[Closed] Why people don't bother with public transport

Add to your list: cost & the fact that you wouldn't transport animals like you do people on a rush hour underground train.

I expecting too much

No

After enjoying using the public transport in Singapore for 10 days last yr it can be done.

You didn't mention the cost!

Yup, a friend is making a conscious effort. She doesn't drive anyway, but is also trying to use public transport for European business trips rather than flying. Yorkshire to Maastricht by train went smoothly, but she missed her ferry trying to get to Dublin in a similar manner thanks to northern cancellations. She's flying home.

I’ll mention the cost. £10.80 return for a fifteen minute journey on a packed train. No wonder some folk choose to drive. Fortunately I only have to do this once or twice per week.

Hampshire to Leeds? I fly from Southampton. Half the price usually, and much less hassle. Ridiculous that this should be the case, but it is!

6:10 train cancelled due to “lack of a train crew"

That sounds like Abellio speak for 'we don't actually have enough staff to cover our entire timetable, so rely on people doing over-time, which they won't always do'...

The cup holder on my bus this morning was too small for my travel mug.

****ing public transport

Seriously, do they not have any contingency in the system?

Which would add significantly to the cost of tickets, an oft heard moan already. I use it whenever I can, but there's no way to get to work by public transport atm, sadly.

You didn’t mention the cost!

or the public..

I can see Flashy in his classic VIP aircraft flying to Leeds, if I could get a pic up, you’d see it as well!

6:10 train cancelled due to “lack of a train crew”.

A needless problem considering it's easier to automate trains than it is to automate cars and lorrys. (...and there already are driverless trains running - DLR for instance.)

It does not have to be like this. I use public transport in central Scotland a lot. Its ALWAYS cheaper and quicker than using a car

It does not have to be like this. I use public transport in central Scotland a lot. Its ALWAYS cheaper and quicker than using a car

Less people, more land.

Hampshire to Leeds? I fly from Southampton. Half the price usually, and much less hassle. Ridiculous that this should be the case, but it is!

Wont someone please think of the polar bears!

"public transport in central Scotland"

Hmm. I have bad memories of sitting on the floor squashed into the gap between carriages with lots of other people on the Edinburgh to Dundee train.

[i]Wont someone please think of the polar bears![/i]

See Mark's graphs in the current mag...

TINAS, on normal days my commute is a stroll along an ancient droveway through the woods, so I'm not all evil! 😀

Just had a telling off as my ticket was for the half 8 train to Leeds and I'm on the 9; "you should have gone to the ticket office so they can check that your train was cancelled and validate your ticket for a different time, I should charge you the full fare really". So they can't run their service properly and yet I have to run around getting permission to travel on a different (near empty) train with a ticket that already cost me £84 one way? Christ. Good job she didn't try to enforce it. I'd probably have tutted loudly.

Its ALWAYS cheaper and quicker than using a car

£25.50 peak return from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Cheaper to drive even when you account for fuel, parking, factor in running costs and depreciation etc

If me and the missus wanted to go to Edinburgh for the day you're looking at over £50. Car is a no brainer at that point.

Its ALWAYS cheaper and quicker than using a car

I seem to remember you stating this before and your calculations relying on not already having a car and needing it for other journeys or leasing an new car though an expensive manor or some such. I can't remember the precise details but it was very much a one way of owning / running a car calculation rather than allowing for different models of ownership or use.

It would take me 3 hours to get to work on public transport, it takes 22 mins in the car.

The cup holder on my bus this morning was too small for my travel mug.

😂

Boarding bob. Nope - cheaper by train for one person. And quicker and more convenient

As ever you forget to include much of the costs of car ownership. Its a hundred+ mile round trip. Cars cost 35 - 50 p a mile to run it would be £15 in petrol alone for most cars and there is no way you can drive from Edinburgh to Glasgow city centre in the time the train takes

OOB the reason why public transport in central scotland is so good is investment from the government and in Edinburgh state run buses.

I use public transport daily (Northern Rail Harrogate > Leeds route) and it's diabolical. Almost every day trains are late, cancelled or short trains due to lack of rolling stock. A couple of weeks ago a train pulled into Leeds, people got off, we got on then, minutes before departure, it was cancelled due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’ and the next train was short again so some passengers couldn’t even get on.

I hate it.

Its shit and expensive around here. Only last night did I look for the four of us to travel from Derby to Nottingham, it was nigh on 32 quid which is ridiculous!! In reality that's not even where we would want to travel from and back to, but our local stop is only serviced till 10pm ish.

As ever you forget to include much of the costs of car ownership. Its a hundred+ mile round trip. Cars cost 35 – 50 p a mile to run it would be £15 in petrol alone

Maybe you should just consider the variable costs if you choose to run a car for other reasons.

The issues with public transport ( and i fully accept I live in an area of good provision) is nothing to do with the fact its public transport and everything to do with political decisions made.

This is why the journey I did was on fast comfy modern trains - political decisions. this is why the leeds / harrogate experience is shite - political decisions

Public transport can be great - it just needs to political will. As I sat on that nice fast cheap train I thought " this is almost a european experience" 😉

old tennis shoes - why? Why not use the real cost?

I get public transport for work everyday (as parking spaces are very hard to come by at work), and 85% of the time it’s fine. But days like today when it goes wrong, it really goes wrong! Three consecutive peak time trains cancelled meaning hardly anyone could fit onto the train at my stop when one did come in. So I went and got the bus instead. Still sat on it now - what takes 12 mins by train is currently taking 1+ hour through the awful Leeds traffic (which is also why I get the train). Arghhhhhh

Cant cycle to the station - roads are dangerous and full of potholes.
Cant park my bike at the station - likley to get nicked, damaged, CCTV pointless.
Train is dirty, overcroweded and very expensive.

Live in a village, no chance of public transport joining up.

Town to town it might work. But then I remember the Tube in London and compare that to the MTR in Hong Kong.

TJ - It does not have to be like this. I use public transport in central Scotland a lot. Its ALWAYS cheaper and quicker than using a car

Don’t be misled by TJ’s central Scotland Utopia. In reality the exact “excuse” in the OP has been used for about two years by Scotrail for cancelling trains, because they don’t have enough staff.

I use public transport almost every working day, and it IS a bit quicker than fighting with Edinburgh traffic; but is no less cost (true cost, peak time tickets etc), and I happen to be 3 mins and 7 min walks at each end. If I was traveling outside peak, the traffic issues disappear and a less frequent train service means I can do it door to door quicker than public transport.

I also travel about once a week 11 miles between two fairly significant towns in the central belt that have plenty of people going between them. It used to take nearly 40 minutes on a dreadful bus which ran less than once every hour (that service no longer runs and you have to change busses - no idea how long now). You can drive in 20 minutes, and go door to door. Admittedly it’s probably about 50p more expensive to drive - assuming I am on my own.

Public transport within and between Glasgow and Edinburgh is fairly good (but well behind standards in many other countries) but that does not extend across the entire central belt.

all the things listed so far are symptoms, the cause is:

decades of under-investment and lack of political will to provide a system fit for purpose and encourage it's use.

"
tjagain

It does not have to be like this. I use public transport in central Scotland a lot. Its ALWAYS cheaper and quicker than using a car"

You must live in a different central Scotland from me then. Milngavie to Greenock for work? 30m by car. 2 hours by bus/train. When it runs late/early enough for shift times. My car saves me 3 hours per day commute time.

Even the journeys public transport should be good at - suburb to city centre. Car 25m bus 45m + waiting times. Waiting times - in the evening there is 1 bus an hour. And this is only 7 miles out of a major city. What is rural public transport like?

Public transport is ALWAYS slower than the car.

old tennis shoes – why? Why not use the real cost?

Because some people live in areas where public transport provision is so poor that car ownership is more important. And of course car rental is an option for some, but not all.
If you are already paying fixed costs for a car (which the majority are) there is a lower financial incentive to use public transport.

I've tried repeatedly to visit my folks down in NW England using trains. I'm happy to pay the extra cost, for the journeys to take longer and to be at inconvenient times, but it's harder to deal with the delays and cancellations imposed by Northern Rail twixt Bolton and Preston.

At this political time may I remind you that the reason it's shit is because of underfunding, and that is a political decision.

Rail infrastructure needs funding, it needs investment, because otherwise we rely on cars and even now we over use cars resulting in shit quality of life for car commuters too.

If you want your country to function then your government has to actually raise taxes properly, spend money and actually run things. It cannot be left to free market economics otherwise nearly everyone ends up ****ed, pissed off and miserable, like the OP.

 I use public transport in central Scotland a lot. Its ALWAYS cheaper and quicker than using a car

No. No it isn't.

Public transport is ALWAYS slower than the car.

I really don’t agree with that. I can leave my house at 8am (Pannal Ash, near Harrogate) and be in the office for 9am (central Leeds). If I tried to drive in it would easily take 1hr 30 - there is no way on earth I could get to LS1 <1hr at that time.

For me to get to work from visiting my fiance in Birmingham by car is horrible. It's a 1:45 drive in the best of traffic, normally the 7am rush on the M40 takes at least an extra 30 mins so I have to leave at 6am to at least give me a chance of getting to work on time, but then deal with the horror of rush hour M40 and the nutters that do it daily. Either that or I catch the 6:28 train from moor street to Banbury, super quiet, often nap or browse the internet (free wifi). I then get to Banbury for about 7:25 where I can have a nice 30 min country road drive to work. Yes maybe not hugely quicker but much less stressful (plus boss is OK with me being late if train is late but less so with M40 traffic), cheaper (18-25 railcard, so the return is £13, fuel would be that alone, plus having to park my car in a dodgy bit of Birmingham) and makes the tree huggers happy.

Public transport is ALWAYS slower than the car.

Stop being silly. A moment's thought will reveal that with any journey it will depend on how the network serves the places to which you want to go.

Hence Central London to central Leeds last week on a nice new empty train in 2h15. Good luck doing that by car. On the other hand, central Leeds to my house in Cardiff, 5hrs. Comparable to driving but way easier since t was at rush hour. But far more expensive, see above.

As ever you forget to include much of the costs of car ownership. Its a hundred+ mile round trip. Cars cost 35 – 50 p a mile to run it would be £15 in petrol alone for most cars and there is no way you can drive from Edinburgh to Glasgow city centre in the time the train takes

OOB the reason why public transport in central scotland is so good is investment from the government and in Edinburgh state run buses.

Edinburgh/Glasgow isn't really central scotland is it? (which would be around Dalwhinnie/lagan if my geography is right.) It's a relatively short distance between two major metropolitan centres served by motorway and direct rail connections.

Now don't get me wrong the m62 corridor proves proximity isn't a guarantee of effectiveness (and if your centre is population based fits too) but to suggest that Edinburgh proves it can be done elsewhere [edit: everywhere] is a bit daft.

I don't disagree there's a political element to the issues with public transport but there are huge practical issues too.

Re faster, I take it you live centralish in one and work centralish in the other? To get public transport from most areas of dense housing to most areas of dense industry would take a at least one bus at each end (if the areas are even served by buses) usually a slow, irregular service bound by the same traffic troubles as driving. - randomly picked Loanhead to Renfrew is 1.15-1.50 by car, according to Google, bus/train is 2.06 by the same (but due to timings requires leaving at 6.40am as opposed to 7.10 to arrive at 9am).
Clermiston to Coatbridge is 50-1.15 by car, 1.22 by pt.

Public transport is ALWAYS slower than the car.

You don't live in Reading - I can tell 🙂

£30 per week for my 20-mile each way journey into Manchester, so £6/day for 40 miles.

No parking charges and even the infamous Northern Rail experience isn't as bad as actually driving into the city at rush hour.

Heading down to London is way nicer and quicker on the inter-city than driving, but it ain't cheap and the ticketing is needlessly confusing.

The problem is that public transport seems to be priced as a direct alternative to car ownership which means that as soon as you sink your money into a car (cost to buy/year-depreciation plus all other fixed costs) public transport becomes poor value.

For example a return train to my work peak time costs £16 but about £8 in fuel. As I've already paid for the car it doesn't feel like the true (45p/mile???) cost of running a ca

dangerousbrain - the journey I make most often is Leith to Milgavie - so 3 miles from the city centre one end to 7 miles the other. this is to visit my parents. Both them and I of course made a deliberate decision to live where public transport is good.

So from my door the busstop is across the road I have a choice of 30 buses an hour at £1.70 into town and that drops me off at the station. I then have a choice of 10+ trains per hour to Glasgow including 2 an hour that go direct to milngavie. £13ish off peak return to Glasgow, 16 to milngavie. My folks live 5 mins walk from milngavie station

the quickest way to do it is cycle to waverly, get the fast train to glasgow and cycle to milngavie. Thats £13 return and takes around an hour and a half. If I do the whole thing by public transport its just under 2 hours and costs £20

the buses are also hybrids and have free wi fi

My point really tho is simple - public transport need not be rubbish - its political decisions that make it so

The return journey is over a hundred miles and takes between 1.5 and 3 hours by car depending on traffic each way and costs as much in petrol alone let alone all the other expenses as public transport.

I don't use the train often but when I do it usually involves travelling between Skipton and Leeds on Northern trains which amazingly (going by the press and other Northern users experience) are pretty much always on time and uses modern, quiet rolling stock. They are actually bringing in new trains to replace the ones that were still newish and decent!

Problem is the cost. Not so much if travelling alone but we went as a family of four the other day (one under 5), drove 10 miles to Keighley to get in to the West Yorkshire subsidised zone and it still cost £21. It would have been less than half to drive and that includes hospital parking cost.

For short journeys of around 5 miles it is cheaper and more convenient for 3 people to book a taxi than use public transport networks. Result - busses in and out of town are more or less empty but taxis all over the place. Might be different in London etc.

The fundamental problem is our lifestyles, I don't think there is a transport system in the world that could cope with our self-inflicted stampede into the the city centres, every day at the same time. It's nonsensical if you looked at it from an external point of view.

The future is remote office hubs etc. Doesn't help everyone, and I can't be bothered looking up the statistics right now, but I bet that would take about 30-50% of the morning rush hour off the roads.

Of course, even bigger political upheaval might result in an economy where both partners don't need to work, reducing traffic by another huge swathe, and perhaps also cutting out the dreaded school run element if one partner actually had the time to walk the kids to school instead of drive.

Our village has endless problems with congestion and commuting times (central belt scotland, just outside of Edinburgh, car 35 min, bike 45 min, bus 1hr 15 min). All of the solutions just depend on trying to move the traffic elsewhere (sneaky Fifers using our village as a rat run!) or somehow magically investing in new buses which won't just end up in the same queues as all the cars.

it would be £15 in petrol alone for most cars

If most cars were Rover 3500s perhaps.

Rough figures: I get maybe 50mpg overall - way more on motorways, less in urban traffic. Diesel is about £1.40 a litre, so roughly £5/gallon. Your 100 mile round trip would be £10 in fuel, much less if I was putting any effort into driving economically.

Public transport can be more convenient in certain circumstances, but it's only really ever more cost-effective if you're travelling alone.

i find public transport only really makes financial and "hassle" sense if I'm travelling alone.

once we are travelling as a family the car seems to be about 1/3 of the price (total cost) - almost always quicker due to connection times - which are not that excessive in the least but any stopped time is stopped time. miss a train/get a bus replacement (high chance on the weekend at the moment) and your boned.

+ the galic shrug when the last train doesn't come and your left high and dry.... used to get the train too and from uni in Dundee and experienced this all too often.

of course it doesn't have to be like this but if you use the lowest bidder you often get the lowest service. I'm open to it and it still doesn't make sense - so you have your work cut out when you are trying to convince the car is king brigade.

I wrote a big reply but lost it, but to summarise.

For me on my own to get to work it’s the same cost (ignoring car ownership costs) but I’d have to leave home an hour earlier to get there on time. Meaning out the door at 0510am and for some shifts the trains don’t start early enough.

When we’re both on the same shift driving is much cheaper.

Train into Glasgow city centre is better than driving.

Staying local, costs aren't bad, Blue Star do an £8 ticket for the week on the 18, 16 and a couple of others.

But it's cost me £104 for a return from SOU to PRT, with free reservation for a bike.

I'd like to think when Labour gets in and gradually renationalised our train network as leases expire, that tickets will be cheaper and not sending our fare money to the likes of China.

I use public transport all the time unless I'm riding. Haven't owned a car in 16 years. No buses in the villages where I live, so time for a cargo bike soon.
My main annoyance - apart from the cost - is the disruption to services at weekend if I have to be in the office before early afternoon on a Monday. The replacement bus servises won't take bikes so I can often get stuck in Weymouth for an extra night.

Flashy's personal plane yesterday:

Cougar - check my maths - £1.40 a litre x 4,5 l / gallon = £6.30 a gallon. so at 50 mpg its 12.60 in petrol?

can yo really get 50 mpg in a journey that includes 12 miles of congested urban driving and 40 miles of congested motorway?

Petrol is not the only additional cost anyway - wear and tear ie tyres and servicing?

So quite a few folk have mentioned lack of funding/investment etc. So if they chuck a load of money at it my ticket price between derby and Nottingham will surely go up? And I probably still won't be able to get back to where I want.

You don’t live in Reading – I can tell 🙂

I looked at trains to Reading from Harrogate for two. 135 each, 3 months in advance on specific off peak services. I'm sort of hoping the trains in Reading are magic at that price. (we'll be driving and it'll not be any slower)

can yo really get 50 mpg in a journey that includes 12 miles of congested urban driving and 40 miles of congested motorway?

do you really need to travel at congested times is more the question - bus or car.

and I of course made a deliberate decision to live where public transport is good.

I take it you factor that into your ticket cost, it probably puts two or three small cars on your house price (or 5 big German ones in London) 😉

For short journeys of around 5 miles it is cheaper and more convenient for 3 people to book a taxi than use public transport networks. Result – busses in and out of town are more or less empty but taxis all over the place.

Busses, for the most part are horrible and slow. I had a regular 5 and a bit mile commute and the public transport choice was bus, I cycled instead it was a lot faster.

Home to work on a bus: £7.80 both ways. Two buses each way. 3 hours each way.

Home to work on train £6.90 both ways. Two buses and a train each way. 3.5 hours each way.

Car. £3 each way. 25 mins each way.

Edinburgh state run buses

You know they are awful right?

Well. The busses are grand
The frequency is fine. Cost it fine. Contactless is great.

BUT the routes....

Hillend or straiton to Herriot watt.

Via Princes Street?!

dangrousbrain - yes I did. Its a cheap place to buy ( very when I bought) . Still comparatively cheap for living in an expensive city.

I looked at trains to Reading from Harrogate for two. 135 each, 3 months in advance on specific off peak services.

From the nice man in seat 61:

Beware of booking too far ahead...
Beware of this 'trap': There are several weeks at the extremity of the booking horizon when expensive Anytime & Off-Peak fares go on sale but before cheap Advance fares go on sale. This 'trap' catches out many overseas visitors to the UK, desperate to book train trips months ahead.

Many more info here:
https://www.seat61.com/UK-train-travel.htm

"Public transport is ALWAYS slower than the car."

Clearly someone who doesn't commute to Central London. It's 23miles door to door to our office and I've driven twice in 7 years of being there (plus the struggle to find somewhere to park). 3hrs doors to door to drive in morning/evening traffic. It's 1:45 mins Tube/train/walk and 1:35 mins to cycle.

Many more info here

Ta

"molgrips

"At this political time may I remind you that the reason it’s shit is because of underfunding, and that is a political decision."

Underfunding????

"The government (on average) now subsidises the railway industry by about three times as much as in the years just before legislation to privatise it came into place, almost 25 years ago exactly. That’s taking into account inflation, which is the change in how much things cost over time".

https://fullfact.org/economy/how-much-does-government-subsidise-railways/

It would take me 3 hours to get to work on public transport, it takes 22 mins in the car.

I'm a bit closer at 58mins and 5mins.

I won't add 2 hours onto my day, I could try to lie and say "if only blah blah blah" but I won't.

I cycle it if I'm not doing the school run that day or I'm sure I haven't got any meetings / sit visits that day, but it's rare. We used to have a pool van which was handy, but we couldn't justify the cost and I didn't replace it at the end of it's lease.

We've got a new transport hub opening just up the road from the office which is going to increase capacity which is what we need here, some days there's simply no more room on the buses and trains to safely take any more passengers. Things might change then. I'd be quite happy to take a 15 min bus journey, but I won't take an hour and I won't risk the scrum or not being able to get on at all.

I'm pretty lucky I guess. Milton Keynes to London. Every now and then it gets a bit snarled up, normally down to some poor soul using the train line to end their lives - so I can't get upset with the train companies for that.
Price is expensive, but its a 60 mile commute. I do pay first class so obviously the cost is expensive - but I want to ensure I have a seat.
From my door to central London takes me about 1 hour 15. No way could I drive it in that time, nor would I want to.

"public transport seems to be priced as a direct alternative to car ownership which means that as soon as you sink your money into a car..."

I've sunk more money into public transport through general taxation than I have into my car.

I can only really speak for Stockholm, but...

Bus: 5 minute walk to stop, 20Kr trip to work taking about 15 minutes, 5 minute walk from stop to work. Repeat for the way home. Bus is relatively direct, relatively crowded in the morning, but is every 10 minutes or less. repeat for the way home.

Subway: 5 minute walk to stop (same stop, just below ground), 30Kr trip to other stop with a change from one line to the next. Total time is about 20 minutes and trains are relatively crowded (less than London) and relatively frequent. 5 minute walk from stop to work. Repeat for the way home.

Car: 5 minute walk to garage and 3 minutes to get out of it. 15-20 minute drive to work and a 15 minute search for a parking space. Approximately 150Kr to park it for the day.

Bike: 2 minutes to collect my bike from the shed in the basement. 15 minutes (on a bad day) to get to the secure shed at work. 10 minutes to shower and get to my desk. 0Kr* a day.

Bike wins for me. Ever. Damn. Time.

Even taking into account the maintenance and servicing costs (*) every six months, it is cheaper, quicker and better for me**. It also means I do not have to travel with people. I hate people.

** Leaving aside taxis trying to kill me

"normally down to some poor soul using the train line to end their lives"

An emotive statement, but in the year that I used that line we had train breakdowns, unsuitable weather, crew shortages, strikes, lots of unexplained cancels, power failures and points failures. And one suicide.

Underfunding????

“The government (on average) now subsidises the railway industry by about three times as much as in the years just before legislation to privatise it came into place, almost 25 years ago exactly. That’s taking into account inflation, which is the change in how much things cost over time”.

It's still clearly not enough, is it?

Maybe we need to cut out the fat-cat investors skimming money off the top. Maybe ooh, I dunno, re-nationalise railways? If only there was a political party promising that.

The problem is that public transport seems to be priced as a direct alternative to car ownership

It's not, it's priced to manage demand. We're complaining about high prices AND packed trains - so where's the operating company's incentive to reduce prices? This is one of several fatal flaws in the privatisation concept.

What the country needs is massive investment in the rail network - we need more capacity in and out of London AS WELL as lines that go across the country instead of via London. But as soon as someone tries to get that ball rolling the whole country bitches about it cos it's not exactly the line that they personally want. HS2 might not be your ideal solution, but HS3-25 will probably include that.

40 miles/50 mins in the car

Or

Walk to train station, train to Newcastle, walk to bus stop, train to Darlington, find
bus stop, bus to Barnard Castle. Bloke I worked with did the same except he went from the centre of Newcastle to Kingston Park (not near the Metro) and it took him 3-4h each way.

**** that.

You don’t live in Reading – I can tell 🙂

Can't tell if it's faster or slower, Reading is just shit for any form of transport that isn't a train to Paddington. Which is why a shoebox in the city center is half a million, and 2 miles away is Whitley and Oxford Road.

They've built a Park and Ride at Meeroak*. I guess to convince people to drive as far as J11 and then give up, wait for a bus, then sit in the traffic in a bus 20-30minutes later than they would be in a car. Meeroak isn't a village either, infact the whole thing is about as hard to get to if you live in one of the surrounding villages as it's possible to be. And they won't put a bus stop in closer to the villages! The ironic thing is the fullest I've ever seen it was for an <17 driving lessons day.

Reading is a town who's prosperity is based on the idea that it's easy to get to/from, but actually isn't. But then people still do it. If you include fighting through the IDR and into Queens Road, I can comfortably cycle to the city center quicker from J11, and see maybe 10-15 bikes!

Train prices are crazy. I want to go to London with the other half. It's £300 on the train, or £50 in the car...

Yes, you have to factor in the cost of car ownership, but let's face it, most people in the UK now own or have access to a car. And they're hardly being encouraged to give them up.

The fundamental problem is our lifestyles, I don’t think there is a transport system in the world that could cope with our self-inflicted stampede into the the city centres, every day at the same time. It’s nonsensical if you looked at it from an external point of view.

I agree, and I don't think the transport problem can ever be fully resolved until we see a serious cultural shift. We've built our entire society around road networks and the use of personal transport, and we've equated it to Freedom. Yet we've almost built a prison for anyone who doesn't own one, including our own children. And there is a complete blindness to the negative impact this setup has on our daily lives.

Technology does open up a lot of door in terms of not only working remotely, but setting up remote businesses, and providing opportunities for local retailers. It's time to bring people and businesses back into small towns and villages. Which of course won't happen just by creating the opportunities. It has to be made desirable.

5 of us going to birmingham for a gig tonight, "dad" (me) would be expected to pick up the entire 100 quid train cost and one of the kids ain't mine so we're going in the car. Reckon the audi smoker will piss it on 15 quids worth of diesel and the parking is less than a fiver overnight. Only time I ever consider the train is if it's going to be a bit of a sesh with mrs ws and I have the safety then of not driving after a night on the ale.

Went to Nottingham (from Cambridge) for a gig this weekend, 4 of us as a group, the thought of public transport was never even mentioned, it's just so rarely a better option than taking the car.

I dod ride to work though, as does my wife most days of the week. Again, public transport would be slower, more expensive and less convenient.

Cougar – check my maths – £1.40 a litre x 4,5 l / gallon = £6.30 a gallon. so at 50 mpg its 12.60 in petrol?

can yo really get 50 mpg in a journey that includes 12 miles of congested urban driving and 40 miles of congested motorway?

To answer your second question first: I've just checked on my car and its consumption stats for all time - that's every mile I've done in the last two years, with the car permanently in Sport mode - shows an average of 55.6mpg. And as I alluded to earlier I have a pretty heavy right foot, I reckon I could make a considerable improvement on that if I drove a little greener. Whether that bears any resemblance to the types of roads you (don't) drive on though I've no idea.

The figure I gave earlier was a finger-in-the-air guess, but to put some figures in: diesel is £1.261 at ASDA, I overestimated earlier. That times £4.55 = £5.73/gallon. Your 100 mile trip will take 100 * (1/55.6 gallons per mile) = 1.8 gallons. 1.8 * £5.73 = £10.31 for that trip. So I was 31p out.

Lol! I just checked price of a ticket from Havant - London Waterloo. £71 return! That's a similar distance to Glasgow - Edinburgh. Fortunately I don't have to do it 🙂