Public Transport

[Mercadante]

I voted as using the bus and disliking it, which I do - but I dislike driving, too.

It's not actually the travel I mind on a bus, it's the organization. Local buses are fine, when they're so frequent it doesn't matter if I miss one, and all I have to do is get on and off. Intercity coaches - having to order the tickets in advance, collect them, work out connections, find the right platform, worry about connections when the first coach is late - are much more stressful. If there aren't too many connections it's still better than driving myself, though.

I stopped getting trains when they were privatized and timetables became an unfathomable mess.

[Gill Catton]

I don't mind getting the Oxford tube or express coaches into London as they are reliable and relatively cheap. Certainly cheaper than driving and parking especially off peak - and someone else then drives you home when you're exhausted after a days (or even two days) shopping or sight seeing which feels ace and leaves you feeling appropriately rested for the last leg driving home.

I HATE using the rail lines... so expensive and so unreliable.... How can that work? if something is cheap you sort of expet it to be rubbish, but if something is expensive it ought to be really good right? Why is this nowhere near the case


You can pay for a seat and then they cancel a train so two train loads of people have to squeeze into one train. So you have over an hour to be annoyed about having booked a seat yet spending the jourmey leaning against the loo door.

On another occassion booking a train up to Chesterfield from Swindon I got as far as Bristol when two trains in a row were cancelled making it utterly pointless heading up to Chesterfield as I had missed half the meeting and would quickly have to turn around and head south again. When it came to a refund - they would only refund the cost of the journey up as there was nothing wrong with the train journey back down again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Brilliant ......

Off peak train journeys are ok ish, its nice to be able to read as I travel or to get something to eat without stopping.

But when you actually need to be somewhere for work, where you are forced to travel at peak times or even near peak times, they are downright awful, money-grabbing, unreliable, inefficent, stinking, terrible mode of transport.

[Wild-Woman]

My Mum,who is now eighty, has free transport. The trouble is, for it to be free, there are set times that she may travel. Well-it's free I can hear you say, but when there is just ONE bus that has to accomodate ALL of the pensioners that want to travel to town in the morning (and the reason they travel then is because the town is 'safer'...the yobs and drunks are still in bed),the pensioners nearest town miss out because the bus is packed solid...even folk in their 90's etc have to stand for the journey-if they were lucky enough to get on! So it's not rosy for our pensioners at all.
Mum said there's been occasions when the bus has had to go past full bus stops-sometimes in the pouring rain, leaving them standing there helplessly. What an appalling system.
Luckily, my Mum has us to help her out with shopping,but when we're all at work and she wants to do something herself, she shouldn't have to worry about the buses. She's earnt her bus pass and should enjoy her freedom as a pensioner.
Letters that have been sent to the bus company have fallen on deaf ears so I think a letter to our MP is imminent. It shouldn't be like this, it makes a mockery of this country.

[Paul mabbott]

I won't repeat what I said before. I have no problems with train journeys for the area in which I travel. Unfortunately, there is no joined up system nationally: good services here, bad ones there, no services at all somewhere else.

One of the problems is that there was a definite policy decision a couple of years back to price people off trains because the companies couldn't cope with the demand. So instead of laying on more services they decided to increase fares!

It's just a bizarre organisation. Network Rail gets fined millions of pounds for appalling timetableing over the holidays - meaning there will be less money to spend on improving and maintaining the railways - yet the managers get bonuses of about £300,000 each!

The whole thing needs a complete shake-up with one company nationally handling long-distance travel with perhaps small regional ones running local transport.

Originally Posted by Gill Catton

.............
I HATE using the rail lines... so expensive and so unreliable.... How can that work? if something is cheap you sort of expet it to be rubbish, but if something is expensive it ought to be really good right? Why is this nowhere near the case

You can pay for a seat and then they cancel a train so two train loads of people have to squeeze into one train. So you have over an hour to be annoyed about having booked a seat yet spending the jourmey leaning against the loo door.

On another occassion booking a train up to Chesterfield from Swindon I got as far as Bristol when two trains in a row were cancelled making it utterly pointless heading up to Chesterfield as I had missed half the meeting and would quickly have to turn around and head south again. When it came to a refund - they would only refund the cost of the journey up as there was nothing wrong with the train journey back down again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Brilliant ......

Off peak train journeys are ok ish, its nice to be able to read as I travel or to get something to eat without stopping.

But when you actually need to be somewhere for work, where you are forced to travel at peak times or even near peak times, they are downright awful, money-grabbing, unreliable, inefficent, stinking, terrible mode of transport.

[WolvesxRxBeauty]

being to young for a drivers licence, if I want to go there I have to use the bus (mum won't give me a lift). I Also use the bus everyday to go to school. Most people seam to hate using the bus, but i quiet enjoy it. It's one of the few places where you get to see a real strange mix of people, of all ages! Public transport is a lot better then people give it credit for!

[Real Wild Child]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

I won't repeat what I said before. I have no problems with train journeys for the area in which I travel. Unfortunately, there is no joined up system nationally: good services here, bad ones there, no services at all somewhere else.

There certainly is no joined up thinking, because if my dad wants to go into Sheffield from where we live, he has to go on the bus, even though he wants to transfer onto the train because the buses are running later now. So they used to run at 09.08am and the trains used to run at 09.20am and still do, but now the buses run at 09.18am, so he can't transfer onto the train.

[Real Wild Child]

Originally Posted by WolvesxRxBeauty

being to young for a drivers licence, if I want to go there I have to use the bus (mum won't give me a lift). I Also use the bus everyday to go to school. Most people seam to hate using the bus, but i quiet enjoy it. It's one of the few places where you get to see a real strange mix of people, of all ages! Public transport is a lot better then people give it credit for!

Of course, you would say that, there are no strange people on the Isle of Man.

[WolvesxRxBeauty]

Originally Posted by Real Wild Child

Of course, you would say that, there are no strange people on the Isle of Man.

Some of the people I know a rather strange... XD (my mum, Bub-les, for one XD)

[stripee]

It once took 5 hours to travel 30 miles by bus here in wales when my car broke down. There is no joined up bus/train transport system that doesn't involve waiting for an hour or several hours at a bus stop.
I use Great Western trains for longer journeys. It can be an lucky day or an unlucky day! On unlucky days there are delays of hours and again, no joined up trains if there is a delay and a different train company operates between Swansea and the rest of w wales. There have been horrendous delays where noone knows what the other company is doing, they cannot get the information up on their computers. The last time I travelled by train I arrived at Paddington to see that all the trains to w wales were cancelled for the rest of the day because of a suicide (several a month occur, obviously terrible, but it is the disorganised response that is the problem) the other side of Reading. They advised everyone to go on the tube to Waterloo to Reading and pick up trains there. I waited until later in the afternoon when eventually the train drivers had been bussed to Paddington from Reading, and got the train from Padds. When we arrived at Reading the poor passengers who had travelled from Waterloo could not board the train as it was full up and were left on the platform. When I got to Swansea I had to wait 2 more hours for the next w wales train. eeeek. The journey took 13 hours, it should take 3 and a half hours. Other problems have included diesel on the track, leaves, trees, breakdowns, snow, water etc etc.
On Sundays forget it, they do maintenance on the tracks.
I sometimes use National Express coaches, they are generally ok if no major traffic holdups.
Trains are overcrowded and both types of transport suffer from noisy mobile phone users. It would be nice if public transport was more pleasant to use, cheaper and the services were joined up and problems were resolved quicker.

[sleipnerofasgard]

I have to admit that i use public transport a lot and most times it is very good but i always check on the internet before i travel anywhere as i usually take my bike with me when i travel by train in case the bus replacement is in operation which is essential knowledge for me.
for example ,i read on here about the peregrines in bolton and fancied going for a look but as that would not take up too much of the day i thought about going to jumbles country park while i was close but after checking the net i found that two parts of the journey were trains replaced by buses meaning i could not take my bike and the journey to bolton which was normally 25 minutes and then onto the station near jumbles was a total of 3 hours with waiting for connections i decided against it.it's a good job i checked,and on a previous journey to warrington i was faced with one train not turning up and the next being 10 minutes late so missing the connecting train to warrington as it should have left me 12 minutes to get across the road to the other station but only left me 2.still i would not be able to get to places like leighton moss without it.
and i'm lucky enough to have 2 stations in the place where i live so there isn't anywhere i cannot get to if i really want to

[djackso]

It could be better - children make the passengers from HELL and I avoid the buses at school home time - erm, like the plague!!!!

But there have been good improvements to the services I use in recent years.

[snowdrop]

The best ride I had was on a steam train to and from West Kirkby. The comfortable seating had antimacassers (have I spelled that properly?) and red velvet curtains. There was plenty of leg room too.
I caught the express to London last year...no leg room, the seats were so hard it was painful and the air conditioning didn't work.

[Paul mabbott]

Could things be looking up? Will there be serious investment in fast rail lines?
BBC NEWS | UK | Major new rail lines considered
I'm fairly happy with the current times from London to Manchester or Sheffield and would rather see fares cut than times. On the other hand, the time from London to Glasgow (as well as the fare) is rather long so high-speed trains to Scotland would be the proverbial good thing! Given that we can now get from London to Avignon in southern France within six hours, it's bizarre how long it takes to get to Scotland!

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by snowdrop

I caught the express to London last year...no leg room, the seats were so hard it was painful and the air conditioning didn't work.

Where from - is the infamous Great Western again?

[kielder]

When I went up to Seahouses, to go to the farnes we travelled by bus, am pleased to say there was plenty of room on this bus! and it was nice to sit back and enjoy some lovely scenery on a sunny day :-)

[snowdrop]

Spot on Paul. LoL

You mentioned high-speed trains, I'm sure we were promised bullet-trains a few years ago, whatever happened to that idea?

[JoanB]

Some bus journeys are worse than others:

40-year-old suspect held in gruesome Manitoba bus killing

Originally Posted by djackso

It could be better - children make the passengers from HELL and I avoid the buses at school home time - erm, like the plague!!!!

But there have been good improvements to the services I use in recent years.

[dragonfly]

it awful in hull quicker to walk

[JW]

My nearest town is 10 miles away. It costs £5 for a return ticket. For all of my family to go into town (2 adults and 3 children) it costs more than fuel, car park and refreshments put together.

I simply can't afford to go totally green.

Why can't green taxes go to subsidising public transport? If they were cheaper and more reliable I would ditch my car, at the moment I'd be bl**dy mad to!

[ron1863]

I was last on a bus about 8 years ago and never again. A 20 minute car journey into Glasgow took 90 minute and was £1.50 for a single fare then, god knows what it is now.
Give me the car any day, you begin to see all the pitfalls of public transport when you no longer have the use of a car.

[nightshade]

Pre Beeching the trains and buses linked everywhere to everywhere else,
People were important then now ONLY MONEY IS IMPORTANT.
Lip service covers most government statments regarding transport plans only
Nationalisation will give us back a comprehensive transport system

[BloomingMarvellous]

I nearly got thrown off my local bus for complaining that It was late. It turned up fifteen minutes before the next bus was due and they only run every hour. I was well fed up when the bus arrived, the doors opened and everyone got on but no one had said anything. I asked the driver why he was so late and he turned round and said " don't you go having a go at me now " so I reminded him that I'd been waiting 45 minutes for this bus and was sort of expecting some form of apology from him after he opened the doors, " a Sorry I'm Late Folks " would of done. Then he told me If I continued to harass him he would chuck me off the bus. I'm a 46 year old women not a kid of 14 I reminded him and then went and sat down. When I got off the bus I quietly said to the driver, I now know why people don't complain as to why the bus Is late, and he said " Whys that then " so I said " You'll chuck them off the bus.

[Jim Ford]

I missed the poll so:

Do people still use public transport on a regular basis for serious journeys - y'know, journeys where you need to get to a place on time and not have to disembark from a train onto a bus, because there was a piece of chewing gum on the line?

The last time I contemplated using a train it was for a trip to London. Unfortunately it was at a weekend and they didn't do trains then! London appeared to be cut-off at the weekends - I guess Londoners had to stock up in the week with fresh food and vegetables to see themselves through the weekend to Monday.

And the cost! Years ago you could make a half-hour journey with the loose change in your pocket. Now you need to visit a cash point before you buy a ticket!

Jim