Public Transport

[AndrewSchofield]

Does anyone on here use public transport, and if so, why??

We're going to Liverpool next month, travelling up Friday, back Saturday. A return ticket on the train will cost £20.40 per adult and the train journey takes 2hrs and 7mins. Its 120miles in the car (60 each way) which at a pessimistic 35mpg will cost around £21 in fuel and parking will cost less than £10. Google maps reckons it'll take about 90mins. There's four adults travelling.

So if we go in the car, it'll cost a maximum of £31 and take 90mins. If we go by train it'll take 37mins longer and cost £81.60 - over £50 more!! And then we've still got to get from home to the train station and from the station in Liverpool to the hotel.

So the public transport option costs a lot more, takes longer and is less convenient. I like the idea of using my car less in theory, but public transport just doesn't seem to have any plus-points?

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Had you thought of letting the press know? This stuff is explosive.

 

[Biker1959]

Compare like with like and consider Season Tickets- you don't always have a group travelling.

Example, daily travel to Manchester in a car costs me £8 in diesel plus £4 parking, i.e £12 but this does not include depreciation, Insurance, Road Tax, Servicing and repairs so the true cost is nearer £36 per day.

An annual train season ticket costs me £6.86 per day over a five day week and I don't get stuck in traffic.

 

[joe-90]

Andrew. To suggest that the train should be £5 each return just because there are a few of you travelling is just plain daft. Take your car. If you were travelling alone then it would be different.

 

[AndrewSchofield]

Many thanks for taking the time to post a reply FMS.

To the others - fair points, hadn't considered that you get better value if you're travelling regularly so it probably is a comparable, if not better, way of travelling if your doing a journey every day rather than a one-off.

 

[ladylola]

Without wanting to argue about the example we have here I do feel public transport is overpriced. More people on public transport means less cars on the roads, less congestion, less polution leading to less respirtary diesease related hospital cases , less oil to import and so on.
Plus don't forget to add into the equation the amount of money (i.e. our taxes) that is paid by the government to our so called privately run railways. The HS2 link is said to be costing us £30 billion and will blight large tracts of England all to make London to Manchester 20 minutes quicker I'm sure you can all do the maths to see what it costs per person and how many free train tickets that money would pay for.

 

[Alarm]

I have to travel a bit but I know well in advance so the trains are great. I can get first class at a knock down price just by going out the day before. For a fiver in some instances. Same for the return, only had to change the journey once and that was because I ended up at the station previous to where I had planned as I did another favour Cost me £3 quid and I was on the same train I needed pmsl, had to sit in 2nd class for the one stop then walked to first!!!

Last min deals can be had still, but you may not get a seat.

London Transport is good overall and I feel the pricing is reasonable. Again times and routes can alter the price structure, but Zone 1 = highest fares. So if you can avoid going thru it. Okay I know this is London spefic

Sometimes it is quicker to get a train than use the car. Might be time to get another motorbike !!

Oh and on a long train journey bring your own beer if you like a tipple that is where they make a bundle.

 

[Inky Pete]

Trains are only any use if you happen to want to travel from one city centre to another, and happen to want to travel at a time which coincides with the timetable.

For anything else they're absolutely rubbish!

You might well be able to get from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston in 3 hours. But if you want to get from somewhere in Cheshire to somewhere in Surrey (say) you'd have to get a bus or taxi to your nearest station, infrequent train service to Manchester or Crewe, fast train to Euston, then fight your way across London on the Tube to whichever station serves Surrey, local slow train to the nearest station to your destination, then another bus or taxi to where you actually want to be.

You'd be very lucky to do it in less than a full day, and even luckier to do it for less than £100 a head!

By comparison, it's probably 4 hours by car door to door, £60 of diesel round trip, and you can travel exactly when you want to. Oh, you also don't have to listen to anyone elses music or phone calls, and you're pretty well guaranteed a seat!

The insurance/depreciation argument is meaningless unless the public transport in your area is so good 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, that you don't need to have a car at all. If it isn't then you're running a car as well anyway, so you're paying the insurance and depreciation ON TOP of your motoring tax subsidised, but still outrageously priced, rail ticket.

It beggars belief that rail passenger numbers are at record levels, taxpayer subsidy is at an all-time high, but we STILL don't have decent trains or reliable services.

 

[youngroughcaster]

Hi,,, many people have different opinions. As you worked out the car might be the best option but many people might find the public transport is better!! some might think cars. it depends on alot of things what you might find better. Using public transport might be your only option or visa versa!!

 

[Inky Pete]

If the railways had to pay all these "green" taxes that motorists do, or even if they just had to pay their own way without subsidy, then it'd be a real no-brainer!!!!!

Ticket prices would have to double or quadruple, and marginally used rural services would have to be axed left right and centre.

It's only the subsidy and the tax exemptions which keep the railways going at all, and it'd be far cheaper for the Treasury to just buy everyone in the country a new car every 5 years!

 

[misterdubya]

Had you thought of letting the press know? This stuff is explosive.

. Sorry OP, just saw the funny side of that comment.

 

[ladylola]

If the railways had to pay all these "green" taxes that motorists do, or even if they just had to pay their own way without subsidy, then it'd be a real no-brainer!!!!!

Ticket prices would have to double or quadruple, and marginally used rural services would have to be axed left right and centre.

It's only the subsidy and the tax exemptions which keep the railways going at all, and it'd be far cheaper for the Treasury to just buy everyone in the country a new car every 5 years!

It'd be far cheaper to nationlise and not keep paying Branson and his ilk millions and millions of tax payers money.

 

[Inky Pete]

Rather pay those billions to Bob Crowe and the other union robber baron millionaires, would you?

What is it now £50,000 a year for a Tube driver - they don't even have to steer the bloody things!

Oh, and a "bonus" of £2K for not going on strike during the Olympics.

If there's one industry left that needs more private sector competition to break the stranglehold of the unions who think nothing of inconveniencing paying customers by striking at the drop of a hat, then it's the monopoly holding railways.

 

[alumni]

Travel on public transport???
How quaint.


But no thanks.

 

[Alarm]

Travel on public transport???
How quaint.


But no thanks.

Sometimes the needs of the few need the train driver to service the mulitude. And it is easier to do certain things on the train @ 120 mph than it is on the M wotever without a condom.....................