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I’m fairly sure I’ve recently caught some hyper-curmudgeon disease, but wtf?!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-64744446
Nice day out, good scenery and he didn't use a car. All sounds good to me
rOcKeTdOg
Full Member
Nice day out, good scenery and he didn’t use a car. All sounds good to me
No doubt, but is it newsworthy? Or even worthy of posting on STW? Or worthy of me being arsed to open a thread about it and even write this reply?!?
Living in Scotland my son has a bus pass for free travel all over Scotland. WTF is he doing at home on the computer every day in the school holidays then?! I'd have never been seen when I was a kid with a free bus pass to the whole of Scotland!!!
I might not be seen when I get my OAP pass 😂 Can't to remember the name, but theres a YouTube channel of a guy with his free OAP bus pass and his camping trips. What a star 😍
Emily Turner tweets about public transport in London, she caused something of a minor storm by using buses to go from London to Edinburgh to celebrate her 35th birthday.
Did the journey not cost £20? He needs to get home, probably got a lift from the reporter. He'll need to overnight somewhere too. So suddenly it's "man travels 137miles and it costs him £120".
It’s a good thing. I would say that though as I work in public transport. Unfortunately buses have a general image problem with the public as being dirty and full of undesirable people. But without them there would a significant number of people who simply wouldn’t be able to get to where they need to be.
I guess that’s the argument over whether they should be run privately for profit or run as a public service for the benefit of society.
Yeah i wondered about that too, also, it’s hardly a day out if he arrives at 1640 is it.
Yeah i wondered about that too, also, it’s hardly a day out if he arrives at 1640 is it.
It's a day out riding buses!
An old boss of mine used to get a day pass or whatever the equivalent was for buses in whatever city he travelled to - he was very well travelled, would often just have a weekend away in a different city, just on his own. He'd been all over Europe!
And he'd spend a day riding buses or trams or whatever, get off when he saw something interesting, back on board and ride somewhere else.
That £2 capped fare thing has led to quite a few interesting journeys including the London-Edinburgh one by Emily Turner linked to above.
but is it newsworthy?
I found it mildly interesting. The headline gives you a clue to whether you might want to read the article.
I think the breaking news in this case is that someone managed to travel 137 miles for just £10 rather than they caught a bus. In the same way as an article covering the TdF isn't generally considered to be "man goes on a bike ride"
No doubt, but is it newsworthy? Or even worthy of posting on STW? Or worthy of me being arsed to open a thread about it and even write this reply?!?
Yeah I think so, from the article:
"A bus really is an undervalued bit of public transport and it's under attack at the moment with cuts," he said.
"It's important to use it - you don't know what you've lost until it's gone."
The government has said it plans to continue the £2 cap until the end of June.
I'll own up to being completely unaware of capped bus fares until this thread...
It’s a joke of a story - it actually says the guy caught the first bus back out of there in the morning. Brilliant. What a lovely tale.
It’s not interesting, newsworthy, in the public interest or mildly chin-stroking-worthy - or comparable to saying the TdF is riding a bike!
How the **** did some bloke spending most of his day riding the bus to Whitby make it onto sodding news?!
How the **** did some bloke spending most of his day riding the bus to Whitby make it onto sodding news?!
As far as I can figure out in two ways. Firstly by travelling 137 miles for just £10. And secondly by really winding up some geezer on a mountain bike forum.
137 miles for a tenner is not some kind of achievement.
My old man used to go out all day with my nephew when he got his free bus pass. Nephew liked riding the bus and my old man had time.
Why not?
I quite like sitting watching the scenery go by, be that on a bus or train.
Each to their own.
I'd consider this a very much missed opportunity to show how effective affordable public transport could be if it was treated as an essential public service.
My mum gets the bus everywhere, up to 30 miles away at times. She is 82 so doesn't pay for it and gave up her car a while ago as didn't feel she was safe enough to drive anymore. There are an absolute must for her.
137 miles for a tenner is not some kind of achievement.
Seems expensive compared with France, Spain and Germany. Roughly double the price per mile of the busses I use most.
137 miles for a tenner is not some kind of achievement.
Yeah it is. It is only possible because of the £2 bus fare cap, which according to the article will only be in place until the end of June.
Saw a couple of YouTube vids recently. One guy managed to get from London to Manchester in a day, and London to the most western bus stop in Northern Ireland in about 3 days all on local bus services (plus a ferry)
Lots of buses and no undesirable people, just those getting to work or go into town.
I’d consider this a very much missed opportunity to show how effective affordable public transport could be if it was treated as an essential public service.
This. We’re (I work for the Transport Authority) currently spending reserves to keep our bus network going. Stating the obvious but something has got to give.
How the **** did some bloke spending most of his day riding the bus to Whitby make it onto sodding news?!
Well a piece on the local news website for BBC Derbyshire, it's not exactly become Global headline stuff, why are you so bothered about this pretty minor article?
People: Moaning that news is all depressing fearmongering, doom and gloom etc.
Also people: Moaning about a harmless, quirky bus story.
Our local buses in France are €1 and two buses will get you to Perpignan - about 50km away. Which I still think is insanely good value. There is a law in France that everyone has to have access to mobility (i.e. is not tied to driving themselves everywhere) and there is a massive push to ensure that the bus network is up to this. There’s also a policy to try and stem the tide of rural depopulation and ensuring that there is local transport is one of the tools for doing this.
For the fun facts about different taxation models people: French public transport is funded by a payroll tax on local employers.
^^^ Well in the UK it is if anything illegal to have cheap public transport paid for through taxation.
In 1981 the Greater London Council introduced the highly popular Fares Fair policy which was an election manifesto pledge and reduced public transport fares in London by 32%.
However the Conservative leader of the Bromley Borough Council took the GLC to court arguing that the citizens of the London Borough of Bromley were having to pay extra taxes for the London Underground which did not serve the borough.
The court agreed and found that the subsidy was not in accordance with government policy on transport having to be self financing.
The wishes of London voters who voted for the scheme were completely ignored by the court.
what's the reverse of clickbait? Like, where the story is [I]more[/I] than it appears, not less? Dude in the article catches five buses!
I also found it mildly interesting... have been enjoying the modest saving lately when getting a bus back from the pub 😂 Agree that the focus on the article should've been about how horrendously overpriced PT is normally (particularly buses!)
When I read it, I thought the cost effectiveness of buses was the main message of the article. No?
It certainly couldn’t have been about convenience, since it took 10 hours to complete a journey which would have taken less than 3 hours in a car. Or am i missing something?
Man who works for the railways makes news by travelling by bus!!!
BITD if you worked in "railway operational planning" (whatever the f that is all about) you would have worked for good old BR and had free train passes for yourself, partner and dependents. As kids my mates, brother and me traveled by free train all over the UK and even got to Paris and back (Sealink ferries were linked to BR back then). On multi day trips, rather than pay for overnight accommodation we'd get the night train somewhere. Happy Days................
Came here expecting a story about a very fast runner or a very slow bus.
Am disappointed.
I found that story quite inspiring. It shows you don't have to drive to get about and with decent investment it could be much easier. Personally I'd much rather catch a bus than have to drive anywhere.
it took 10 hours to complete a journey which would have taken less than 3 hours in a car. Or am i missing something?
Apparently you are. According to the article:
"I like scenery and I like the sea and Whitby is one of the most obvious place you could get to in a day from Allestree.
"I've always wanted to do the route from Leeds to Whitby - it was voted one of the most scenic routes in the country.
"It was great - I've driven across the North York Moors before but you don't get the same views as you get on the top deck of a double-decker bus."
Normally, if I want to go into Bath, I’ll drive down, but the city is expensive for parking, so I’ll park well out from the city centre and walk in. However, while I quite like the walk, it’s still about a twenty minute walk. Yesterday I went by train, which takes about fifteen minutes, plus the twenty minutes to walk up to the station. Still, that did let me enjoy a couple of pints in The Raven, and as one of those was a New England IPA of 6.6 ABV…
I have now applied for my bus pass, so I’m going to explore further afield, from what I’ve read, I can use it anywhere in England, however there are plenty of places where services are pretty restricted.
I think this is a brilliant story. So there