My parents used to live in the middle of nowhere, and public transport was nearly non existent. I got a train to the nearest train station and waited ages for my bus (which didn’t turn up). I ended up walking eight miles to their house and no bus passed me on my way.
Absolutely hate it when people on the finance subs say you’ll save money by getting rid of your car – like yeah but I’ll lose 4 hours of my life every day because I’d have to take two buses to work (into large town stopping in loads of nearby villages, back out to different small town, also stopping in loads of other nearby villages) with a total travel time of 1hr 50min when driving there takes me 7 minutes!!!
Same in Germany with the difference that the train SHOULD go every hour, it just always arrives late or, you know, never.
Step 1:
Live in the countryside because it’s cheaper
Step 2:
Struggle to get/keep a job and spend a fortune in lost hours getting anywhere. Realize it is not in any sense of the word cheaper.
Step 3:
Want to move to somewhere more sane, but get trapped in step 1 because of step 2.
I’ve played this game before.
I don’t even live in a rural area and it would take my 2+ hours to get to work on public transport or somewhere around 15-20 minutes if I drive.
Admittedly around 15-35 minutes of the fastest trip by public transport is walking. This involves using a tram, a train, and a bus.
There is an option for buses only that is much cheaper, but it goes so far out of the way that it often takes 2.5 hours or more.
Honestly, this is not dissimilar to my experience trying to get from East London to Other Bits of East London: Bus/Train – 50 mins, Car – 9 mins.
My favourite is when the walk estimate is shorter than the public transport one
Joys of living in Cumbria, no wonder each town has a different accent
EDIT: I should probably have specified that this icon on my maps indicated a bus, not a train. The bus in my area varies depending on the route to the town I need to get to. Living rural has a lot of challenges for me, like buses, trying to find driving instructors to teach, trying to get a driving test at all and finding work that isn’t odd part time jobs that can only afford you for x hours a week. I hope someday rural infrastructor gets better.
Similar with a lot of urban areas too tbh
This is why you need to invest in a horse
Can confirm as someone whose town is in the MIDDLE OF THE COUNTRYSIDE
I live in a small valley 20 miles away from my uni, in the north east.
It’s a 2 1/2 hour commute by train. About 40 mins driving.
Don’t mind it though, lots of time to get work done, and it’s nice getting on the train in the dark and it being bright when you get off.
There is a train service from my very small rural town to a local city.
It runs one way so you can either go to the city or come back. Not both on the same day.
These are my options for going to town 6 miles away the bus in 5 mins or tomorrow morning at 7. Today’s bus only exists because it is market day.
I love when a taxi is faster and cheaper than a train.
Don’t all of you guys just need a car when you live in the middle of nowhere
Hell, I live in a city and it takes over an hour by bus to get to work, or 25 minutes by car. And the car parking is cheaper than the bus season pass.
I live in a rural village that has no train station and the bus is only ever half an hour (if it actually shows up) and stops running past 7pm…
Like most things you either pay with your money or your time.
The better we can make public transport the better it would be for everyone (drivers included).
Think yourself lucky you can take the bus. I have multiple chemical sensitivity and getting on a bus full of people with freshly sprayed perfume, deodorant, etc will give me a headache within minutes and Im still stuck on thre. It can take days for the headache to go. I have to avoid public transport. I live under 7 miles from a city shopping centre in a small town. In rush our to do the journey s 40-60 minutes under normal circumstances, more if there is one of the frequent accidents where people give up sitting in the queue and try to turn around and go back the other way or people trying to use a lane to turn off to cut the queue. There have been times its taken me over 2 hours. Id love to have the choice to get the bus without worrying about it.
It’s about an hour here or just over, but they’re not regular or early in the morning.
I love my uni town, but god damn it being 3hrs to get to somewhere that isn’t a town of 2000-5000 is annoying. At least the town is cool though whenever I fancy a look at games or PC parts, it’s a 2-4hr bus ride. Thank goodness for the £1 singles & £3 day tickets for 16-21s in Wales
This sounds familiar. My partner doesn’t drive, and the 13-mile journey to her previous workplace took almost two hours via public transport, and that was if the buses even bothered to turn up, which was probably only about 75% of the time. We don’t even live in a rural area. Public transport in this country is a joke.
There’s a town a 25 minute drive from me. The bus takes 2.5-3 hours one way with 2-3 changes. It’s a joke.
It was two buses and two trains to make a similar journey for me. Having a car was a necessity.
I’m in a countryside village. We used to have a bus to take us into our nearest city but that was withdrawn before the pandemic. The small town near us has a regular bus service but you have to drive to get there, can’t walk as no pavement or space for pedestrians, so it’s dangerous and it’s pretty far. I love the countryside and I realise urban commuting has its own issues but you are trapped here if you don’t have access to a car. We have discussed moving as you feel quite vulnerable sometimes because of this.
Edit: missed word
POV: you live in a rural area and want to get a bus to town on Sunday
Yeah, i remember working in a restaurant in the lakes. 2 buses a day that stopped EVERYWHERE. It was quicker to walk the 3.3 miles into town.
I’m lucky in that I’m not as rural these days, and that prior to that despite being rural we were still snuggled in between a few of the cities/towns. There was no public transport though and the one shop opened for about 2 hours a day, if at all.
Though we have nothing of worth where I live now for ‘shopping’ for the most part, none of the cheaper or well known options (Primark for example, cheap sports shops, etc). If I want to do a big haul to last the year or so (tend to do this for my son, hitting teen years, to last through school/trips, summer, winter, so on), I gotta spend an extra £50ish and 3hr of my life to get them stores. 30-40m drive, if you drive (I don’t).
Thankfully don’t need to do job hunting, but I find it borderline hilarious too that our local jobcentre recommends looking for work up to “90 minutes away” which includes there. Maybe someone who drives or has some funds saved away could manage it but college leavers and younger folk? They aren’t managing 30-50£ a day on the train an hour away. Bus is cheaper (at about £10) but takes double the time. My friend worked in one of the villages in between us and nearest city, half their wage went on train fares alone, they were losing money for working out there.
My son’s commute:
40 minute walk from house to bus stop. 20 minute bus trip to next bus stop. 30 minute walk from bus stop to school. Of course that 1.5 hours doesn’t include an allowance for arriving at the bus stop ahead of schedule so he doesnt miss his only chance to get to school on time.
And then again back again.
Which is why we drive him. 20 minutes each way. … and then struggle to drop off or pick up because the council have coned off half a mile of road near the school to encourage not driving. 🤦♂️
Rural busses: Take you from a place you don’t live, at a time you don’t want to leave, to a place you don’t want to go. Yay for busses!
Just moved to UK for work, and the train fares are diabolical. I couldn’t comprehend that with this volume of passengers, why does the government need to keep the fares this high? Are the train services really that expensive to maintain?
In summer I just bike to work: 1hr 43. Loads of hills though
If you live in a rural area it’s usually necessary to have a car, that’s just how it is. You can’t expect there to be a frequent bus service from every hamlet in England to every town and city. This is something you should consider before you move somewhere, if you don’t want to drive everywhere then don’t move to the middle of nowhere.
Same story. Both my home and my office are in well built towns and near major cities.
That’ll be £500, and add another 2 hours onto it, Northern apologises for the delay.
I live in a semi rural area and work at a hospital the next town along. I was refused a parking pass because I apparently lived to close. My only two choices were a 3 hour bus journey, or 20/30 minute drive. Was so stupid.
I’d have a very similar journey to my Mum via public transport vs car.
Only Mum’s route also included a fun 2 mile walk along a 60mph A Road with zero pavement. I don’t think a lot of people realise quite how deadly getting around the countryside can be.
And then on Sunday you just can’t go anywhere at all
42 comments
And it will cost way too much.
Where I lived in the USA, suburbs of a major city, it was 15 mins downtown by car and over 2 hours by bus
https://preview.redd.it/vsn7ew4kjuwf1.jpeg?width=419&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2318587e88c0790307f8ae9c4ff473a245631ffb
My parents used to live in the middle of nowhere, and public transport was nearly non existent. I got a train to the nearest train station and waited ages for my bus (which didn’t turn up). I ended up walking eight miles to their house and no bus passed me on my way.
Absolutely hate it when people on the finance subs say you’ll save money by getting rid of your car – like yeah but I’ll lose 4 hours of my life every day because I’d have to take two buses to work (into large town stopping in loads of nearby villages, back out to different small town, also stopping in loads of other nearby villages) with a total travel time of 1hr 50min when driving there takes me 7 minutes!!!
Same in Germany with the difference that the train SHOULD go every hour, it just always arrives late or, you know, never.
Step 1:
Live in the countryside because it’s cheaper
Step 2:
Struggle to get/keep a job and spend a fortune in lost hours getting anywhere. Realize it is not in any sense of the word cheaper.
Step 3:
Want to move to somewhere more sane, but get trapped in step 1 because of step 2.
I’ve played this game before.
I don’t even live in a rural area and it would take my 2+ hours to get to work on public transport or somewhere around 15-20 minutes if I drive.
Admittedly around 15-35 minutes of the fastest trip by public transport is walking. This involves using a tram, a train, and a bus.
There is an option for buses only that is much cheaper, but it goes so far out of the way that it often takes 2.5 hours or more.
Honestly, this is not dissimilar to my experience trying to get from East London to Other Bits of East London: Bus/Train – 50 mins, Car – 9 mins.
My favourite is when the walk estimate is shorter than the public transport one
Joys of living in Cumbria, no wonder each town has a different accent
EDIT: I should probably have specified that this icon on my maps indicated a bus, not a train. The bus in my area varies depending on the route to the town I need to get to. Living rural has a lot of challenges for me, like buses, trying to find driving instructors to teach, trying to get a driving test at all and finding work that isn’t odd part time jobs that can only afford you for x hours a week. I hope someday rural infrastructor gets better.
Similar with a lot of urban areas too tbh
This is why you need to invest in a horse
Can confirm as someone whose town is in the MIDDLE OF THE COUNTRYSIDE
I live in a small valley 20 miles away from my uni, in the north east.
It’s a 2 1/2 hour commute by train. About 40 mins driving.
Don’t mind it though, lots of time to get work done, and it’s nice getting on the train in the dark and it being bright when you get off.
There is a train service from my very small rural town to a local city.
It runs one way so you can either go to the city or come back. Not both on the same day.
These are my options for going to town 6 miles away the bus in 5 mins or tomorrow morning at 7. Today’s bus only exists because it is market day.
https://preview.redd.it/9kuxe6h2muwf1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=6f9e45f1aca0afb4962b890b2f2024bf59f3f4d5
I love when a taxi is faster and cheaper than a train.
Don’t all of you guys just need a car when you live in the middle of nowhere
Hell, I live in a city and it takes over an hour by bus to get to work, or 25 minutes by car. And the car parking is cheaper than the bus season pass.
I live in a rural village that has no train station and the bus is only ever half an hour (if it actually shows up) and stops running past 7pm…
Like most things you either pay with your money or your time.
The better we can make public transport the better it would be for everyone (drivers included).
Think yourself lucky you can take the bus. I have multiple chemical sensitivity and getting on a bus full of people with freshly sprayed perfume, deodorant, etc will give me a headache within minutes and Im still stuck on thre. It can take days for the headache to go. I have to avoid public transport. I live under 7 miles from a city shopping centre in a small town. In rush our to do the journey s 40-60 minutes under normal circumstances, more if there is one of the frequent accidents where people give up sitting in the queue and try to turn around and go back the other way or people trying to use a lane to turn off to cut the queue. There have been times its taken me over 2 hours. Id love to have the choice to get the bus without worrying about it.
It’s about an hour here or just over, but they’re not regular or early in the morning.
I love my uni town, but god damn it being 3hrs to get to somewhere that isn’t a town of 2000-5000 is annoying. At least the town is cool though whenever I fancy a look at games or PC parts, it’s a 2-4hr bus ride. Thank goodness for the £1 singles & £3 day tickets for 16-21s in Wales
This sounds familiar. My partner doesn’t drive, and the 13-mile journey to her previous workplace took almost two hours via public transport, and that was if the buses even bothered to turn up, which was probably only about 75% of the time. We don’t even live in a rural area. Public transport in this country is a joke.
There’s a town a 25 minute drive from me. The bus takes 2.5-3 hours one way with 2-3 changes. It’s a joke.
It was two buses and two trains to make a similar journey for me. Having a car was a necessity.
I’m in a countryside village. We used to have a bus to take us into our nearest city but that was withdrawn before the pandemic. The small town near us has a regular bus service but you have to drive to get there, can’t walk as no pavement or space for pedestrians, so it’s dangerous and it’s pretty far. I love the countryside and I realise urban commuting has its own issues but you are trapped here if you don’t have access to a car. We have discussed moving as you feel quite vulnerable sometimes because of this.
Edit: missed word
POV: you live in a rural area and want to get a bus to town on Sunday
https://preview.redd.it/vhlqi1bjnuwf1.jpeg?width=661&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0bd6101352c9b1c2dccfbd70a88c477d63fd8613
Yeah, i remember working in a restaurant in the lakes. 2 buses a day that stopped EVERYWHERE. It was quicker to walk the 3.3 miles into town.
I’m lucky in that I’m not as rural these days, and that prior to that despite being rural we were still snuggled in between a few of the cities/towns. There was no public transport though and the one shop opened for about 2 hours a day, if at all.
Though we have nothing of worth where I live now for ‘shopping’ for the most part, none of the cheaper or well known options (Primark for example, cheap sports shops, etc). If I want to do a big haul to last the year or so (tend to do this for my son, hitting teen years, to last through school/trips, summer, winter, so on), I gotta spend an extra £50ish and 3hr of my life to get them stores. 30-40m drive, if you drive (I don’t).
Thankfully don’t need to do job hunting, but I find it borderline hilarious too that our local jobcentre recommends looking for work up to “90 minutes away” which includes there. Maybe someone who drives or has some funds saved away could manage it but college leavers and younger folk? They aren’t managing 30-50£ a day on the train an hour away. Bus is cheaper (at about £10) but takes double the time. My friend worked in one of the villages in between us and nearest city, half their wage went on train fares alone, they were losing money for working out there.
My son’s commute:
40 minute walk from house to bus stop. 20 minute bus trip to next bus stop. 30 minute walk from bus stop to school. Of course that 1.5 hours doesn’t include an allowance for arriving at the bus stop ahead of schedule so he doesnt miss his only chance to get to school on time.
And then again back again.
Which is why we drive him. 20 minutes each way. … and then struggle to drop off or pick up because the council have coned off half a mile of road near the school to encourage not driving. 🤦♂️
Rural busses: Take you from a place you don’t live, at a time you don’t want to leave, to a place you don’t want to go. Yay for busses!
Just moved to UK for work, and the train fares are diabolical. I couldn’t comprehend that with this volume of passengers, why does the government need to keep the fares this high? Are the train services really that expensive to maintain?
In summer I just bike to work: 1hr 43. Loads of hills though
If you live in a rural area it’s usually necessary to have a car, that’s just how it is. You can’t expect there to be a frequent bus service from every hamlet in England to every town and city. This is something you should consider before you move somewhere, if you don’t want to drive everywhere then don’t move to the middle of nowhere.
https://preview.redd.it/rl0cf6uzouwf1.jpeg?width=233&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1195e3296284309f9ab8a0e15822ae0712589a15
Same story. Both my home and my office are in well built towns and near major cities.
That’ll be £500, and add another 2 hours onto it, Northern apologises for the delay.
I live in a semi rural area and work at a hospital the next town along. I was refused a parking pass because I apparently lived to close. My only two choices were a 3 hour bus journey, or 20/30 minute drive. Was so stupid.
I’d have a very similar journey to my Mum via public transport vs car.
Only Mum’s route also included a fun 2 mile walk along a 60mph A Road with zero pavement. I don’t think a lot of people realise quite how deadly getting around the countryside can be.
And then on Sunday you just can’t go anywhere at all
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