We have busses, at l;east in theory. Cycling is invariably faster.
I love in a town outside Durham, and work in another town the other side of Durham
By car on a good day it’s a 10-15 minute journey, but my bus commute every day is between an hour and 1hr30
..and that’s if the buses actually show up, which in the evenings is a 70/30 chance
You know it’s bad when getting public transport is only 12 mins faster than walking
public transport – it’s slightly faster than walking!
Rural buses are even worse. There used to be a requirement to run more buses out to villages in my area before the service was sold off, now the last bus from town into my village is 5:30pm and it only runs once an hour before that.
There’s nothing actually *in* the village either so if you can’t drive (or even if you can, but have had a drink say) you’re totally beholden to that one bus’s schedule or you’re paying minimum £30 for a taxi from town.
I once built a website project where you could enter any two railway stations in the UK and see whether it was faster to travel between them by train or by car. The car almost always wins, except in London, where it still often wins. That’s not particularly surprising, but what did surprise me was how long some of the train trips were in comparison, even between stations that are geographically not that far apart. Rural Wales is especially bad.
It’s a distance of ~8km. Should take no longer than half an hour to get there if you ride your bicycle.
Public transport should be subsidised and companies get money on miles covered not passengers carried. Works in many places, Curitiba in Brazil is a fine example.
Encourages companies to cover rural areas.
Public and active transport needs urgent funding. There will always be places that take ages to get to using trains and busses but it is too widespread right now. Sometimes it’s not even the infrastructure that’s the issue, it’s the waste in management and/or union strikes. For those remaining places, cycling / skating / rollerblading / scootering / segwaying should be prioritised with separate bike paths and right of way over roads.
Get a car. A supremely effective mode of transport
I live on one side of a conurbation of a few towns and work on the other side. It takes me 15 to 20 mins to drive on a normal day. If I could take a bus it would take me between 1.5 to 2 hours. The reason being that buses go to town centres. I would have to take the bus to one town centre, change to go to another town centre and change again to travel towards a third. I can’t see an easy answer to that.
Milton Keynes is meant to be a modern state of the art city but when I took the bus to work it was literally the same as this. Had to leave before 7 to get to my job for 8, but sometimes I’d get a lift home and it would take little over 10 minutes.
It ain’t just small towns. Most big cities have crap public transport as well. If you arnt trying to get to the city centre you are screwed
What about a space hopper?
TIL – Bristol is a small town.
Takes me 15 minutes to drive my kids to school. It’s over 1 1/2 hours by public transport.
I have a ~20mile car journey to work that costs me £5-6 a day in fuel. Looked at taking the train recently instead, id have to cycle a few miles each way to and from the stations but it would only add 15mins or so to the journey. Return ticket is £20 Per day! I simply can’t afford not to drive.
Don’t worry it’s the same in big cities as well. Here in Bristol for example, it would take my gf over an hour to reach me by bus, but I could drive to her place in 20 minutes.
Where I used to work was 30 mins car and 1h10m public transport, which included a 21 minute walk.
Basically any journey that requires changing bus would add 30-60 mins on as you have to wait for the bus. And that’s assuming it shows up, Bristol buses are notorious for not showing up.
Looks like the perfect candidate for a bike ride!
But the redditors who live in London or other big cities will still tell you how it’s perfectly easy to live without a car or other personal transport.
OP you got an electric scooter? Seems like a totally viable option.
If I pick up my kids from school, it’s 10-15 mins door to door.
On the bus, it’s about an hour including having to change buses in the town centre, and then a fifteen min walk from the nearest bus stop to our house.
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How long in roller blades?
And then they don’t show up half the time
You actually get trains?
We have busses, at l;east in theory. Cycling is invariably faster.
I love in a town outside Durham, and work in another town the other side of Durham
By car on a good day it’s a 10-15 minute journey, but my bus commute every day is between an hour and 1hr30
..and that’s if the buses actually show up, which in the evenings is a 70/30 chance
You know it’s bad when getting public transport is only 12 mins faster than walking
public transport – it’s slightly faster than walking!
Rural buses are even worse. There used to be a requirement to run more buses out to villages in my area before the service was sold off, now the last bus from town into my village is 5:30pm and it only runs once an hour before that.
There’s nothing actually *in* the village either so if you can’t drive (or even if you can, but have had a drink say) you’re totally beholden to that one bus’s schedule or you’re paying minimum £30 for a taxi from town.
I once built a website project where you could enter any two railway stations in the UK and see whether it was faster to travel between them by train or by car. The car almost always wins, except in London, where it still often wins. That’s not particularly surprising, but what did surprise me was how long some of the train trips were in comparison, even between stations that are geographically not that far apart. Rural Wales is especially bad.
It’s a distance of ~8km. Should take no longer than half an hour to get there if you ride your bicycle.
Public transport should be subsidised and companies get money on miles covered not passengers carried. Works in many places, Curitiba in Brazil is a fine example.
Encourages companies to cover rural areas.
Public and active transport needs urgent funding. There will always be places that take ages to get to using trains and busses but it is too widespread right now. Sometimes it’s not even the infrastructure that’s the issue, it’s the waste in management and/or union strikes. For those remaining places, cycling / skating / rollerblading / scootering / segwaying should be prioritised with separate bike paths and right of way over roads.
Get a car. A supremely effective mode of transport
I live on one side of a conurbation of a few towns and work on the other side. It takes me 15 to 20 mins to drive on a normal day. If I could take a bus it would take me between 1.5 to 2 hours. The reason being that buses go to town centres. I would have to take the bus to one town centre, change to go to another town centre and change again to travel towards a third. I can’t see an easy answer to that.
Milton Keynes is meant to be a modern state of the art city but when I took the bus to work it was literally the same as this. Had to leave before 7 to get to my job for 8, but sometimes I’d get a lift home and it would take little over 10 minutes.
It ain’t just small towns. Most big cities have crap public transport as well. If you arnt trying to get to the city centre you are screwed
What about a space hopper?
TIL – Bristol is a small town.
Takes me 15 minutes to drive my kids to school. It’s over 1 1/2 hours by public transport.
I have a ~20mile car journey to work that costs me £5-6 a day in fuel. Looked at taking the train recently instead, id have to cycle a few miles each way to and from the stations but it would only add 15mins or so to the journey. Return ticket is £20 Per day! I simply can’t afford not to drive.
Don’t worry it’s the same in big cities as well. Here in Bristol for example, it would take my gf over an hour to reach me by bus, but I could drive to her place in 20 minutes.
Where I used to work was 30 mins car and 1h10m public transport, which included a 21 minute walk.
Basically any journey that requires changing bus would add 30-60 mins on as you have to wait for the bus. And that’s assuming it shows up, Bristol buses are notorious for not showing up.
Looks like the perfect candidate for a bike ride!
But the redditors who live in London or other big cities will still tell you how it’s perfectly easy to live without a car or other personal transport.
OP you got an electric scooter? Seems like a totally viable option.
If I pick up my kids from school, it’s 10-15 mins door to door.
On the bus, it’s about an hour including having to change buses in the town centre, and then a fifteen min walk from the nearest bus stop to our house.