[Closed] Public transport! Arrrghhhhh!

You should hear what it says about you.

I swear to Christ it's sooooo shit anywhere outside of that london. Bus driver just decides to **** off with no passengers as he can't be arsed. I hate everything about it. No wonder I drive everywhere or get a cab!

I had to get a bus the other week and it took 35 minutes to turn up (after it was supposed to turn up) then took 25 minutes to get to the destination and cost me £1.30...

I could have walked there in about 40 minutes if I knew it was going to be so late, or taken the car and been there in 10...

Waiting for a bus in Byron Bay. There was me and a lady with a pram.
Bus pulls up. Driver gets out and lifts the pram onto the bus.
You’d have to wait a long time for that to happen in this country.

Reminds me of going to the tip^

Went there before and was getting a 2 seater sofa out of the car by myself, all the blokes were stood around chatting as I was dragging it about by myself until some random (non council staff) guy offers me a hand getting it in the skip.

Some blond lady pulls up with one black bag and they were fighting over who got to help her 🙄

8 trains over 2 days adding up to about 6 hours.

Total of 10 minutes delay.

Would have had a lot worse in the car.

It's not all bad in the UK.

wrightyson - Member
God it's so shit in this shit country! No wonder I rarely use it!

😆

Last time I got a bus, it had a kid on it who wouldn't stop crying and tantrums and literally throwing it's toys out the pram across the bus.

Useless mother didn't even throw it off the bus! I was very tempted to help out.

Time before that I was able to drown out child noise with my headphones but they couldn't protect me from the smell of BO

A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.

I often use the bus for work. They run every 20 minutes and the journey takes between 35 and 40 minutes.

It's not all shit outside London, but don't let stop your wild generalisations. Cos only your opinion counts, right OP.

Gotta say, my experience of virgin west coast is pretty good - especially first class.

But, when it goes wrong it goes very wrong. Early in Nov I ended up in Crewe on the way to Kent on a Sunday night. No trains going south... best advice was to get to euston and someone would sort me out with a cab. Eventually got a train back to Chester, picked up my car and drove. Arrived at 1am, which I reckon was c 1.5h before I would have done if I'd waited.

And I had to train into Manchester last week. Northern powerhouse? Jesus, it was dire/ diabolical. South East bods have no idea just how bad it is.

Oh, and I tried doing an 800 mile journey Merseyside - manc - Surrey - Newcastle - home a couple of weeks back. No problem with Manchester - London. The rest? I had to catch a train at 0620 to get to Manchester before 9 (56 Miles away). And the return leg from Newcastle was 80 quid on its own. So I drove.

Trains, I can tolerate slight delays, bit why do they need to be hotter than Satan's arm pitbinbthe summer, then heated to continue to be as got through winter. As for people who keep their coats on through this, it makes me feel physically sick.

A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.

I get the train to work every day and I have to say, our little west Yorkshire commuter line is pretty good. Very rarely delays and those which there are are out of thier control (trees on the line after a big storm and a suicide). People round here complain, but I don't know what for. Complainings sake I think!

Some of the buses are a little haphazard though!

OP - get yourself the app that gives you real time bus info then grandad

Two bus services around here:

service a) run by the council, subsidised, clean modern buses pleasnt drivers. sensible routes.
service b) run by first buses, shagged out old smoke belching buses, dirty inside and out, psychopath drivers who hate everyone. crazy routes that take hours to get anywhere.

I guess it depends on when you use them. I find it very odd that people sit in huge traffic jams to get into cities and then ripped off for parking every single day. They seem to absolutely love it though.

I can do either an hour 30 of traffic misery or 40 mins on the fast train into Leeds. If there's a delay it's not so bad I can do emails on my iPad or sometimes even watch a film! Meanwhile the numpties crawl along the m62 wasting hours of their time.

Waiting for a bus in Byron Bay. There was me and a lady with a pram.
Bus pulls up. Driver gets out and lifts the pram onto the bus.
You’d have to wait a long time for that to happen in this country.

I guess if you're ok with another man doubting your ability to lift your own child's pram onto a bus, that's a good thing?

I hate it, Mrs P has kyboshed my plans to buy a back up bike after all the grief I’ve had while my commuter is off for warranty and making me catch the train It’s the absolute worst at this time of year, full of amateur commuters with shopping bags, wondering while there are no seats at 12 minute past 5.

It’s freezing cold outside so you have to wrap up, then there’s no where to take your coat off and put it when you’re on the train, I can feel the diseases penetrating my every orifice.

I honestly preferred being hit by the car.

Waiting for a bus in Byron Bay. There was me and a lady with a pram.
Bus pulls up. Driver gets out and lifts the pram onto the bus.
You’d have to wait a long time for that to happen in this country.

swear to Christ it's sooooo shit anywhere outside of that london

http://www.tomforth.co.uk/taptopay/

The 1985 Transport Act deregulated buses in Great Britain. Local transport authorities stopped running buses and they were banned from telling bus companies what fares to charge and what types of tickets to accept.

Private companies are now free to compete on whichever routes they please, charge whatever fares they choose, and accept whatever tickets they like. Bus use in cities outside of London has halved in three decades.

Public transport in London was exempted from this rule; probably because MPs and the civil service used public transport there. Bus use in London has since doubled.

Most of you complained about your fellow travellers, not the actual transport and failed to recognise the difference between transport for social purposes as well as commuting. Not everyone is as fortunate as you.

You hate people, not the transport. Try being civil and maybe improve the experience for everyone. Naw?

I can get the train to Newcastle with a family of 4 for very little more than it costs to drive and park, no sitting in traffic and we can both have a drink or two when done shopping.

Buses however are just awful.

Waiting for a bus in Byron Bay. There was me and a lady with a pram.
Bus pulls up. Driver gets out and lifts the pram onto the bus.
You’d have to wait a long time for that to happen in this country.

You're right here people at the stop woukd help instead of expecting the bus driver to do it.

My (recently retired) dad always updates me with all the maladies of his dealings with public transport, how he’s complained to XY and Z etc.

‘Dad, you have a car, why not just drive?’
‘Well, I’ve got all day’
‘So why are you complaining?’
‘...’

I agree that bus ‘timetables’ seem to be more like ‘guidelines’ but they are often modern (even fully electric) buses. Aside from the occasional strike, the trains seem to run on time, give or take a minute. The quality/age/size of the trains leaves a fair bit to be desired though, on my line anyway.

‘Sorry mate, I can’t fit you and your bike on, trains full, peak time I’m afraid.’
‘If it’s peak time, why are there only 2 carriages?’
‘....’

I forgive our buses everytime I hand over a note and the driver gives me change...Try that in nearly any other country, where it's exact change or no ridee

Rich_s - Member

Waiting for a bus in Byron Bay. There was me and a lady with a pram.
Bus pulls up. Driver gets out and lifts the pram onto the bus.
You’d have to wait a long time for that to happen in this country.

Probably be deemed sexist over here.

In fairness the bus driver does sound like a misogynist monster. He probably saw the lady with the pram as a perfect excuse to demonstrate his patriarchal privilege. By demeaning and embarassing that women in such a fashion he merely reinforced the myth that men are different to women. He probably voted for Brexit too.

Men like him and Harvey Weinstein are what's wrong with public transport.

Well, I left the UK last April, but up until that point in the South East, the only downside I could see was the luddite unions buggering up the rail service...

Google stagecoach Gold and arriva sapphire to see better buses , then there is national express coaches and megabus, all wifi all leather seats and a driver.

What makes you think it's much better in other countries? Sure people like to talk about the Bullet train and the TGV and we've nothing to compete with that, but i've used public transport quite a bit in europe and it's not that much better than the UK on balance.

I've used trains in France (not TGV), Switzerland, Holland and can say they are just as slow and inconvenient as they are in the UK. I trained it to Luxembourg once. Train to London from the East Midlands (just over an hour - brilliant service), Eurostar to Bruges - nice fast direct service well connected to the rail service so minimal waiting time, then into the normal train network to Luxembourg......S...l...o...w....every bit as slow and inconvenient as the British rail network at its worst. Took me all day to get there.

Similarly with Switzerland - flew into somewhere (can't remember) then swiss trains to a town on the shore of lake constance. Sure the Swiss network runs like clockwork, but it was three trains and all very s....l....o.....w.... and not well connected - a good hour for connections, so less convenient than the UK rail network.

And busses - well my experience is they are no better or worse than busses in the UK.

I've used MRT's in Hong Kong and Singapore - very similar in its positives and negatives to the London Tube...except the air conditioning actually was effective.

We love to talk ourselves down in the UK but often we're not that much off the mark. The real life experiences just don't live upto the fantasies and hype that some people love to spout. There is alot more investment going on in the british transportation network at the moment at a time alot of european countries are underinvesting in their networks. Sure alot is playing catch up for decades of under investment, but there is also alot of investment into improvement as we go. These programmes take decades to come to fruition and cost billions. Better to judge the end result in 10 years time or so. I'm pretty sure we'll end up with a transportation network every bit as good, if not better as our European neighbours.

Sorry, but you may think the public transport system in the UK is pants, but don't kid yourself it is much better in Europe or anywhere else. You can cherry pick specific routes and services if you like, fair enough at the end of the day we judge things in the context of our own personal experiences, but on the whole we're not as bad as most people like to let on.

It's not all shit outside London, but don't let stop your wild generalisations. Cos only your opinion counts, right OP.

U ok hun?

If you want a good bus service live somewhere there are loads of people.

Swings and roundabouts innit.

Public transport in London was exempted from this rule; probably because MPs and the civil service used public transport there. Bus use in London has since doubled.

There may be some reasons for the ongoing difference as well:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/north-south-divide-transport-spending-government-theresa-may-chris-grayling-crossrail-london-a7177656.html

Yep, its terrible, often expensive, and never goes where you actually need to go. I tend to have to use it once a year or so, and every time am reminded why i dislike it so much.

Train the other morning for example didn't have its heating on despite being 1°C outside, it was noisy and the seats uncomfortable and non too clean - well worth £25....

This quote is attributed to various different people but I think it has some truth.

"A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transport"

One could argue whether a developed country has poor people but everything is relative.

in contrast the transport in sydney was amazing , but only in the cbd and surrounding suburbs. anything outside of that area and it was like the uk system.

It's kinda catch 22 isn't it.

People don't use public transport because it's crap. So they don't get the revenue, meaning that they don't improve. And round we go.

People don't use public transport because it's crap

So they don't get the revenue

zippykona - Member

Waiting for a bus in Byron Bay. There was me and a lady with a pram.
Bus pulls up. Driver gets out and lifts the pram onto the bus.
You’d have to wait a long time for that to happen in this country.

Waiting for a bus in Englandshire. There was me and a lady with a pram.
Bus pulls up. Driver lowers bus to match the height of the kerb. Lady rolls the pram on board, sits down on the leather seats and proceeds to make use of the onboard wifi.
8)

**** trains though.

I'm not sure a quote proves much.

Referring to the "a man over 26" quote

Quote - Except it seems that in that there london village you can get public money to fill that downward spiral into an upward spiral.
You do know how many people use public transport in London every day don't you. The city would not function in any meaningful way without it. I don't really understand the hatred for public transport from people - surely it's not a difficult decision to use it?

It's not hatred from me, it's jealousy. Imagine the public transport we would all have of that much was invested everywhere.

we Had this earlier this year for 6 months