[Closed] Why people don't bother with public transport

Add to your list: cost & the fact that you wouldn't transport animals like you do people on a rush hour underground train.

I expecting too much

No

After enjoying using the public transport in Singapore for 10 days last yr it can be done.

You didn't mention the cost!

Yup, a friend is making a conscious effort. She doesn't drive anyway, but is also trying to use public transport for European business trips rather than flying. Yorkshire to Maastricht by train went smoothly, but she missed her ferry trying to get to Dublin in a similar manner thanks to northern cancellations. She's flying home.

I’ll mention the cost. £10.80 return for a fifteen minute journey on a packed train. No wonder some folk choose to drive. Fortunately I only have to do this once or twice per week.

Hampshire to Leeds? I fly from Southampton. Half the price usually, and much less hassle. Ridiculous that this should be the case, but it is!

6:10 train cancelled due to “lack of a train crew"

That sounds like Abellio speak for 'we don't actually have enough staff to cover our entire timetable, so rely on people doing over-time, which they won't always do'...

The cup holder on my bus this morning was too small for my travel mug.

****ing public transport

Seriously, do they not have any contingency in the system?

Which would add significantly to the cost of tickets, an oft heard moan already. I use it whenever I can, but there's no way to get to work by public transport atm, sadly.

You didn’t mention the cost!

or the public..

I can see Flashy in his classic VIP aircraft flying to Leeds, if I could get a pic up, you’d see it as well!

6:10 train cancelled due to “lack of a train crew”.

A needless problem considering it's easier to automate trains than it is to automate cars and lorrys. (...and there already are driverless trains running - DLR for instance.)

It does not have to be like this. I use public transport in central Scotland a lot. Its ALWAYS cheaper and quicker than using a car

It does not have to be like this. I use public transport in central Scotland a lot. Its ALWAYS cheaper and quicker than using a car

Less people, more land.

Hampshire to Leeds? I fly from Southampton. Half the price usually, and much less hassle. Ridiculous that this should be the case, but it is!

Wont someone please think of the polar bears!

"public transport in central Scotland"

Hmm. I have bad memories of sitting on the floor squashed into the gap between carriages with lots of other people on the Edinburgh to Dundee train.

[i]Wont someone please think of the polar bears![/i]

See Mark's graphs in the current mag...

TINAS, on normal days my commute is a stroll along an ancient droveway through the woods, so I'm not all evil! 😀

Just had a telling off as my ticket was for the half 8 train to Leeds and I'm on the 9; "you should have gone to the ticket office so they can check that your train was cancelled and validate your ticket for a different time, I should charge you the full fare really". So they can't run their service properly and yet I have to run around getting permission to travel on a different (near empty) train with a ticket that already cost me £84 one way? Christ. Good job she didn't try to enforce it. I'd probably have tutted loudly.

Its ALWAYS cheaper and quicker than using a car

£25.50 peak return from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Cheaper to drive even when you account for fuel, parking, factor in running costs and depreciation etc

If me and the missus wanted to go to Edinburgh for the day you're looking at over £50. Car is a no brainer at that point.

Its ALWAYS cheaper and quicker than using a car

I seem to remember you stating this before and your calculations relying on not already having a car and needing it for other journeys or leasing an new car though an expensive manor or some such. I can't remember the precise details but it was very much a one way of owning / running a car calculation rather than allowing for different models of ownership or use.

It would take me 3 hours to get to work on public transport, it takes 22 mins in the car.

The cup holder on my bus this morning was too small for my travel mug.

😂

Boarding bob. Nope - cheaper by train for one person. And quicker and more convenient

As ever you forget to include much of the costs of car ownership. Its a hundred+ mile round trip. Cars cost 35 - 50 p a mile to run it would be £15 in petrol alone for most cars and there is no way you can drive from Edinburgh to Glasgow city centre in the time the train takes

OOB the reason why public transport in central scotland is so good is investment from the government and in Edinburgh state run buses.

I use public transport daily (Northern Rail Harrogate > Leeds route) and it's diabolical. Almost every day trains are late, cancelled or short trains due to lack of rolling stock. A couple of weeks ago a train pulled into Leeds, people got off, we got on then, minutes before departure, it was cancelled due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’ and the next train was short again so some passengers couldn’t even get on.

I hate it.

Its shit and expensive around here. Only last night did I look for the four of us to travel from Derby to Nottingham, it was nigh on 32 quid which is ridiculous!! In reality that's not even where we would want to travel from and back to, but our local stop is only serviced till 10pm ish.

As ever you forget to include much of the costs of car ownership. Its a hundred+ mile round trip. Cars cost 35 – 50 p a mile to run it would be £15 in petrol alone

Maybe you should just consider the variable costs if you choose to run a car for other reasons.

The issues with public transport ( and i fully accept I live in an area of good provision) is nothing to do with the fact its public transport and everything to do with political decisions made.

This is why the journey I did was on fast comfy modern trains - political decisions. this is why the leeds / harrogate experience is shite - political decisions

Public transport can be great - it just needs to political will. As I sat on that nice fast cheap train I thought " this is almost a european experience" 😉

old tennis shoes - why? Why not use the real cost?

I get public transport for work everyday (as parking spaces are very hard to come by at work), and 85% of the time it’s fine. But days like today when it goes wrong, it really goes wrong! Three consecutive peak time trains cancelled meaning hardly anyone could fit onto the train at my stop when one did come in. So I went and got the bus instead. Still sat on it now - what takes 12 mins by train is currently taking 1+ hour through the awful Leeds traffic (which is also why I get the train). Arghhhhhh

Cant cycle to the station - roads are dangerous and full of potholes.
Cant park my bike at the station - likley to get nicked, damaged, CCTV pointless.
Train is dirty, overcroweded and very expensive.

Live in a village, no chance of public transport joining up.

Town to town it might work. But then I remember the Tube in London and compare that to the MTR in Hong Kong.

TJ - It does not have to be like this. I use public transport in central Scotland a lot. Its ALWAYS cheaper and quicker than using a car

Don’t be misled by TJ’s central Scotland Utopia. In reality the exact “excuse” in the OP has been used for about two years by Scotrail for cancelling trains, because they don’t have enough staff.

I use public transport almost every working day, and it IS a bit quicker than fighting with Edinburgh traffic; but is no less cost (true cost, peak time tickets etc), and I happen to be 3 mins and 7 min walks at each end. If I was traveling outside peak, the traffic issues disappear and a less frequent train service means I can do it door to door quicker than public transport.

I also travel about once a week 11 miles between two fairly significant towns in the central belt that have plenty of people going between them. It used to take nearly 40 minutes on a dreadful bus which ran less than once every hour (that service no longer runs and you have to change busses - no idea how long now). You can drive in 20 minutes, and go door to door. Admittedly it’s probably about 50p more expensive to drive - assuming I am on my own.

Public transport within and between Glasgow and Edinburgh is fairly good (but well behind standards in many other countries) but that does not extend across the entire central belt.

all the things listed so far are symptoms, the cause is:

decades of under-investment and lack of political will to provide a system fit for purpose and encourage it's use.

"
tjagain

It does not have to be like this. I use public transport in central Scotland a lot. Its ALWAYS cheaper and quicker than using a car"

You must live in a different central Scotland from me then. Milngavie to Greenock for work? 30m by car. 2 hours by bus/train. When it runs late/early enough for shift times. My car saves me 3 hours per day commute time.

Even the journeys public transport should be good at - suburb to city centre. Car 25m bus 45m + waiting times. Waiting times - in the evening there is 1 bus an hour. And this is only 7 miles out of a major city. What is rural public transport like?

Public transport is ALWAYS slower than the car.

old tennis shoes – why? Why not use the real cost?

Because some people live in areas where public transport provision is so poor that car ownership is more important. And of course car rental is an option for some, but not all.
If you are already paying fixed costs for a car (which the majority are) there is a lower financial incentive to use public transport.

I've tried repeatedly to visit my folks down in NW England using trains. I'm happy to pay the extra cost, for the journeys to take longer and to be at inconvenient times, but it's harder to deal with the delays and cancellations imposed by Northern Rail twixt Bolton and Preston.

At this political time may I remind you that the reason it's shit is because of underfunding, and that is a political decision.

Rail infrastructure needs funding, it needs investment, because otherwise we rely on cars and even now we over use cars resulting in shit quality of life for car commuters too.

If you want your country to function then your government has to actually raise taxes properly, spend money and actually run things. It cannot be left to free market economics otherwise nearly everyone ends up ****ed, pissed off and miserable, like the OP.

 I use public transport in central Scotland a lot. Its ALWAYS cheaper and quicker than using a car

No. No it isn't.

Public transport is ALWAYS slower than the car.

I really don’t agree with that. I can leave my house at 8am (Pannal Ash, near Harrogate) and be in the office for 9am (central Leeds). If I tried to drive in it would easily take 1hr 30 - there is no way on earth I could get to LS1 <1hr at that time.

For me to get to work from visiting my fiance in Birmingham by car is horrible. It's a 1:45 drive in the best of traffic, normally the 7am rush on the M40 takes at least an extra 30 mins so I have to leave at 6am to at least give me a chance of getting to work on time, but then deal with the horror of rush hour M40 and the nutters that do it daily. Either that or I catch the 6:28 train from moor street to Banbury, super quiet, often nap or browse the internet (free wifi). I then get to Banbury for about 7:25 where I can have a nice 30 min country road drive to work. Yes maybe not hugely quicker but much less stressful (plus boss is OK with me being late if train is late but less so with M40 traffic), cheaper (18-25 railcard, so the return is £13, fuel would be that alone, plus having to park my car in a dodgy bit of Birmingham) and makes the tree huggers happy.

Public transport is ALWAYS slower than the car.

Stop being silly. A moment's thought will reveal that with any journey it will depend on how the network serves the places to which you want to go.

Hence Central London to central Leeds last week on a nice new empty train in 2h15. Good luck doing that by car. On the other hand, central Leeds to my house in Cardiff, 5hrs. Comparable to driving but way easier since t was at rush hour. But far more expensive, see above.

As ever you forget to include much of the costs of car ownership. Its a hundred+ mile round trip. Cars cost 35 – 50 p a mile to run it would be £15 in petrol alone for most cars and there is no way you can drive from Edinburgh to Glasgow city centre in the time the train takes

OOB the reason why public transport in central scotland is so good is investment from the government and in Edinburgh state run buses.

Edinburgh/Glasgow isn't really central scotland is it? (which would be around Dalwhinnie/lagan if my geography is right.) It's a relatively short distance between two major metropolitan centres served by motorway and direct rail connections.

Now don't get me wrong the m62 corridor proves proximity isn't a guarantee of effectiveness (and if your centre is population based fits too) but to suggest that Edinburgh proves it can be done elsewhere [edit: everywhere] is a bit daft.

I don't disagree there's a political element to the issues with public transport but there are huge practical issues too.

Re faster, I take it you live centralish in one and work centralish in the other? To get public transport from most areas of dense housing to most areas of dense industry would take a at least one bus at each end (if the areas are even served by buses) usually a slow, irregular service bound by the same traffic troubles as driving. - randomly picked Loanhead to Renfrew is 1.15-1.50 by car, according to Google, bus/train is 2.06 by the same (but due to timings requires leaving at 6.40am as opposed to 7.10 to arrive at 9am).
Clermiston to Coatbridge is 50-1.15 by car, 1.22 by pt.

Public transport is ALWAYS slower than the car.

You don't live in Reading - I can tell 🙂

£30 per week for my 20-mile each way journey into Manchester, so £6/day for 40 miles.

No parking charges and even the infamous Northern Rail experience isn't as bad as actually driving into the city at rush hour.

Heading down to London is way nicer and quicker on the inter-city than driving, but it ain't cheap and the ticketing is needlessly confusing.

The problem is that public transport seems to be priced as a direct alternative to car ownership which means that as soon as you sink your money into a car (cost to buy/year-depreciation plus all other fixed costs) public transport becomes poor value.

For example a return train to my work peak time costs £16 but about £8 in fuel. As I've already paid for the car it doesn't feel like the true (45p/mile???) cost of running a ca