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I was forced to use PT on Saturday, for the first time in an age. Boy did I get a surprise.<br>A three stop local trip (<1m) cost £2.00. WTF?<br>So, would a 7m trip cost £20.00? Damn right it wouldn’t. Fact is that I was overcharged on a journey that the govt should be persuading me to make using PT rather than my car. The fact is that it would have been cheaper to just walk it. If I had been in a position to, I would have.<br>I’m just glad that I am still mobile. If I was not quite so, then I simply couldn’t afford to get from a – b without my car. That’s a damning enditement on a govt that says it want’s people out of their cars :angry:
Obviously I’m not in possession of the full facts here but as it reads I’d like to ask why you found it impossible to walk one mile and that you were ‘forced‘ to take public transport?  Personally I don’t find that very far and I regularly walk one mile to shops and one mile back, with some shopping on the way.  I long since left the car at home for trips of such short duration.  Are you grossly overweight perhaps that you find it difficult ?  So, no I don’t see it as a damning indictment on the Govt’s part at all, this is just the sort of thing to be encouraged to get people out of their cars.  Also £2.00 is cheap – you were lucky.
Now 2 miles each way might be a bit too much but I’m tempted to say “get off your fat arseâ€ÂÂ
Public Transport is mainly for pensioners and poor people, the same as loan sharks and prepaid gas meters. Ensuring that poor people stay poor by paying more for less.
£2 for a mile may sometimes be good value. If the bus was clean, tidy, punctual & didn’t have scumbags on, then some might think it worthwhile. Trouble is most PT is scruffy, unpunctual and has lots of ne’er do wells on. (Although when I last travelled on Virgin trains – although it was expensive – I thought the standard of service was very good. Much better than the old BR.)<br>
(Edited by insomniac at 6:52 pm on Feb. 20, 2007)
"Public transportation is for jerks and lesbians"
– H Simpson, Springfield.
Or, in Edinburgh, for me and hoppy.
Steve
Have to agree with Grasshopper about public transport in Edinburgh. It’s very good and pretty cheap. From Dunfermline we have a choice of a direct bus for off-peak £3.50 return into Edinburgh, or a half hourly train service. Once the Longannet coal traffic is shifted via Stirling there should be more slots for passenger trains, so the service is likely to improve.
I used the bus everyday in Dunfermline during a spell working at HBOS. Bus every 10 minutes from Rosyth.
Conversely I should point out that I work in Hamilton, a journey which would be a right pig by public transport! I drive a company car. The journey to the east from Dunfermline is not half as clever by public transport, with the best option a half-hourly bus into Glasgow. That gets held up by the tailbacks before Kincardine Bridge, but then so does everything else.
Rob
I took the kids on the bus once and explained to them, that if they didnt try hard at school and get a proper job, this will be how they will have to travel around, when they grow up.
As a 44 year old non-driver I find it’s perfectly possible to live my life without a car in London, indeed preferable. <br>And, although the transport is eye-poppingly expensive, it’s way cheaper than running a car.
And when I was a training consultant I had little trouble roaming around Britain either, much to the astonishment of other consultants who couldn’t imagine life without their cars. Of course, these journeys were effectively free.
However, as my wife is about to drag me up to the wilds of Shropshire to live in rural seclusion (aka hell) I have to say lack of transport is beginning to weigh heavily on my mind!
<br>
I didn’t learn to drive until I was 30.
It eventually dawned on me that after an evening football match, a 3 mile walk home off the 23:00 train, or an expensive taxi, was not a lot of fun!
I spent many years working every railcard I could to get cheap railfares. In one case I got the cheapest annual rail season ticket in the country(Sheffield to Attercliffe, then Manchester Piccadilly to Oxford Road) so that I could get the annual season ticket holder’s railcard. Also had a trick where, instead of getting the through saver rail ticket, it was cheaper to get a succession of day returns. I went to see Farsley Celtic play Flixton in the Northern Premier League (yes, desperately sad) and had five tickets (saving £20+), Reading-Stevenage, Stevenage-Peterborough, Peterborough-Newark, Newark-Doncaster and Doncaster-Pudsey! This trick worked fine until one of my friends travelled up to Darlington in a similar fashion, then took a train back which was fast from York to London. He got away with it but was told it was frowned upon. The rail companies closed the ticket loophole, I learnt to drive, they lost a passenger…..go figure.
The overnight coach from Edinburgh to London is handy for visiting family. A lot less hassle than a 400 mile drive.
Rob
.. if the lesson doesn’t work with the kids (showing them what its like to have no car by taking them on the bus) I will be taking them to Asda for a weeks shopping and then bringing it home. Because you cant get a bus from where we live directly to Asda and have to change, it should finally hammer home the point.
tooting .. you will have to get a car.
Aranalde, we’re not sure yet – Mrs Tooting’s folks live outside Shifnal and we’ll rent near there before finding a place (smallholding) of our own. She has a new job in Birmingham so a lot will depend upon her commute.
<br>I’m certainly finding it ironic that I should be leaving London ahead of lolly’s mate!
<br>Dave, I’m thinking of getting a Piaggio Ape 50 – those old three wheeler scooters the French/Italian peasants are so fond of – I like the idea of holding up the traffic with a cap on my head and a dog in the back.
<br>My wife and I have differing ideas as to what life will be like.
In her mind’s eye she sees her dad’s farmhouse, agas, orchards and streams, rolling fields, peace and quiet and a big sky.
<br>I see duelling banjos.<br>
I was born in Shifnal but had to leave as I failed my Grade 5 banjo exam.
Shifnal is only just Shropshire, its periously close to South Staffordshire (where I currently live), not all that far from luverly Wolver’ampton and on the main route between the Black Country and the abomination that is Telford.
LOL.
I used to do quite a lot of work in Penkridge. I guess we’re looking at living somewhere in the square drawn by Bridgnorth- Shifnal – Penkridge – Wolverhampton, preferably with a rail link fairly close by.
You may make a Walsall fan of me yet! (I fondly remember when you were promoted along with Fulham a few years ago and Keegan had our players form a guard of honour).
By the way, I passed a stable with gallops outside Sherrifhales the other day – anyone know who the trainer is?<br>
That corner of Shropshire/South Staffordshire is a nice location. Not sure about the rail link though. There is a disused line that runs through our village up to Wolverhampton but its been closed since the 1960s.
The fortunes of our football teams have diverged somewhat since those happy days. You would be welcome to convert to any of the local teams, just as long as it isn’t Wolves. There are some things that are just beyond the pale.
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