To think people don't use public transport as its so unreliable

[Outandabout43]

Have drove for the last 15 years so not really used public transport, however since moving area and now in walking distance to a train station have started to use this more.

It's actually cheaper to use the train to visit family if it's just myself and DD then it is to drive, and also takes an equal amount if time. Also cheaper to use the train into city centre then to pay for parking.

However, everytime I use the train, the train is either cancelled or delayed meaning we miss the connecting train and have to sit and then wait over an hour which is not fun with a 3 year old. Also nearest bus stop into the city is a 40 minute walk away.

Now I actually prefer public transport to driving, but not so much when an hours journey ends up taking 3.

We are being encouraged to use public transport more, but is there any wonder people don't.

Put some extra carriages on then, surely, if you already know it will be packed?!

The problem with this (which I in no way think was a good idea on the rail operators' behalf) is that most trains now come in fixed units. Gone are the days when they could put extra carriages in. Now the only way to get a longer train is to attach two trains together - which, guess what, means they need two train crews to run the service, so it doesn't happen because they have difficulty pulling together one train crew.

Yep agree. I commute to London, £25 per day return, £10 to park at the station. Trains constantly on strike, revised timetables, signal failure, points failure, "shortage of drivers" - it's a rare day I can just turn up and get the train I expected to get.

Buses around here turn up randomly, don't know why they bother with a timetable. Even if they just had a screen that told me how much longer until the next one (using Uber type tech) I'd be able to ditch the car and use the bus more. As it is, it's impossible

Yep, I'm in Cumbria too, @fieldsofbutterflies . I'm a teacher (over the border in Lancashire) and lots of our students arrive by bus or train. Every morning loads are late because of delays and cancellations.

I'm not surprised @AllProperTeaIsTheft - it's horrendous. A friend of mine had to buy a second car to get to work because he just couldn't rely on the train and his wife works somewhere inaccessible by public transport.

He was late so often (or missed work entirely) that he got a warning for it, lol.

When I was working in Central Bristol it made no sense to catch a bus or train from my town just outside the city. Time was the factor when I also had to do the school run. I couldn't get back from the school to the station in time to catch a train that would give me enough time to be at my desk on time. Annoying too was the fact that although a lot of trains go through our local station which is on the Bristol to London line, not so many of them stopped at ours.

I would love to use public transport more- I am concerned about the environment, don't really enjoy driving and hate being caught up in traffic jams/stressing trying to find somewhere to park. But where I am buses are infrequent, unreliable and take ages to get anywhere because routes are very limited so getting to most places nearby requires several changes of (equally unreliable) bus. Trains are no better and frequently fail to stop at our small local station.

I live near a small town and the nearest city is less than 20miles away. It takes over an hour on the train (as it stops at lots of other small towns) and stops at a station a long way from most of the offices/shops etc. So to get where most people will want to be takes more time and more expense on buses/trains or a 20-30 min walk. There is less than one train per hour and the last train back is at 10.30pm. However, trains are frequently cancelled so this can't be relied upon. There is no direct bus service to the city. The cost of a return fare (including buses to get across the city) is about £25 per person. So if my family were to go for a day out in our closes city by rail it would cost us £100 just in transport. Even using the most expensive car parks we could drive for a fraction of that cost, and know that we had reliable transport and no waiting around or worries about missing the last train home if we want to go for dinner. This seems to me insane.

Completely agree with so much of this. We live on London/Surrey border. Post covid, our train frequency remains reduced. As for busses- the ones we have are pretty good and fairly reliable but we dont have many and routes are useless. We have a handy bus for straight into town- great. And if we walk 10/15 minutes into the village we can get one or two options heading towards london.

But me/the dc cannot take a bus or public transport of any sort to any of the other places we go. Dance class, sports group, even most of dc's friends who live locally.... a bus would require multiple.changes AND lots of waiting around. It's so frustrating. Ds in particular wants to be more independent. He can and does ride his bike some places, but the distance can be significant and many of the roads are a bit terrifying for cycling.

took the train yesterday with Dd and Dh and it was largely a good experience. However way back was ruined half way by some doughball deciding to play his shite music out loud on his phone. Wtf do people do this!!! same with the people behind me doing video calls/chats without headphones (though they did quiet down). gives me the rage and less likely to use again.

I would love to travel on the bus to the hospital but the bus is now HOURLY, having been every 20 mins.

The main city hospital is a joke to travel to by car as last month took my dad an hour and 20 mins to drive the final 1.75 miles and ten minutes before my appointment was scheduled, I gave up and got out the car to walk - we were in the queue for the car park. Dad said he would see me at the dept. He turned up 35 mins later - the last 5 mins the walk from car to the dept.

The other two hospitals in the NHS trust are more easily to get to by car - no issues with getting there. But one of the departments I go to 3-4 times a year is in the city hospital.

There's another bus which takes me to the city centre but not going past the hospital. I got off at the bus stop nearest to the hospital thinking its only a 10 min walk. It was deceiving as took 25 mins.

When I went to the hospital in covid days I walked to it and its about 3.5 miles.

My friend took a bus which was a 22-25 mile trip to a hospital to see her sister after an op.

The bus driver decided to pull over in a lay-by for 20 mins - having the bus being late by 15 mins and read the paper. Passengers were naturally furious as others on the bus had hospital appointments. Driver was only ten minutes away from the bus station in the town. Passengers couldn't leave the bus as the bus was on an A road which had no pavement between the layby and slip road which bus would take to go to hospital.

She complained to the bus company but didn't acknowledge her complaint.

The money wasted on HS2 should have been put into regional/provincial public transport. It's shocking to read how bad it is and it would be so good for everyone.
I live in Zone 2 in London and the public transport is outstanding and, being over 60, it's free. I can't remember which London Mayor it was, but they over supplied buses and, if some were far from full, it was acceptable in order to make reliable and frequent service. That's when bendy buses came in! I don't know if TFL is unusual, or even unique, in being non-profit with all surplus going back into the service. That is a good model.

Miss living in Leeds. From my home and ten minute walk in any direction, I could have caught 5 buses into the city centre and if I walked 15 mins, 3 more buses. This was 4 miles from the city centre and in the mid 00s. I remember there was a RTA about a mile north of the city centre where two A roads meet up - killing at least one of the drivers. Could see one of these A roads from one window of the place me and my ex lived and saw the traffic was at a complete stand still. I said to my ex - I am walking into work, which was three quarters of a mile the other side of the city centre, before we moved 2 miles further away 5-6 weeks later.

Walked past various bus stops on the way and people were trying to get taxis. Urm if the traffic is not moving at all how the fuck are taxis going to get through eh?

I live in Northern Ireland. It’s pretty necessary to have a car here as public transport usually stops early, is very infrequent and/or doesn’t go where you need it to go.

There have been a few times I’ve looked at getting the train to Belfast, but I’ve even decided against that every time because either the travel times didn’t suit or the cost was too much (£40 return for a journey that costs less than £20 by car).

They’ve amalgamated a lot of bus services here, so slow buses take even longer.
Loads of schools no longer have a bus service that arrives before school, just creates more traffic.
we have several large towns very close but they changed it if you want to go town to town you have to go in and out of the town centres.
I got a car, I had to take DD to an activity in another town and it was taking over an hour to get there and it’s a 20 minute drive.

I don't recall saying that they were "good" anywhere. Just that on measures of delays and cancellations they are twice as vad in North Wales as they are on their other routes.

You should be able to claim.a refund as the train is now not stopping where it said on the ticket

Like others, where I live it's far cheaper to drive than take the bus, even taking all car costs into account. Not to mention, despite being on a main bus route, it's not actually possible any more to get the bus to where we need to go (mostly places less than a 20 minute drive away). DD can't even get a bus to school now as they cancelled the direct one and the change would make her late every day. Busses are mostly empty, and it's unsurprising. The trains are actually a bit better normally, but we don't often need to use those.

They've also reduced the length of many station platforms which prevents "multiple" units being attached. Our nearest station used to be able to cope with 10-11 coach trains, but they deliberately demolished most of the platforms leaving it unsuitable for anything more than a 2 coach DMU!

We've really screwed up the UK over the past 50 years - so many areas where we just threw out the baby with the bathwater when we really didn't need to, whether it's education, healthcare, social care, public transport, national service, etc etc. We should have been thinking longer term and "tweaked" things to make them more suitable for the changing world rather than being far too keen on just trashing them.

Back to trains, some train lines were deliberately ripped up within days of Beeching/Marple closures for no reason at all. They were ripped up deliberately to stop them being used again!

I used to commute on public transport, for years. Grim.

I moved and now mainly use my car. However, on the odd occasion I have tried to use trains, there is generally a strike on, delays, cancellations...and it's expensive. Load of shite.

going against he grain - I rarely use my car

central London
free 60+ travel😁

sorry!

Couldn't agree more. All this patronising cooing from the govt about 'coaxing motorists out of their cars' would make a lot more sense if there were reliable alternatives. For very many people there aren't.

My commute by public transport is pretty good. Reliable, if a bit too crowded/busy at times.

But I’m going to a wedding in Yorkshire in Sept and the cost of return train travel from Devon is absurd. Cheaper to drive, so I will drive. If Labour are serious about the environment they need to review the national rail service.

Yep, we need a lot more carrot and a lot less stick.

Far too many councils waging war against motorists without putting in place proper public transport alternatives. All they do is throw down a bus lane here and there which causes untold delays and misery. And usually, the buses themselves end up delayed even more as they get caught in the congestion caused by the extra bus lanes!

Fair enough, but if you know it will be packed then the tickets are selling and maybe put on more frequent trains when there's an event on? Obviously I've no idea if that's possible but my daughter is disabled and with a likelihood of no seats it's just very daunting.

Also inconvenient- ds school is 3 miles away in another village - buses are infrequent and there is no direct route so he could get 2 buses and have to leave home super early due to bus times to spend an hour travelling to school which would also be expensive, or walk for an hour (crossing a busy dual carriageway) or it is 9 minutes to drive him - I drop him a short walk from school.

The thing @maddening is that 3 miles ought to be perfect for him to cycle to school, it's a little less than my ride to work. Except that I wouldn't let a child ride on the country road I use because of the poor standard of driving, and I presume that his journey would involve similarly hazardous roads. This is why we need safer infrastructure.