I love a bus hopper fare as much as the next person but enough is enough. Isn’t it?

[WallowingInMud]

I’m a top tier fan of Labour and Andy seems like a nice bloke but:
a) He’s on social media so much I’m beginning to wonder if, once parliament is back from its little holiday, he’s going to have enough time to run our somewhat complex country between making reels.
b) every single bloody post appears to be about buses. Buses are great but I feel like there are other issues. World peace anyone?

AIBU?

It depends where you live, what you drive etc.

I own a mid sized petrol engine family car from a modest/household brand. I bought it for £4,500 in 2012, its a 2007 reg. Ive spent about another £3000 on mots & services in that time. £7,500 over 168 months is about £45 month to just own the car.

We are a family of four living in a commuter belt village. Trains go in and out of london but are infrequent outside of rush hour and on weekends, they dont really connect local towns. Buses are very infrequent and slow, and much more expensive for four of us than than the fuel cost of driving. To go to a GP appointment using public transport i'd have to miss at least 2 hours of work, in a car I'm there and back in half an hour.

I agree with this.

You are clearly on some 'bus' algorithm/locked into Burnham social media feeds. Apart from one article I've not been aware of a Burnham bus obsession.... but then i massively swerve/curate my social media and curated news media exposure because I choose to be an active rather than passive consumer.

Not the point of your thread I know,
but how much is the hourly ‘hopper’ ticket? We have a different system in West Mids, one price for a single journey (however long) and then another price for an all day ticket where you can travel on as many journeys as you want.

£1.75

Whats andy done so far nothing.
He got in went on holiday changed bus fair and loves SM and attention.
I think he will resign in a few months, he reminds me of teaser may get in fuck us up even more fill his pocket and walk out.

I do find his social media a bit try-hard but I’m old and it’s not really aimed at me.

All we heard regarding public transport from Labour for donkey’s years was about trains so it’s about time buses, which I suspect affect more people outside London than trains do, were highlighted.

Waves to fellow Leeds resident?

Perhaps this is an example of 'don't try to run before you can walk' or a Government version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Ie don't try to do something really complicated until you've sorted out the obvious problems that affect people's lives day to day and have been neglected and mismanaged for decades, so are embarrassingly bad compared with other developed countries?

There’s a lot of cool stuff he could do if transport is his thing. Local light rail and metros, and slashing the cost and approvals for big infrastructure would be PM-worthy achievements. But he also needs to decide whether he believes in local power or not. The power to set bus fairs is about as local as it gets and he’s pulled it into No 10.

Politicians of all parties have done a lot of focus group over the last few decades and the small things that actually help everyday life for a group of people are popular.

Personally I want a PM that deals with both large and small, because both affect my life.

If you want to be very thorough, have a read about buses and voters.

Also read up on how voters in general tend to feel about improving the mundanities of life.

What's wrong with that? Public transport is important and can make a huge difference to people's lives if it runs well and is affordable.

Better that he's obsessed with it than selling it off like the Tories.

This is probably because Reform run whole councils now, and the risk is that they don't find price cuts. Because we all know they wouldn't.

Bus and train fares are something you can change in days or weeks. Whereas most other things you can do to reduce the cost of living or make a real difference to people's lives take a lot longer.

I'd prefer the funds to be spent on more bus services, but extra buses and the drivers for them cannot be got in days or weeks.

Two bus issues for me. One my city (and I’m sure several others) have shit transport public transport, it’s almost impossible to get across the city - think buses in the opposite direction to get another one in the right direction. There are only 2 an hour from the housing estate I live on and 2 all day Sunday!

second one, school bus. My kids school bus is £2.75 a day each way… It was £1.50 when DD started 3 years ago… and now I have 2 kids there!!! No £2 gap on school fairs and of course no public bus to take them. They’d have to go into town and back out again

I hadn’t seen the press release about removing the time restrictions on the disability bus passes. But I’ll be honest, more important than the fact that someone will be able to use their pass to travel to work is the change in language and attitude to accept that people with a disability may well be travelling to work before 9.30am.

But you can’t be for local power if your withhold it becuase the locals vote the wrong way.

Ours too. Sadly the open top bus that goes along the coast has had to be suspended due to the behaviour of teenagers (urinating off the top amongst other things).

The kids free over the summer is a Starmer/Reeves giveaway, along with removing VAT on attraction tickets.

The £3 single going down to £2 is Burnham.

He's clearly a better communicator than Starmer in conveying fun, I feel like Starmer would have responded more quickly to Stourbridge.

But glad to see him holding firm on Ukraine, which was one of my main worries about him.

You do know that social media isn't the real world, OP? I doubt that cabinet meetings etc are overly dominated by buses, except when a loud one goes by on Whitehall when the windows are open.

Also, the only time he will be spending on 'his socials' will be when some minion ushers him very briefly between a camera and a bus.

Also also, are you sure the bus thing isn't you? I have never ever seen Burnham talking about buses. You have to be (a) on social media and (b) hitting the right algorithms to get the bus chat.

I like it, it’s nice to have a PM who actually cares about the general public for once. Public transport does affect many people's lives so it isn’t an unimportant issue as some are making out. He did a great job as GM mayor and I have faith he’ll continue to be a great PM.

Anything you don’t agree with is a plant? Wow. The left is insane

Making a necessity for millions of people a bit cheaper - what a dickhead! Can’t believe he’s done that instead of brokering world peace, pulling the sword out of the stone and scoring the winning goal in the World Cup.

It always happens on any non Labour thread.

Re the op I don’t see any of his social media, I’m fine with that.

It’s not just my bus friendy algorithm…(see image)