Government announcement on bus fares

[Poppinpoppinpopcorn]

Bus fares across the country is to get capped at £2 for a single journey from January. This is amazing news and will help so many people especially those of us who have been paying £3 pound. But I do think London should do this as well as it unfair they will pay less than the rest of the country, as they have done for many years. That way they can make some of the money back.

This is interesting, none of our bus companies do this. What sort of distances, and could it legitimately be classed as two routes?

Most buses do Dayrider tickets. A Dayrider is essentially a return.
If you are literally going there and back (so two bus journeys) it's sometimes cheaper to buy two singles.
If you need to change buses then the Dayrider is usually better.
It depends on the prices where you are.

I was wondering this, so tax payer’s subsiding bus users.

Inflation on £2.00 would be £2.35 now, but transport costs have risen more than general inflation haven't they?

The fact your wages haven't kept pace is the issue...

Not really. Used to be a single route Town A via Town B to nearest city. Now it's route 1: Town A to Town B. Route 2: Town B to City. Total journey about 1 hour.

It's purely because it crossed into another county to get to the city, and by making it 2 routes they could charge £12 return instead of £6.

Yeah, if someone in a rural area can't have it, best not have it at all.

Yous are all like crabs in a bucket.

Oh this is a silly use of 'subsidise'.

Bus users are tax payers.
Many bus users also pay car taxes.
Tax payers of all types pay for all road infrastructure plus all public transport.

That's how taxation works!!

I’ve also experienced this, plus the wholesale scrapping of routes as they are “uneconomical”.

Rural public transport is so far away from urban people’s comprehension. A bus service from my town to the biggest college was scrapped in the middle of GCSEs, meaning all the kids who were planning to go there in September suddenly had no idea whether they could even get there.

Ah ok, so that seems unusual but must be permitted on a technicality whether the conurbation or the county. You could complain via your MP.

More evidence of why buses should never have been deregulated in the 80s!

I've lived both urban and rural, I do understand.

The fares for buses that do exist should be reduced.
The routes available should be expanded.
The deregulation should be reversed.

I suspect it has something to do with the volume of traffic in London and wncouraging people to keep cars off the road. Also doe many other parts of the country have congestion charges and/or ULEZ?

I won't even use my free bus pass when I get it because bus travel is so awful.

Of course it's a bloody subsidy.

If the cost of the bus journey is £4 but the bus company can only charge £2 then they have a choice a) close down that bus route or b) get the £2 loss made up by Government- a subsidy.

Taxpayers pay for everything, that's just funding.

Did you get a free GP appointment? Did your council cut your verge for free? Did your bin get emptied for free?

Taxpayers subsidise drivers by fixing potholes.

We did complain via MP - that's when the bus company said they'd done it so they could charge more, and the previous price was 'uneconomical' as per PP.

They also cancelled loads of rural routes because they were 'uneconomical' so people in villages suddenly couldn't get to a shop if they couldn't drive / afford a taxi.

I'm not convinced this is a good thing, it's only going to lead to cutting of services in places like this and costing people more or completely cutting them off. There's many elderly people who are only independent because they can catch a bus (that runs once a day, 3 days a week!) to get to the Dr's / shop etc.

This is good for DS doing an apprenticeship, I believe it was capped at £2 until fairly recently and then went up to £3 each way. Saving £2 a day might not sound like much but that's £40 a month to him which is a lot when he has to live away from home and pay rent etc on an apprentice wage.

I think subsidising public transport is a positive as it tends to be low income people who use buses as they can't afford to run a car. Lots of students also use the buses.

The cut of electricity VAT will be good for us too as we only have electricity for heating and hot water available to us (no mains gas and too far from a road for oil delivery).

At least Burnham has made a positive start to being a Prime minister unlike Kier who came in and immediately started cutting things. Burnham did cut digital ID but I can't see anyone being hugely upset over that. Hopefully he has more common sense than Kier who I thought looked great on paper - but then somehow turned out to be completely clueless and useless.

I worry Burnham will just be all about the North but he doesn't seem nearly as out of his depth as Kier did.

Hopefully the government will be minded to reverse deregulation too.

The profitable routes should subsidise the unprofitable ones.

All the savings so far are funded from the public purse. How about actions on some private ones- water charges, broadband above inflation increases, standing charges for electricity, for example.

All public transport should be free and funded by a huge tax on anyone using or owning a private jet .

Yes hopefully, especially water which is enraging

My word. "the unemployed"!!

They aren't the shit off the bottom of your shoe.

Who do you think you are?

And how would you police this extremely intelligent idea?

When I chose to live here, we had a bus service from 6.45 am to 7.30pm and there were 3 buses an hour 6 days a week. Sundays had an hourly service from (iirc) 9-5 or 6pm.

Now it's only 8.45 am to 5.45pm, only 2 buses an hour, except for 3 hours in the afternoon where it's one an hour and acts as a school bus every other half-hour during term-time and just three buses on a Sunday, at 9, 10 and 11, presumably so people can get to church.

If the bus service had been this pisspoor then, I wouldn't have dreamed of moving here.

Our busses set a minimum trip price in an area.

So if you live in area A on the route no matter where you go in area A will be that price one stop or five. If you cross from area A to B on the same route then it will increase again.

Always bugged me that one.

No we can't get teturn fares or a fay ticket anymore. They changed it, we now have to eat two singles.

Our school bus has been cancelled from September because it wasn't making a profit, so now I have to drive DD to school. I'm happy for people who use the buses but it won't help us at all

Too much of that happens in rural areas in particular. In the city centres you see three buses all on the same route all almost at the same time with one person on each.