..and buses have lots of horrible, stinky people on them.
I commute by train every day Pannal > Leeds (mainly on shitty 40+ yr old Sprinters run by Northern Fail) so I get to be very intimate with lots of smelly people every single day. I was very embarrassed the day I was stood there in my coat smelling of horse (I absent-mindedly picked up the same coat I had worn the previous evening at my daughter's horse riding lesson). Sorry fellow commuters 🙂
Virgin Trains East Coast, as they used to be known, once quoted me nearly twenty-six thousand pounds for a standard-class season ticket from Leeds to London.
I have a bus stop 100 metres from my front door, but never use it. For a whole 50 pence more for me and the mrs, we can get a taxi into the town centre. No waiting in the rain for a bus that never arrives, and door to door service, for 25p a head.
Our public transport system is ****ed.
@flaperon - well the standard peak day return is £112.....so £70 seems like a reasonable discount!
I commute in to central Cambridge from a village, the journey is about 20 miles each way. Luckily it is on the Guided Bus route, so traffic isn't a large issue. It costs me £25 for a weeks ticket. I rarely use it at the weekend, so it's essentially £5 a day. The petrol would cost me more than that. Not to mention that I would be sat in traffic nearly all the way. Where as I now sit on a bus and watch films/TV, listen to music or read a book.
But if my job wasn't central in the city (or on the bus route) I would have to drive, unless it was possible to bike. I'm lucky in that way.
The problem I have with buses in particular is being at the complete mercy of the bus timetable and even then they are never on time. Sometimes they do not turn up at all, the excuse is they were running late so missed a round to catch up. Then there are the other drivers who never let buses pull out so that adds another 15-20 mins to the journey.
Then you get those people who get on the bus, the bus moves forward and there is another person waiting at the next stop that is literally 200 metres down the same road, bus stops again. In the meantime I have to question why they did not walk a little further down the road and join the person waiting at the other stop.
Worst is a particular bus I used to get called the X78, on more than one occasion a drunk person urinated on the top deck and the urine ran down the front and the stairs, this was at about 6.15 pm and happened too often.
So yes public transport is cheaper, but I would rather pay more to have my own space, my own route and get to a destination on time and in comfort.
How is driving subsidised? The uk motorist puts almost £40bn into the treasury each year in taxes, yet he cost of maintenance of the roads is barely £1bn. Sure money is being invested in the infrastructure but nowhere near as much as is being invested in public transport infrastructure, especially the rail network.
Why shouldn’t public transport users pay their way? I also use public transport and a return bus ticket into town is £7, a one way taxi ride is £15 - £20, a return journey in my car might be less that £7, but as others have pointed out it isn’t as simple as that so.
No way to motorists get it easy or cheap and we’re certainly not subsidised and fossil fuelled cars have just received a massive VED tax hike. Not complaining, we need to be weaned out of our oil burners to EV’s but In the short term it will be a significant windfall for the treasury and the. When we’re all in Evs they’re going to have to dream up a new taxation scheme to make up the tax income losses as the road network will still need to be maintained. So us motorists don’t get it cheap or easy.
How is driving subsidised? The uk motorist puts almost £40bn into the treasury each year in taxes, yet he cost of maintenance of the roads is barely £1bn. Sure money is being invested in the infrastructure but nowhere near as much as is being invested in public transport infrastructure, especially the rail network.
The costs of air pollution are off loaded onto the NHS and the health of the poor (who can't afford cars).
The Greenhouse gas costs are paid for by everyone else eg higher flood insurance.
We all get delayed due to massive congestion (caused by car drivers).
Oil is effectively subsidised in many ways eg IIRC decomissioning costs for North Sea which used to be offloaded on the Government.
HMRC gives you tax relief on business miles for a private car.
"tjagain
damage, congestion and the sheer size of roads needed would be much less just for trucks and buses."
Not true. HGVs and other heavy vehicle cause most of the damage.
"The Generalized Fourth Power Law is the most commonly agreed method to approximate the relative impact of vehicles on roads: the damage caused to the structure or foundations of a road is related the axle weight of the vehicle by a power of four. This means that a six-axle, 44-tonne truck is over 138,000 times more damaging than a typical, small, 1 tonne car (such as a Ford Fiesta) with two axles. "
http://www.freightonrail.org.uk/HotTopicsLorriesCauseMoreDamageToRoadsThanCars.htm
London transport is hugely subsidised. Bus from work to terminal 5 is £1.25. Bus from terminal 5 to home £4.50. Each leg is the same distance (3 miles).
Offpeak travel from terminal 5 to Earl’s Court on the tube is £1.50. That’s from the outskirts of London right into the centre. Off peak starts at 9:30.
Step outside the magic London transport zone and travel starts to cost. We live in what was (very briefly in the olympics) Zone 9. That means the journey to get into Zone 6 costs a lot more than the journey once inside.
"The costs of air pollution are off loaded onto the NHS and the health of the poor (who can’t afford cars)."
But the poor won't pay much tax towards the NHS. The middle and higher earners who tend to be car owners pay the vast majority of the taxes for the NHS. So the health cost of cars are by and large paid by car owners and users.
We looked at public transport over owning a second car. Using season tickets it worked that we save less than £20 a year over using a car and including all the insurance, RFL, running and service costs. The kicker was that after trying it for two weeks before committing to the season ticket we found out that the travel times were tripled over using a car due to the walk to get a bus, the bus journey that went here, there and everywhere before arriving at the destination. Another shorter bus trip and another walk to get to the office.
Train was slightly quicker but more unreliable and was late twice in the week she tried it and still required two bus journeys.
We bought the car.
Why shouldn’t public transport users pay their way? I also use public transport and a return bus ticket into town is £7, a one way taxi ride is £15 – £20, a return journey in my car might be less that £7, but as others have pointed out it isn’t as simple as that so.
Because a bus, tram or train moves a higher density of people around with a lower environmental impact. They don't need to take up parking at the destination and can be used by thousands of people not just one or two.
People sink loads of money into car ownership… then pretend that using the car is ultimately close to free to use. One day this will seem weird… but for now, you won't talk many people out of that mindset.
Virgin Trains East Coast, as they used to be known, once quoted me nearly twenty-six thousand pounds for a standard-class season ticket from Leeds to London.
Maidstone to London on the high speed line is £5660 yearly standard class for 30 miles as the crow flies. £188 per mile.
Leeds is 170 miles from central London as the crow flies, at £26k that's £153 per mile. Bargain!!!! 😀
I don't know where people are getting their car figures from. 40p/mile is my best and I usually try and bank on spending 50p/mile, so £5k/year. That is throwing everything I can think of in the pot. Oddly enough, neither new(ish) car nor old cars have worked out very much different for me.
Anyway.
Around these here parts public transport just isn't viable.
Trip to work in car - anywhere between 20 minutes (assuming it's midnight) and 40 minutes (5pm), cost £12 a day.
Trip to work on bike - about 45 minutes. Plus showering time. Plus a bit of faff with clobber. So about 1 hour. Cost, I dunno, about 4 slices of toast' worth of calories.
Trip to work on public transport - 2.5 hours. Cost, £10 each way, last time I checked the price, 5 years ago. Oh, and, final helpful factory, nothing goes very near the front door, so a jaunty little walk of a couple of miles to the bus stop. No wait, there's more, there are two busses a day from the nearest bus stop, neither of which are at a helpful time. Utter codswallop.
The problem with insisting that infrastructure must all pay for itself is that 90% of it, doesn't. So it vanishes.
Some of us are amazed at many many folks have access to public transport, huge swathes of the country have bugger all.
.
Think yourselves lucky to have public transport, whatever the price!
Don't worry, within 5-8 years the UK will have road charging, and almost certainly this will be linked to time of use and congestion.
Road users are generally subsidised, pretty much every study agrees.
£8.50.
Or
£3 parking
Anywhere between £2.20 and £6 for a car to do those miles. Most cars are North of 50p/mile these days, certainly most lease or HP or PCP cars, and if it's vaguely nice it can be £1 a mile before you even fuel the thing.
Some difference, but not that much.
4 miles in a car costs you at least £2
I would guess, based on HMRC allowances, driving a typical car would cost £45p/mile.
So a fair bit cheaper than the bus in the OP's case.
For my journey to work, the bus journey - excluding the 15min walk at the other end - takes 8min less than my slowest ever cycle commute*, and 15min more than my fastest ever. I can spend that 15min getting a shower. Maybe the OP's wife's bus journey is better but I can't believe the bus can't be made better.
*Excludes late evening rides after socialising heavily.
I can drive but it works out the same/more than taking public transport as my parking is more expensive and I'm further away, but in total it takes less than half the time of the bus if I come in early, and I can see why people choose this option often.
I speak as a dedicated car owner and driver - use it a lot, love the comfort and convenience, and am fortunate enough not to have to worry about the cost. BUT we have increasing problems with congestion, environmental and health impact of private transport. Electric cars won’t change this they will just create different problems. At some point we will have to take fewer journeys in private transport and more journeys in public transport (or just fewer journeys full stop). To make this happen private transport has to get more expensive, and public transport has to be cheaper and better. This will not be politically popular or easy though.
I have a bus stop 100 metres from my front door..............No waiting in the rain for a bus that never arrives
Are you sure it’s actually a bus stop 😂
Road users are generally subsidised, pretty much every study agrees.
Show us where the subsidies are. Do those subsidies come out of the approximate £40 billion/year paid into the exchequer in fuel tax and vehicle excise licenses, then there’s tax on insurance, etc...
Can I have some sauce with this statement..
Don’t worry, within 5-8 years the UK will have road charging, and almost certainly this will be linked to time of use and congestion.
Because it’s just your opinion.
I’ve just checked the bus route from Chippenham to Westbury, it takes 1hr 45minutes, because it goes via Melksham and Trowbridge, plus I have a, roughly, three-quarters of a mile walk at each end, which with the arthritis in my left knee adds another three quarters of an hour, so two and a half hours. Which means on the shift I’m working at the moment I’d have to leave home at around 4.30am, so I’d have to get up at roughly 3.00am. I’m not entirely sure there are any buses at that time of the morning.
The drive takes about thirty minutes, so I’m leaving at about 6.20am, getting to work at 6.50am, to clock in before 7.00am.
No contest.
countzero - the cost of maintaining roads comes out of local authority budgets.
Every death costs a million or so pounds - IIRC 2000 deaths a year directly attributable to drivers and hundreds more from secondary effects is not thousands.
The value to the public purse of the land used for parking - in cities even the burbs where on road parking is free that land is worth thousnads a year in rental but vcar drivers get it for free.
the costs of enforcing motoring law
Every study looking at this in detail shows car drivers are massivly subsidised out of general taxation.
What about trams?
Are they not subsidised? 😉
Not really PP - they are the most expensive public transport in the city and make a profit. however I assume it will take a billion years to pay back the cost of building the things.
Two bits of analysis of this subsidy here - appear to be quoting sources so you can nitpick
http://ipayroadtax.com/no-such-thing-as-road-tax/when-will-drivers-start-paying-the-full-costs-of-motoring/
https://bristolcycling.org.uk/the-staggering-cost-of-motoring/
however I assume it will take a billion years to pay back the cost of building the things.
Which, as you know, was precisely my point 😉
however I assume it will take a billion years to pay back the cost of building the things.
The Supertram network in South Yorkshire is bidding to DfT to the tune of around £230m to renew the network and make it fit for purpose for another 30 years (to 2054 on current plans)...
The way the costs scale works against public transport as well. If I'm going into Birmingham it's about £7 for a return, in the car it costs about the same in parking and fuel so I'll usually take the train.
If my wife and I are both going in the train cost doubles while the car cost stays the same and it just gets worse the more of us are going.
If we want to have people use public transport rather than their cars that's a tricky equation to balance.
IMO Public transport has to be either significantly cheaper, or quicker than public transport in order for most people to want to use it. And when I say being cheaper, I mean on the day costs as car ownership is a given for weekend usage and biking.
Living in Bristol there's good examples of both. The new metrobus scheme is significantly cheaper than driving into town and paying parking, and is quicker during rush hour. Then it's also only 90 minutes to London on the train at a perfectly acceptable price outside of peak times. Both of these excel by avoiding traffic, whereas local buses just have to sit through exactly the same traffic as you would in a car, but stop 20 times along the way and not likely to be door to door.
But on the other hand due to a knee injury I haven't been cycling to work for the last 6 months and when I looked into taking the local bus it would have taken 40 minutes door to door to go 3 miles, compared to 10 in a car.
I live very close to work so that commute is a non issue but in a few weeks have to, for a week, commute to just outside Edinburgh. A 80minute drive I could get public transport which would get me almost door to door but adds 70 minutes each way assuming I arrive exactly coinciding with the bus/train.
Most cars are North of 50p/mile these days, certainly most lease or HP or PCP cars, and if it’s vaguely nice it can be £1 a mile before you even fuel the thing.
should compare apples with apples. The equivalent of a bus or train journey is a 20 year old berlingo. Cost - £500 to purchase. Lasts 5 years. Running costs £900/year (mot £50, tax £200, insurance £300, £350 for repairs/maintenance). on 10,000 miles that's 20p/mile (fuel is 10p/mile when you're at 45 mpg). Yes, there's a chance it might break down, but hey, the bus/train isn't exactly unfaltering reliable. £1 a mile (assuming 10k/year) would be £9,000 a year in lease costs, or £750 a month, which is brand new S class for 10,000 miles.
Some of the figures in this thread are bonkers
With the car I can get to point A to point B on my time and my schedule. Not have to smell piss and vomit , or stand because somebody's primark handbag needs a seat. A car every time here , because public transport really is the pits.
I happened to be doing some sums on my cars to decide which one to sell- the nicer of my cars costs £4.80 a day (depreciation, VED, servicing, tax, insurance etc.). I looked into how much it was going to cost to get the train to work and it was £9.80- even allowing for fuel it's £1 cheaper to go in the car, which, as it takes me door to door is quicker. It's not a particularly flash car, but it cost £8k and is pretty luxurious inside and is relatively new.
If the train were something like £6 I'd take it in a heartbeat - it's the right thing to do, but it also has to be the right thing to do for me. We do take the bus around Edinburgh when we don't cycle because we can go close enough to most of the places we need to go and not worry about parking but if we want to go to our pals that live 2 miles around town from us we can't do it directly as most of the buses go into the middle of the city rather than around it.
(fuel is 10p/mile when you’re at 45 mpg)
At £1.28 per litre for diesel your fuel cost is over 12p a mile @45mpg. Being 20% out on one figure throws the other numbers you quote into some doubt.
At £1.28 per litre for diesel your fuel cost is over 12p a mile @45mpg. Being 20% out on one figure throws the other numbers you quote into some doubt.
My bad, the converter I used was set to US gallons, rather than imperial. Lets say 25p a mile then, rather than 20. Still a significant way from any public transport options other than, weirdly, flying, which I've had below 3p/mile in the past (£300 return flights to LA)
Most cars are North of 50p/mile these days, certainly most lease or HP or PCP cars, and if it’s vaguely nice it can be £1 a mile before you even fuel the thing.
Not sure how you're coming up with £1 per mile before fuel my lease costs me 27p a mile based on the allowance of miles per month.
Sounds like fuel needs to be far more expensive, so that we really are looking at "cost to drive an extra mile" rather than "cost of ownership spread over all miles driven".
My office is 23 miles away, cross country. It takes on average 31 minutes to drive. I can use a motorway & big dual carriageway option, but it's longer (30 miles). It can take 25 minutes, it can also take an hour & a half.
I have a car anyway, because I don't live in a big city & public transport (albeit on a mainline station) isn't practical. Maybe if I lived in a city like Amsterdam with a great public transport system & a safe environment to ride in, I wouldn't need a car, but I don't live there, I live on the south coast of the UK.
I can get a train. It only takes 1h 52m & a cost of £14.60 a day. When I say 'a' train, it's actually 3.
Having a look, I can also get a bus. But that takes 2h 56m. Slightly cheaper though at £13.40. This is actually 5 different buses.
Not exactly practical.
Multi modal is what we should aim for. Right tool for the job. Car work well for many journeys or parts of journeys it should be easier and quicker to swap modes of transportation. Same thing with trains and bikes
That's the idea with park and ride but every time I have used p&r (Oxford and sailsbury) it only works out if you are going into town for a long period of time on your own. Plus waiting for a bus that is at best every 15-20 mind is not very nice. Make it one, two, three hours with two to three people and the coat and time difference doesn't work out.
I say all of this as someone who likes buses (outside mega rush hour)
Sounds like fuel needs to be far more expensive
It's not just cost. It's availability, and journey time as well. As I said I like public transport but outside a few cities it's poor quality and poorly integrated with many black holes even within those cities.
