is pretty shit too if you look at outside the City.
Most of South London doesn't have the Tube network.
Our local train station only has one train an hour timetables for most of the day since lockdown, and that frequently gets cancelled.
The bus doesn't run to the big town centre station, so if you have luggage or shopping or children or are elderly/disabled there is a walk through town to get a more frequent train (unless they are in strike). It's not even a nice walk, and I wouldn't want the kids doing it alone at night. - stabbings unfortunately are on the increase here.
And if you want to go round the edge of South London it's almost impossible - all routes run like the spokes of a wheel into central London - nothing links the spokes this far out.

So true.

My previous job was about 4.5 miles away, 20-30 mins drive at peak times. I would need to get 2 buses, one into the centre of town, one out again. The service town-workplace was probably the most reliable although it would be so busy eith the amount of people squeezing on and the cars trying to leave at 5pm it often took 15-20 mins just to get offsite. When I was a regular user, buses on the home-town route were often missed and at peak times in the morning they'd send a single decker so by my stop no one could get on and we'd end up waiting 30 mins.

It was so tedious, I have no guilt about using the car.

I think this the public transport mentality has really got encouraged councils to limit car use in towns. My example is this Saturday. I went with two boys to the Nutcracker in the centre of Birmingham. It took me 40 minutes to find a parking space. I have to say that's the last time I will go there.

In the past couple of years council have demolished 3 or 4 multi storage car parks in the centre of Birmingham as the redevelopment plan. But cars are not included in there new plan for the city centre. Well it's the end of vibrant city centre in my opinion. And you can see it now, shops and restaurants are closing.

It's cheaper for me to drive and park in town, than get the bus.

Thing is, it’s not a public transport mentality. It’s just a hostile to cars mentality.

It’s as if policy makers think the answer lies in just making it more difficult and expensive to drive - without looking at all the barriers to using public transport or understanding why people elect to drive.

Another issue is that even where the policies are made by people who practice what they preach, they fail to understand the important ways in which their lives are organised around their preference for public transport. They’ve chosen where they live in relation to the public transport possibilities, and the things within walking distance. They may have planned specifically for bike storage etc.

This matters because there are significant differences for all the people they want to switch from largely using their cars to public transport. The barriers to this behaviour change - and empathy for people who, for example, live out on new build estates with driveways and garages but terrible bus links and no amenities - can be challenging for people who think ‘I can live just fine without a car; these people just don’t care enough about the environment’.

The hard bit is making public transport work for everyone. So policy makers concentrate on just making driving more difficult.

Increasing parking charges and issuing loads of fines for falling foul of ever more Byzantine regulations are revenue generators too. Whereas it costs money to build proper transport links.

@Seeline

And if you want to go round the edge of South London it's almost impossible - all routes run like the spokes of a wheel into central London - nothing links the spokes this far out.

Lots of towns and cities are like that. Buses are all concentrated on routes in and out of the town centre in multiple different directions, but nothing going "around" the town/city on the outskirts. So if, say, you live on the edge of the West of Town and want to go to a retail park, cinema, or even work, at the North edge of town, you have to get a bus into the town centre and then change for a bus going from town centre to the North. It makes a journey that's 15 minutes by car into a journey that can take 2 hours! No sane person would take the bus!

Town and city councils are obsessed with their centres, but in reality, most people don't want to be in the centre itself, they want to go through or around the centre. They have an antiquated idea that people work in town centres, but that ship sailed a few decades ago with most workplaces, hospitals, retail parks, industrial estates etc being on the edge of towns/cities these days, often served by poor public transport, or sometimes, none at all!

We need bus routes "around" the town and city outskirts to link the various retail parks, industrial estates, hospitals, etc.

Son took the train back to his work city yesterday. First leg to Leeds was actually fine, he got a seat and arrived at Leeds 1 minute early. Then it all went wrong. His connection to York was literally rammed full, he couldn't even get on to stand. So, fair enough, next due in 15 minutes. It was just 2 coaches and again, absolutely rammed, so he couldn't get on that either. Never mind, the next was 15 minutes later, but the departure board time just kept going back a minute or two, so always 10 minutes away. The train scheduled after that was due and came in on time, but again, rammed, no one could get on it, another 2 coacher! It was 90 minutes later when the late train finally arrived, a 3 coacher this time, absolutely rammed, but son had had enough and just barged himself onto it, barely scraping in enough for the door to close! Finally at York 2 hours later, he went to the bus stop and checked the app to find the hourly bus had been cancelled and he had to wait another hour at the bus stop. So he waited, and the next one didn't come either. So he ended up walking 2 miles home from the station. A journey that should have taken just 3 hours ended up taking 6 hours. He's coming home by car next time!! He's not doing that again! Only takes 2 hours door to door by car.

School buses are very expensive and not enough places. There was a moaning thread on local Facebook group about why so many kids are driven to secondary school. Someone linked the council run bus prices. Lots of the moaners assumed school buses were free or cheap!! - 2 children can be over £100 a month even if close by hence parents dropping off. Season ticket is £517 to £897 a child a year.

@Lincslady53

But we have not given up, we have a couple if days in York this week, we shall see if this journey breaks the mould and runs to time.

The trains between Manchester/Leeds/York are an absolute nightmare, so if you travel that way, you're highly unlikely to run to time and unlikely to get a seat. The ECML from London to York is usually OK-ish, but the overhead wires are notorious for failing or damage and when that happens, everything comes to a standstill for several hours, usually takes overnight for them to be repaired!

My son has gone from York to London 3 times for work, over the past couple of months. Twice he ended up stranded in London overnight, once for bad weather causing flooding around Peterborough and the second for overhead wires down near Peterborough. Luckily he found a hotel room both times, but they were running out fast with all the people stranded. Third time he never even got there, set off from York at around 7am but trapped in a train for 4 hours due to wires down (again) around Peterborough, so when they finally got to a station, he just got off and got the next train North again. But, if there's no flooding, no train breakdowns and no power line damage, the East Coast main line works OK most of the time. Just don't use Grand Central Trains as they're notorious for cancellations and breakdowns - use GNER!

Yes, makes no sense at all to use buses if you have 2 or more kids at the same school as the costs are extortionate enough with just one! Far cheaper to use the car with 2 or 3 kids, even if it means you have to give up an hour of pay daily to do the school run.

Oh I realise that, and in a way it makes sense - people will always need to get to city centres. Although in London, people on the edges probably have other places that they need to go, or prefer to go - we don't have to get into the city centre for all services and amenities. Greater London is huge compared to other cities in the UK, so the distances involved even around the edge of inner London are big, by the time you get to the edges, it's pretty much the size of the M25. I made the comment because people are always going on about how brilliant London transport is. Trying to get round the touristy parts in central London is pretty easy (on non-strike days, or non-protest march days, or snow days etc). Once you are out of the reach of the Tube network, public transport is much less user friendly.

Trust me... It's absolutely shit in London as well!

There may be more options, but it is crap and getting worse. Even the newest, hi tech, all singing and dancing lines like the Elizabeth are shit!