On the rare occasions I use public transport I remember why I usually don't

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Packed to the gills despite it being very late at night, drunks, no working toilets, filthy, seats too small, migraine inducing lights. Still got half hour to go.

Vive la car

It's not a Tube line! It's mode - Crossrail - but they ditched that name so the mode is Elizabeth line and the line is the Elizabeth; whereas we have 'Victoria' on the Tube map, not 'Victoria line'.

And it's operated separately from the Tube, but charged within the Tube/TfL zones. Yeah, it's a bit of a mess.

But pedantry aside, it also took over a lot of line that goes way outside London. I took it way into the Berkshire countryside one weekend and was unimpressed to find no open loop at the station when I started my journey and then a long, slow journey to cross to South London on a train with no loo. Those trains used to have loos because they were FGW out of Paddington.

It's definitely a factor for me! Hence why I get so frustrated when public transport could be better. I want to use it because I recognise it as a social good

Despite this thread, I do believe in public transport, I believe in it for social and physical mobility, environmental reasons and practical reasons in terms of traffic calming

However I wont disadvantage myself for a pretty much non functional system (outside of cities) and which is quite intimidating and uncomfortable to use at times. I need access to loos a lot of the time and can never guarantee that. The bus to our local city for example, 20 min walk to the bus stop (no loos nearby), 45 mins on the bus if you're lucky. Public toilets (usually) not working near the bus station at the other end, they werent the last time I went there.

In the car, I can drive there and stop off at a multitude of options for comfort and loos. Cheaper and quicker too.

I also cant get the bus back later than 630 so cant have a night out using the bus in that particular city.

I’m divided.

just travelled by train from Hampshire to Great Yarmouth and back, so easy, not expensive, trains were clean and on time, so much better than driving, no danger of a speeding ticket, could work, read etc.

the downside was my fellow passengers. Not all of them obviously, but wow, so many total weirdos, drinking at 10am on a Monday morning, shouting, talking to themselves, weird, weird behaviour.

The only time I have had the joy of travelling with obnoxious passengers was on a Saturday evening on a train from Birmingham to Sheffield. They were football fans going home after a match. I don't generally see people drinking on the train at the times I travel.

The problems I encounter tend to be overcrowding and an unreliable service. Getting across the Pennines is a PITA. Trans Pennine Express is a lottery, the M62 carries too much traffic and Woodhead gets snarled up as well.

I drive to work because public transport is two trains and a bus and takes three times as long.

Our public transport infrastructure outdide of London is woefully underfunded.

"Sneering"? No, I'm just being realistic. Motorists get very irrational. They talk as if they own the road, and anyone else should get out of their way. God forbid some boys might use jumpers for goalposts in the street. Someone slowing their journey down by two seconds (whether it's someone on a bicycle, or someone who hesitated for a second at the lights) is someone they'd feel justified in murdering. They get incredibly possessive over a parking space. In their air conditioned metal boxes they are insulated from the outside world and feel free to be arseholes, because they have no empathy for those on the outside. Any suggestion that it might be nice to be able to walk to local amenities is whipped up by the tabloids into a "war on motorists" where everyone will supposedly be confined into a 15 minute zone.

You want to talk about anti social behaviour? How about revving engines, horn use and speeding? They make life miserable for entire neighbourhoods. Traffic noise has been proven to be harmful to health. I'm just glad that I'm not in the US, where arseholes in pickup trucks "roll coal" and engulf pedestrians and people on bicycles in black smoke for the hell of it.

Even Disney's writers had spotted this phenomenon way back in the 1950s:

If public transport was better (more frequent, more reliable, cleaner, better connected, cheaper) then more people would use it and there would be less bad behaviour. It would help if more people were less selfish and thought of the planet too.

I’m a motorist. None of that applies to me. I’m also a pedestrian and, occasionally, a cyclist. Plus a public transport user.

Yes, you’re sneering and not bothering to really dig down. All that will happen with that attitude is more entrenchment.

And you haven’t actually addressed any of the things I said in my post. I’m in London! Using public transport is in my blood!!! I didn’t have a car for years. And yet these days I pretty much hate it every time.

Other passengers are a huge part of the problem too.

I hate it. The dcs wanted to get a bus to the city the other weekend. 2 adults 2 dcs bus fare was £11.80. Parking would have been £4.50 for the time we were there.
Packed bus , a smelly unwashed person nearby who honestly reeked of urine and just dirt.
Journey took 25 min. Driving is 10 maximum .
Then getting back home we couldn't sit. We had lots of bags which there was no room in luggage rack.
Nope never again. If I didn't have a car for any reason I'd taxi.

This is interesting because I've "discovered" public transport later in life after 50 odd years of car use.

I love a day out by train and am very comfortable on the Tube at night and getting the train home from London after a night out.

I don't use local buses much where I live - would walk as a preference - but use buses on holiday a lot and find it's often preferable in holiday spots to trying to park the car.

I generally avoid the very last train because of the drunks, but generally this discovery has enhanced my life.

Or maybe I am just pissed off with being on the receiving end of dangerous behaviour from motorists when I'm riding to work (including some who seem to be trying to kill me, probably because they once saw a cyclist run a red light somewhere). Having to squeeze past all of the cars parked on the pavement when walking to the shops. The stupid woman who caused absolute chaos to the trains around here the other week when she decided to park her car on a level crossing and go off to walk the dog.

No, I'm not in London. I'm three hours from London by train (would be five hours by car) I hardly encounter any anti social behaviour on public transport, whether I'm at home, visiting London, or travelling elsewhere. Anti-social motoring on the other hand is absolutely everywhere in the English-speaking world. It was a pleasure to go for a bike ride in the Italian countryside last month, where the drivers actually pass safely. Also visiting a town in France and seeing parents arrive at the Saturday market with their kids on bikes because they can feel safe in doing so.

The biggest issue I have with using buses? That they get stuck in traffic because of the volume of cars conveying one person each.

All that will happen with that attitude is more entrenchment.
I'm done with trying to use polite logic and reason to persuade Daily Mail readers to be nice to people on bikes, or maybe to park & ride rather than clog up city centres. It doesn't work. The only thing that works is what has recently been proposed for Edinburgh's George Street - removal of cars from streets like that entirely. Anne Hidaglo has been very successful in Paris.

One handy way to avoid drunks (or people in general) is to board as far from the platform entrance as possible. Drunks are particularly lazy, they pack out the coach nearest the entrance regardless of how empty the other coaches are.

I’m never read the Daily Mail in my life. You really are full of inaccurate stereotyping.

Nothing is going to change with your attitude. It’s the attitude that allowed the sneering left to leave an open goal for Brexit to step into.

The self righteous never seem to learn from their mistakes.

We need proper conversations and to listen to each other. There have been some great initiatives in London - and some absolute disasters. The disasters have usually happened when the decision-makers have failed to listen to those who voted them in and who they’re meant to serve. A case in point:
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/streatham-wells-low-traffic-neighbourhood-scrapped-lambeth-council/#:~:text=Lambeth%20Council%20confirmed%20on%20Thursday,council%20said%20in%20a%20statement.

LTNs are also a good point in how much money even car-hating councils make from those terrible motorists. A nice little cash cow for them.

In what way?

We don't seem to get the badly behaved passengers that so many mumsnetters get.

Different people have different experiences. Other passengers’ anti-social behaviour is the biggest reason why, if the option is available and works for me, I drive rather than take the train or bus.

We see this anti-social attitude all the time on MN - if something isn’t illegal then anything goes no matter the impact on others.

It’s a shame.

I don't mind public transport

I like going on the train, but was shocked when I saw the difference between rail providers in different areas. I mean, the provider where I grew up was very... utilitarian, and trains further south were much more aesthetically pleasing and comfortable!

Now that I live much more rurally, buses are every two hours and the nearest train station is in the city. There are two taxi firms (consisting of one car each), one of which tried to take me for a (much longer) ride because my accent screams that I'm not a local. Thus, it's much easier to get around in my car. I just dread when it has to go into town for its MOT and service, because it's so much hassle to get back home and then to the garage the next day!

The ways described in the thread?

It's great it doesn't happen to you but you can't say it isn't a problem when, for many of us, it is.

I never said that you personally read the Daily Mail.

Nothing is going to change by talking about things. Lots has changed in Paris by simply getting on and digging up streets.

LTNs are also a good point in how much money even car-hating councils make from those terrible motorists. A nice little cash cow for them.
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods involve blocking off streets to through traffic (e.g. using planters or bollards) no reason that's a "cash cow"

I'm not refusing to believe that other posters seem to draw the short straw with their fellow passengers. What I was trying to say was that is is a much bigger problem for passengers where I live because there is simply not enough public transport rather than antisocial, smelly passengers.

Hahahahahaaaaa! Southwark council (my council) made over £2 million in fines in the first few weeks from 4 LTNs they installed, accompanied by very little publicity and appalling signage. Hackney I believe did similar.

southwarknews.co.uk/area/southwark/exclusive-southwark-council-rakes-in-2-5-million-from-four-ltn-cameras-in-dulwich-and-walworth-in-first-three-months-of-issuing-fines/

That doesn’t happen by mistake. And the LTNs are referred to in council documents as revenue streams.

They are absolutely to make money.

(Southwark also failed to take into account blue badge holders. Even now, a blue badge holder has to nominate a specific car to be exempt - which is not how blue badges work.)

I'm on the train right now and it's delightful. I'm sat in the restaurant car, I had a massive salad that was very well presented, actually made on a proper plate in the restaurant not a pre-packaged thing. Then a gluten free apple pie with whipped cream and a gluten free beer. My parents have befriended a Sami reindeer herder and his wife and are sat chatting to them and I'm enjoying fantastic views from the big windows. Bloody love public transport when its like this.

I also recall going by train to Wales once and a bunch of chav types got on and I got a bit concerned for a moment but then they started making sure all the women got seats, staying standing themselves, and gave me a beer.

Often because the trains are too short and too full of people meaning you can't move away from the "problem" passengers. Nothing pleasant about being on a 2 carriage DMU for two hours with drunken or drug adled people sat/stood next to you that you can't move away from.

That doesn't work when the train only has two coaches!!