Why do you not use public transport?

[LissyGlitter]

I use the bus and Metro a lot, and meet all sorts of interesting people. My dd absolutely loves it, there is no messing about with car seats, finding parking, getting lost, filling up with petrol, etc. I really fail to see why people don't use public transport for nearly every journey (obviously except for disabled people, delivering large items, people who live miles from a bus stop etc) I just pay £15 a week for my bus ticket and I can spend all day wandering about showing dd the local area. I feel so sorry for kids that are bundled up in cars all the time, watching the world go by. Surely this trend towards isolating yourself is no good for society?

There is no bus that would get me to work on time which I think is pretty ridiculous, you'd think they would realise that the majority of people need to be in town before 9.00am.

I used the bus and train all the time when I lived in the West Midlands.

Because I still have to drive 3.5 miles to get the train to go anywhere.

I use public transport a lot. Today, for example, the train was so hot and with so little ventilation that people were almost keeling over. My car, though, has air con (not often used, but it has it). Last week, I decided to go by bus to the nearesr large shopping centre. Door to door by car, the journey takes 15 minutes. By bus it took an hour.

That's why I'll never get rid of my car.

I live in a city and always get the bus/train into the centre because to take the car would befoolish.

However in Manchester unless you;re going north/south the pt is pretty crap tbh. I was in favour of the congestion charge and a better metrlink but it seems the residents of this city would rather spend their time stuck in traffic jams. .

i also have a car and use it to get from one bit of the city to another because of time. If I used pt in the morning to drop dd at nursery then gp to work the whole thing would take over an hour rather than 20 mins.

I think the majority of people need a car at some point especially when carting dcs about to activities.

i've never met anyone who adamantly swears they don't need a car/don't drive "because they don't need to" who actually fits that bill I'm afraid.

If I were to get pt to work it would cost me £5:20 return, and take over an hour on the one bus that will get me to work on time, and I work flexi, so can start anytime between 7 and 10am. I work 4.4miles from my home.... Nuff said methinks!

I live in London. We have a car which gets used about once a fortnight, usually to transport large things or to visit the ILs who have moved to the back of beyond despite MIL increasingly refusing to drive. I use buses daily - moved here partly because there's a bus 100 yards away about every 2 minutes.

I do know other mums with babies who drive round the local area and seem to forever be looking for places to park and walking more than they would if they'd just got the bus or walked in the first place. And they admit it's just habit. Whereas I sometimes do a bus journey and afterwards think 'hmm, car would have been easier' - habit again.

Cars are damned useful. I just wish people would think before using them.

And yes, public transport needs improving everywhere. Simple, cheaper pricing structures, for starters. And Oyster PAYG across South London (local issue, everything is hugely complicated until that gets sorted)

I've just had a look at a journey planner out of interest to get me to work and DS to nursery. My 10 minute drive through the lanes would take 58 minutes on the bus! 25 minutes in one direction, then a 5 minute wait, then another 28 minutes back in the direction I came from! Then 15 minute walk to walk once I had dropped DS off!

I'd love to be able to use public transport, but it just isn't practical for us.

because when DD was small, I got fed up with waiting in the rain for a bus, for it to arrive and the bus driver wave at me as he closes the doors again, saying, sorry no pushchair access, and the I would have to wait for the next one. There was no consistency as to whether the bus would be a double decker without access or a new wheelchair accessable one - and I would presume this problem would be the same for the wheelchair users in my area too.

I do use public transport, but only when it is nice weather and I am not in a rush.

Oh, and I wanted to go to London by train the other week, the timings of the trains were appalling, would not get me where I wanted to go on time, or home when I wanted, and they wanted to charge me almost £200 for the privilege. But again, if the weather is nice, I just want to take for a journey, fine, not for no other reason.

My DH worked until recently for a bus company - he could not even get a bus to his own place of work when he started at 7am as they stopped running them that early. And then, after a while they stopped running all buses to where he worked. I mean, WTF?! It would take him 45 mins at least to do a journey (2-3 buses) which he could drive in 5 mins (not walkable, would take an hour uphill through residential undrivable areas). So the bus cpmpany would not even see fit to provide buses for its own staff to get to work, they all had to drive!

He even got a discplinary once (withdrawn) due to him being late a couple of times. He was late, because the bus his company provided did not turn up and he had to wait for the next one (he worked for the complaints department!!!)

I chose to live in a place where we could walk to school. It's a "village" on the edge of a medium sized town. There are buses every half hour into town. A return bus journey for me is now about £4. I can park for about four hours for that amount of money. It's a ten/fifteen minute journey by car or bus, depending on traffic. The bus fares are just shocking. They have more than doubled in the past five years.

Not surprisingly people like me who used to be quite happy to use the bus now rarely do.

I'm stuffed if I want to visit my friends on the other side of town in the evening as the bus stops halfway at 7.30pm.

I blame Margaret Thatcher.

My DH has his own 'bus'. Its a 40yr old Bristol RE coach and sometimes we take it for a spin into town on Saturdays and sail past all the traffic down the bus lane .
Also take friends and familly on outings to the beach or other places of interest.
Very handy!
Pics on my profile.

For DH and I it costs £6 to get into town on the bus, and takes about 30 mins. By car its about 50p and 5 mins. It's cheaper to pay a childminder to take my DS to school than take a bus too. And to the South Coast we can take our car, pay for a camp site and extras and still have change compared to the price of going by train! If it was cheaper I'd use it alot more.

Cool bus, Ripeberry. I see you're in South Glos. Does he drive his bus to Thomas Days at the Avon Valley railway? The vintage buses are the icing on the cake to my little boys.

Owning a car made life so much easier for us and enabled us to have much more freedom, but we share one car and when DH uses it for work we walk/use bus etc.

Cars much easier because...

-the buses are usually very busy
-often nowhere to sit/put buggy/shopping
-drivers often drive off before you have sat hence flying toddler
-restricted to where/what time you can go somewhere

Basically, modern life is set up around people having cars..many shops are out of town, people have parties miles away etc. Going without a car often means social exclusion and lack of opportunities unless there is great public transport.

I used to use buses when I lived in a city & it was easy just to jump on one & go anywhere I needed to - even with 3 dcs.

Now, I live in a small town & my work is 10 miles away. To get there on public transport, I'd have to get a bus into town (10 minutes), then a bus to the town where I work (20 minutes), then either a taxi, or walk to the industrial estate (1 hour). I'd have to leave home at 7.30 at the latest & I'm not sure the buses run at that time. Also, it would cost me & my ds, who works with me, approximately £30 per day to travel on public transport to work! - car's much cheaper, I can get all the shopping in it & it's got aircon too...

Thingone, he will be attending the vintage bus rally on Sunday 9th August starting from the Brislington park and ride on the A4, then maybe operating a free bus service up to the Avon valley railway or to the vintage bus premises, but he won't know which one he is doing until he gets there on the day!

The way we think about 'the cost' of public transport is as follows.

We add up the cost of leasing a car, petrol, tyres, maintainng, insuring, parking, fines, etc and then we spread that over 12 months. Getting a bus pass for the family, family rail card and rail fares, plus occasisonal taxi adds up to far less.

When we lived in London, DW had a car allowance. We were unable to spend enough money in the year to actually use it up, even before petrol and parking.

People often say the bus fare is more expensive than petrol. That is true but once the cost per day of tyres, maintaing, plus financing, insurance, parking and fines are added in it is a lot cheaper to go by bus/train.

Finally, please do try online supermarket shopping if you have not alredy. No car required, your kids will never stand winging n a supermarket aisle pestering for sweets, you will save time, it will change your life.

I live in a very rural area and we can get a bus to the local town 10 miles away twice a day at around 7am and return at 5pm, there is not enough in the town to warrant a day as long as that so we simply don't use the bus.

It would also work out a lot more expensive than our cheap to run car.

Riven - yes your situation is of course quiet different from the majority. You need a car for DD because PT is rubbish, most able bodied people though could do a lot more by PT.

However, it annoys me intensely that after years and years of striving to get disability issues raised in the public mind we still have PT that is frankly quite openly hostile to people with disabilities.

FGS. Look at the London Underground - and we have the Olympics and Paralympics (sp?)coming! Its a national disgrace. Am I right in saying there is no way anyone in a wheelchair could honestly say they could use London Underground like an able bodied person? I do see blind people on the London Underground and have occassionally helped them negotiate mazes of thoughtlessly placed temporary barriers.

You have my sympathy.

i do for city to city journeys ie for work trips. but then i'd drive to the start station.

the odd time i've taken dd out and about on buses i found it a massive hassle, knowing which stop to use, understand the timetable and where we'd get off then at the other end where to wait for the bus home. was really quite horrid. luckily we weren't really trying to go anywhere we just pootled about. would hate to rely on it.

Don't agree betadad. The Inland Revene set an acceptable mileage rate that covers all the expenses that you mentioned. They think that it costs 40p per mile. Buses cost far more than that. Especially round here where, for some reason, crossing a county border is seen as a valid excuse to hike up prices.
Your other post mentioned schools and shops but didn't mention work. In the good old days, we had a local factory that employed 5,000 people. It has now gone and the jobs have been scattered amongst smaller employers. Public transport may have worked when everyone lived in suburb A and needed a bus to get to factory B but it isn't like that anymore.

I dont shop online because A, most supermarkets charge for delivery and its cheaper for me to drive to it that pay £5 for them to bring it to me
B, there is always something missing from the shop (usually somethin i desperately need)
C, i prefer to choose my own meats, fruit and veg
D, I prefer to shop at Morrisons(no delivery in my area) because Tesco and Asda are shit

Oh and why would i struggle on a bus with 8 bags of shopping and a toddler, shopping is so much easier by car