Complaint about public transport

Groan!

Never has a truer word been sang in a protest parody.

¤¤¤ Abo ¤¤¤ composed the following;:

Nice one ....

Though, as I've only ever used LU as a non-commuter without a deadline, I quite liked it .. ;)

I use a combination of the overground and LT about 3 times a week - always off peak - going places where parking is difficult or expensive. And am invariably impressed - although perhaps not by the rubbish others leave on the trains. Cost could be lower, though. It usually costs more than the petrol. And that's just for one. For a family, it must be no contest.

It's actually quite cheap as a family. Adult is under £4 and child about

60 pence. This is at off-peak times only.

Expensive compared to a car, then, which will manage 30 - 40 miles on the petrol which can be bought for the price of just the driver to go by LT.

Mind you, that's London. The price of a bus from town is only just less than the price of a taxi, when there are two traveling the taxi is a lot cheaper, and that typically requires 3 to 4 actual car journeys per return trip.

What about parking costs? Wear and tear? Insurance? Ignore the last two if you want, but parking in London is a lot. Plus all the hassle. Traffic is quite often bad too.

A taxi from the suburbs to central I would imagine is quite expensive.

They tend not to include an element of petrol.

Indeed. I'd rather have the hassle of sitting in my comfortable seated, air conditioned car with a decent selection of CDs, radio, etc, when delayed by traffic, than be sitting in a bus delayed by the same traffic.

Generally speaking, anyway. It's plausible that one can strike up an interesting conversation with the other passengers but, well, I have actually used buses, and, well... maybe this isn't a plus point for the bus on a grey monday morning.

No idea, I can only comment on the 8 quid or thereabouts a taxi costs from town, compared to the six quid *per passenger* that a bus charges. It's marginally cheaper by bus compared to car, in that case - although it ignores having to walk a mile since the bus drops off on the main road outside my village. But once you add a second passenger, the taxi wins every time.

Quite why a taxi - a car - works out cheaper than the bus, is really why I see cars as less petrol-thirsty. where else does the cost come into the fares?

Can't be the price of the driver's time - that's one to one compared to a bus driver's time being spread over all the passengers.

Err, in London you only use buses for short journeys. You've got the tube and overground which will take you near everywhere. Without being delayed by traffic.

I don't know how buses fare for slightly longer journeys (i.e. one side of the city centre to the other), but there are plenty of bus lanes (all the way up Marylebone/Euston/Pentonville/City Road, and all the way down Gower St/Tottenham Court Road, and Oxford Street/High Holborn etc.) that should make it fairly quick, beating most of the traffic.

Insurance for a bus is much higher than for a car/taxi; you require far more space to park, service and maintain a bus than a car/taxi - and this is expensive in London, as elsewhere; a bus costs considerably more than a car/taxi to purchase and maintain; a bus might do 8-10mpg, a diesel car might do 30mpg around town.

£3 for a day bus pass, or about 70pence to £1 single fares on whatever route. The price range for the latter all depends on you pay (Cash, or PrePay Oster card).

What are you talking about?

If you drive to London, assuming you're gonna do something there for a few hours, you have to pay for parking to leave your somewhere remotely safe. That is a cost that must be factored in. Parking in London is quite expensive.

Yeh, if one uses the tube one only gets delayed by breakdowns, strikes and station closures. Oh, and the physical impossibility of getting onto the train.

I like the tube. I like people-watching. And I like the fact that you can get home when you're drunk as a lord.

And all these with the inevitability of traffic jams in the rush hour? When last were you on a tube?

Night buses are even better for that. ;-)

I don't generally trust buses, because you never really know where they're going to stop.

The fact that the various public transport options usually cost more than the petrol for a family car to do the same journey.

Free Clue:

Were you replying to something entirely different then?

Right-oh.

So if bus passengers were taxed in the same way..? what would happen..?