Bus properganda on bbc news
Discussion
simoid said:
Is it possible that they said "can be quicker than car in certain circumstances"?
Yes. When they have artificially created advantages or private transport is hobbled - eg. bus lanes with priority signals, making cars sit in jams etc, positioning traffic islands right next to bus stops (so everyone has to stop and wait when a bus stops), positioning bus stops immediately after traffic light controlled junctions etc etc.Oldham Road going into Manchester is a perfect demonstration - before the bus lane was introduced the queues for each set of lights were not too bad. Now there's traffic having to merge with the attendant snarl ups. This has backfired however, since the buses get stuck as well.
I actually cannot see how a bus can ever be quicker than a car - they have to stop to let people on and off. Only by punishing other traffic can they even get close. Boils my piss (which is, incidentally, what it smells of on said buses).
Oh - lets not forget the fuel subsidy they get - that doesn't get publicised a lot. Private firms get fuel subsidies! (I used to work for one of the UKs biggest bus firms and had a program to run every month to calculate this for them).
It would be impossible for me to get to work using public transport even if I had no other choice (I think it would eventually work but journey time would be approx. 1hr 20 mins compared to 25 mins in the car...)
However my girlfriend ocasionally has to use the bus to get into town or to the doctors surgery since she can't yet drive. I always thought it would cost little more than a couple of quid to travel approx. 5 miles accross town, but no, she paid £5.80 to get from one end of Stevenage to the other?
What the juddering f*ck?! I used to pay less (£3.60!) to catch the train from Stevenage to get to work in Hitchin - the next town along!
However my girlfriend ocasionally has to use the bus to get into town or to the doctors surgery since she can't yet drive. I always thought it would cost little more than a couple of quid to travel approx. 5 miles accross town, but no, she paid £5.80 to get from one end of Stevenage to the other?
What the juddering f*ck?! I used to pay less (£3.60!) to catch the train from Stevenage to get to work in Hitchin - the next town along!
I'd say the bus is generally quicker in Edinburgh during peak travelling times. But, as has already been pointed out, it's artificial. Make me my own lane and force everyone to stop for me and I'm pretty sure a mobility scooter could make better progress than a clean-burning car or a dirty great cloud-belching bus.
I live in Tyne & Wear, on outer West fringe of Newcastle, but I work in South Shields, which for those that don't know, is virtually at the opposite end of the county.
I'd have to get a bus and a metro (light rail) to get to my destination.
It is cheaper to use public transport, but I don't for a number of reasons.
1. It takes at least 30 minutes longer each way. Typical time taken by car - 45 minutes, typical time taken by public transport 1 hour 15 minutes. That saves me an hour of my time each day.
2. For me, it is less stressful travelling by car. On a morning, I'd playing "lottery" with whether I catch my train. Quite often I'd have to run to catch the train and even then I'd miss it. OK its another 12 minutes for a train, not the end of the world, but then that's a further 12 minutes added onto an already fairly lengthy commute. In my car, I simply walk out my door, get in it, get out at my destination and walk into work, without being covered in sweat or out of breath. I can also lie in for 30 minutes longer.
3. I like my own space. I don't particularly enjoy smelling the breath of a drunk who has decided he would like to talk b
ks to me for the duration of my journey.
4. Public transport has a habit of letting me down when I least expect it.
Of course, when you do the sums, public transport is far cheaper than driving the 350Z to work and back (£10 per day in the Z versus £4.50 per day on PT) but its worth every penny quite honestly.
I'd have to get a bus and a metro (light rail) to get to my destination.
It is cheaper to use public transport, but I don't for a number of reasons.
1. It takes at least 30 minutes longer each way. Typical time taken by car - 45 minutes, typical time taken by public transport 1 hour 15 minutes. That saves me an hour of my time each day.
2. For me, it is less stressful travelling by car. On a morning, I'd playing "lottery" with whether I catch my train. Quite often I'd have to run to catch the train and even then I'd miss it. OK its another 12 minutes for a train, not the end of the world, but then that's a further 12 minutes added onto an already fairly lengthy commute. In my car, I simply walk out my door, get in it, get out at my destination and walk into work, without being covered in sweat or out of breath. I can also lie in for 30 minutes longer.
3. I like my own space. I don't particularly enjoy smelling the breath of a drunk who has decided he would like to talk b
ks to me for the duration of my journey.4. Public transport has a habit of letting me down when I least expect it.
Of course, when you do the sums, public transport is far cheaper than driving the 350Z to work and back (£10 per day in the Z versus £4.50 per day on PT) but its worth every penny quite honestly.
Not to forget that one bus with, say 50 passengers reduces the need for 30-50 cars on the road at that point.
Problem is more deep rooted. Even car sharing schemes don't work - people want their isolated personal bubble of space, at almost any cost.
Public transport doesn't have all the answers, and nor do cars...
Problem is more deep rooted. Even car sharing schemes don't work - people want their isolated personal bubble of space, at almost any cost.
Public transport doesn't have all the answers, and nor do cars...
christofmccracke said:
If I wanted to get from my house to edinburgh it would mean two trains and cost me £17 and 2 and a half hours. By car one hour and less than £5
If I want to travel to my place of work by public transport and arrive for my start time of 0715hrs, I need to get a train at 2358hrs the night before, wait in Edinburgh Waverley until 0551hrs where I get the next train to work which will get me in for 0630hrs, 45 minutes before my start time. The cheapest price is £7.80 each way. By car: 30-40 minutes, <£5.
A bit of a no-brainer, really, isn't it?
Edit to add: I know this is a bus thread and I've talked about trains, but the fact of it is, there is no single bus company that travels my commute, I'd be changing several times and paying at least £1.50 every time I set foot on a bus.
Edited by Papa Hotel on Monday 17th September 10:20
Sometimes I think these things are dreamt up by people living and working in central London where the public transport is arguably very good. That was my concern at the last proposal for charging for road use in an attempt to drive people to public transport. It's all very well in a major city, out here the last bus from my village to the pub leaves at 17.40, which is a bit early for me, and the last bus away is at 23.05 but only gets to within 1.5 miles of home. As someone else said, getting to work (before I worked from home) would go from about 25 minutes to more like 90, and that was three buses so two opportunities to miss a connection and add another hour to the journey.
Then I thought "No, the mandarins in Whitehall wouldn't possibly be so blinkered as to not consider areas of the country that don't have the same public transport infrastructure that they enjoy". And then I woke up.
Then I thought "No, the mandarins in Whitehall wouldn't possibly be so blinkered as to not consider areas of the country that don't have the same public transport infrastructure that they enjoy". And then I woke up.
I got the impression she has never been on a bus.
My wife used to use a bus to and from work and started walking early last year. Due to it being too expensive. Who wants to sit in other peoples p1$s and sick all cooking up nicely due to heaters on the bus being permanently on, even in summer. She asked why the heater is on and was told they have no way of turning them off.
My wife used to use a bus to and from work and started walking early last year. Due to it being too expensive. Who wants to sit in other peoples p1$s and sick all cooking up nicely due to heaters on the bus being permanently on, even in summer. She asked why the heater is on and was told they have no way of turning them off.
In my experience, out-of-town Park and Ride facilities are fantastic and the £2 I pay every day I'm needed in the city centre are more than recouped by the lack of stress in finding a parking space, the fact that town centre parking is at least a fiver a day, and that I'm getting off the bus right outside the office door. Remove a few hundred cars a day from town centres at rush hour and it makes a difference.
Rural buses/routes should be stopped, or at least shaken up a bit regarding rules, behaviour, and when they should get off the road to allow queues past. Sick of a 40-car queue of commuters sitting at 27mph in a 60 zone, all stuck behind some stinking old jalopy bus, with a mere 2 people on it. Bus wkers, indeed.
Rural buses/routes should be stopped, or at least shaken up a bit regarding rules, behaviour, and when they should get off the road to allow queues past. Sick of a 40-car queue of commuters sitting at 27mph in a 60 zone, all stuck behind some stinking old jalopy bus, with a mere 2 people on it. Bus w
kers, indeed. The bus is st.
I go from Waterloo to Clerkenwell everyday. If I take the bus, tube or walk, its exactly the same amount of time. Bus is most expensive (on an ad-hoc basis), stinks, is too hot, they appear to be driven by people who's previous job was stomping grapes in barrels and on the route home, sometimes randomly abandons us all in Holborn "so that the timetable can re-align". That's code for "You're going to miss your train."
fking useless. The quickest way around central london is by far a motorbike of some sort. Bicycle second, then tube, then car, then bus - last.
And I dont have to put up with drivers who either dont speak any english or are too withered, broken and despondent with their own existence that they can no longer be bothered to form any comprehensible words or even look at me. Even just to bother charging me the correct a fare of any sort.s.
TFL Buses - Enjoy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2waIvp265CM
t.I go from Waterloo to Clerkenwell everyday. If I take the bus, tube or walk, its exactly the same amount of time. Bus is most expensive (on an ad-hoc basis), stinks, is too hot, they appear to be driven by people who's previous job was stomping grapes in barrels and on the route home, sometimes randomly abandons us all in Holborn "so that the timetable can re-align". That's code for "You're going to miss your train."
f
king useless. The quickest way around central london is by far a motorbike of some sort. Bicycle second, then tube, then car, then bus - last.And I dont have to put up with drivers who either dont speak any english or are too withered, broken and despondent with their own existence that they can no longer be bothered to form any comprehensible words or even look at me. Even just to bother charging me the correct a fare of any sort.
s.TFL Buses - Enjoy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2waIvp265CM
Edited by Reardy Mister on Monday 17th September 10:37
Edited by Reardy Mister on Monday 17th September 10:38
OpulentBob said:
In my experience, out-of-town Park and Ride facilities are fantastic and the £2 I pay every day I'm needed in the city centre are more than recouped by the lack of stress in finding a parking space,
They can be, another function buses cover well is transporting children to school. Works well in North America with a dedicated school bus system, also used to be the normal way for children to go to school in cities in the UK.OpulentBob said:
In my experience, out-of-town Park and Ride facilities are fantastic and the £2 I pay every day I'm needed in the city centre are more than recouped by the lack of stress in finding a parking space, the fact that town centre parking is at least a fiver a day, and that I'm getting off the bus right outside the office door. Remove a few hundred cars a day from town centres at rush hour and it makes a difference.
Park and Ride does work quite nicely - the bus only stops at each end of the route and goes non-stop for the rest of it, sort of like a car. 
If the buses worked out cheaper than driving, I expect more people would use them, and then they would get better; full buses mean more buses can be added to the route, which means it becomes viable transport for more people. It's a virtuous circle.
However, the bus companies are quite happy to screw every last penny out of the people who can't or won't drive since it's a pretty much guaranteed income stream. Until someone with a somewhat more altruistic motive steps in, we won't be able to reduce the stupid congestion.
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