Dorkins Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 I'm sort of on the side of RK on this. If you make it free a the point of use there is no marginal cost versus the cost of personal car travel which would encourage better use of the roads. You also don't have the cost of collecting each fare which should make the service significantly more efficient. Obviously you don't have the discipline of 'price' then to decide which journeys are economically worthwhile (but acting as a 'rent' on your income). But you do have the measure of journeys people want to take just for the sake of it. The current system makes it completely free at the point of use for pensioners courtesy of the taxpayer, free at the point of use for workers who regularly commute using that particular bus company and so have season tickets (which in my opinion are usually reasonably priced), and extortionate at the point of use for occasional users. My preferred solution for this would be to sell an annual national bus card which would allow the user to take as many buses as they liked wherever they liked, and the revenue would be shared between the bus companies based on recorded journeys. The various London bus companies basically operate like this already. If pensioners wanted a national bus card, they would have to pay for one. Local occasional fares for non-bus card holders should be regulated by local government in the same way that black cab fares are, otherwise you will end up with duopolistic pricing whereby bus companies make sure it's just about cheaper for an occasional user to take the bus than call a taxi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@contradevian Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 It's £5.00 return for me from the outskirts of Nottingham to town, a distance of a mere five miles...which is why I always walk and leave the bus for those on benefits and OAPs who get it free. Not caught the bus all year. The bus company do not need fee payers, they get their money from the bus pass and those that work can bloody well walk. I walk 2.7 miles into town to shop at Sainsburys/Lidl/Markets and walk back with it, up bloody steep hills. I wonder how many people of my age do that. Meanwhile I'm overtaken by students taking taxi's back from the supermarket. Saves on gym fee's, heart meds, and if I drop dead, so be it. Last bus ride I took was a short one mile hop (I was late) that worked out at over £2 a mile, pretty much to price out the casual bus user. Oddly this was the Hudds/Oldham/Manchester bus and I think the whole journey would only have been a tenner. Weirdly enough Berry Brow (Huddersfield) to Barnsley on the train, about £6, barely a few stop rides on the bus.They use the casual, short hop bus user as a cash cow, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SarahBell Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 Agree with all of that. I think if you're keen to cycle to work then it will shape your choices as to where you work and live. Theoretically at my last job I could have cycled but like your road the A road that made up half the distance was fast and twisty, there were very few cyclists and it was averaging one killed every two years. It didn't enter my head to cycle the 20 miles, it wasn't the distance putting me off but the high statistical likelihood of being killed doing it. I cycle and have been out today, roads of my choosing. I don't like cycling on the main roads round here. The towpath is very useful though and you could go all the way to Manchester on it if you really felt the need to visit the bike theft capital of the world. (OK it might not be, but city centre police are regularly arresting bike thieves so I assume it's a very popular crime) Going from the village I was bought up in down to Worcester would have been scary. Lots of lorries and a very windy road that people love to speed on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@contradevian Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 Given that someone using a bus is actually an indirect benefit to car and other users, why not cut out the need to collect yet another tax and just fund it from central resources? Just think, you'd also get rid of the need to catch fare dodgers, court time, criminalising people etc etc Bus passengers would be abused as scroungers by other road users 'we pay our road tax' etc like social tenants are abused by renters in the PRS and ho moanerz as they have higher moral virtue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LiveinHope Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 My rural bus goes by the end of my lane at 08.10 I sometimes catch it. It's a 40 minute bus ride to the city and a 10 minute walk to work from the central bus station. It is 25 minutes door to door by car and free parking. You cannot buy a cheap day return ticket on the bus before 09.00 am The last return bus leaves the city at 17.40, until recently it was 17.20 Miss it and you are stuffed. If I take the bus I am the only fare paying passenger at 09.00 and the small hopper bus is always full. the city council is doing everything to make cars unwelcome (bus lanes, which favour buses but increase congestion, cameras, parking meters etc) - I am not against that - but they are doing nothing to provide an alternative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dorkins Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 Given that someone using a bus is actually an indirect benefit to car and other users, why not cut out the need to collect yet another tax and just fund it from central resources? Just think, you'd also get rid of the need to catch fare dodgers, court time, criminalising people etc etc I disagree with this assumption, which I am guessing is based on the motorcar-centric attitude that everybody riding the bus would automatically be getting into a private car and making the same journey if the bus service was not provided. Like all forms of public and human-powered transport, the purpose of a bus is not to get people out of their cars, it is to allow people to get from A to B. I don't own a car, so when I ride a bus there is no car journey that didn't happen because I made that choice. Does that mean that my bus ride is not "an indirect benefit to car and other users" and is therefore less valuable to society than when my car-owning neighbour takes the seat next to me on the bus? That seems absurd given that we are just two almost identical humans taking an identical bus journey into town. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R K Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 I'm sort of on the side of RK on this. If you make it free a the point of use there is no marginal cost versus the cost of personal car travel which would encourage better use of the roads. You also don't have the cost of collecting each fare which should make the service significantly more efficient. Obviously you don't have the discipline of 'price' then to decide which journeys are economically worthwhile (but acting as a 'rent' on your income). But you do have the measure of journeys people want to take just for the sake of it. My response was based on the premise that we were talking about local bus services for whom I see a bus as a community service/asset which benefits everyone, not just the end user. In the same way that having local roads to drive on benefits local drivers or local paths to walk on benefits local pedestrians. You'd have to be barking bonkers to suggest pedestrians paid to walk along the path to the local shops due to some obsessive belief in a dogma that states that without charging to use the path there could be no price signal to control demand/supply and thus it would be unfair to people who weren't pedestrians blah blah blah. I tend to agree that if you're talking about going on a 500 mile bus journey then price signals are more important. But getting kids to school and people to their local shops/ameneties/services - lay on as many free and frequent services as are required. Of course! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkG Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 Given that someone using a bus is actually an indirect benefit to car and other users Uh, no, they're not. Get rid of buses and you could get rid of bus lanes, and double the capacity of many major urban roads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winkie Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 Uh, no, they're not. Get rid of buses and you could get rid of bus lanes, and double the capacity of many major urban roads. Don't have that problem in rural areas, wonderful feeling of freedom to drive on clear roads no traffic jams and park anywhere with no yellow lines cameras or parking wardens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Hovis Posted March 2, 2014 Author Share Posted March 2, 2014 Uh, no, they're not. Get rid of buses and you could get rid of bus lanes, and double the capacity of many major urban roads. It's not the roads though, it's roundabouts and junctions where you get held up. And in that the packed.buses help as they are genuinely replacing thirty cars. I've used.park and ride a lot this last year and they are very busy, if everybody on that was driving instead it would be gridlock every morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
One-percent Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 Last week a mate of mine needed to catch the bus from Sarbie to Whitby, all of 20 miles as the car was broken. The bus driver nearly dropped off his seat when she enquired about the cost of a ticket (everyone else on the bus had some kind of pass). She nearly suffered a heart attack when he requested almost 8 squid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Masked Tulip Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 In Swansea the subsidised buses are free or cheap for pensioners and students - which, oddly enough, seems to be what the buses are full of. I used to enjoy getting on buses but have not done so for 2 years as the last time I took one I could barely afford even a short drip. I was gobsmacked how expensive it was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
One-percent Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 In Swansea the subsidised buses are free or cheap for pensioners and students - which, oddly enough, seems to be what the buses are full of. I used to enjoy getting on buses but have not done so for 2 years as the last time I took one I could barely afford even a short drip. I was gobsmacked how expensive it was. Not sure it it subsidised for students in all areas. My daughter pays over 250 quid for her student bus pass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
council dweller Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 It's a real problem. I know two people (not pensioners) who've had their driving licence temporarily suspended in the past year on medical grounds. If you live somewhere small with no bus and you can't drive then you are going to be paying out for a lot of taxis just to get to work. And if it's a low paying job you might not even be able to do that. And if you're unemployed you still have to get to the job centre fortnightly, that taxi ride will be a chunk out of your week's £71. Yes I`m going through the pain of losing my license, six months so far and possibly six months into the future, I`ve applied for it already though. I`m not finding is too bad, I do the 8 or 9 mile bike ride into town once or twice a week and the wife can drive my car (van!) though she has little time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crashmonitor Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 I walk 2.7 miles into town to shop at Sainsburys/Lidl/Markets and walk back with it, up bloody steep hills. I wonder how many people of my age do that. Meanwhile I'm overtaken by students taking taxi's back from the supermarket. Saves on gym fee's, heart meds, and if I drop dead, so be it. 5.4 miles involving hills can be a tougher ask than a 14 mile stroll around Nottingham or London which is all flat. I have lived in areas of steep hills up to 1:4, and it never feels easy even if you do it everyday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Masked Tulip Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 Not sure it it subsidised for students in all areas. My daughter pays over 250 quid for her student bus pass. The students pay a quid for all day travel in my area I think and I think a bus pass works out cheaper. I think I would have to pay about £6 or therabouts per day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porca misèria Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 5.4 miles involving hills can be a tougher ask than a 14 mile stroll around Nottingham or London which is all flat. I have lived in areas of steep hills up to 1:4, and it never feels easy even if you do it everyday. Walking or cycling? Walking I'd have to disagree: what matters there is not really hills, but the air you breathe and the surface underfoot. Walking in central London is hard work, even just a couple of miles. Walking on Dartmoor is a pleasure and leaves me feeling great. Cycling is indeed harder work on hills. That's one place you'll really notice the difference between a cheapo bike-shaped-object and something decent. But that too depends on many things, and it makes a huge difference whether you're breathing relatively-clean air vs traffic fumes. There are many routes where I'll take the main road downhill but avoid it uphill, and on the moors I'll usually go off-road for the main uphill stretches but on-road back down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crashmonitor Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 Walking or cycling? Walking I'd have to disagree: what matters there is not really hills, but the air you breathe and the surface underfoot. Walking in central London is hard work, even just a couple of miles. Walking on Dartmoor is a pleasure and leaves me feeling great. Cycling is indeed harder work on hills. That's one place you'll really notice the difference between a cheapo bike-shaped-object and something decent. But that too depends on many things, and it makes a huge difference whether you're breathing relatively-clean air vs traffic fumes. There are many routes where I'll take the main road downhill but avoid it uphill, and on the moors I'll usually go off-road for the main uphill stretches but on-road back down. I used to live at an altitude over 1000 feet, I never found it easy walking home. I can walk all day around Nottingham. Next Wednesday I am in London, I wont be using the tube and from a starting point of St Pancras I will be covering a vast swathe of London including the South Bank and possible out west towards Kensington, I don't usually get tired. Cycling up hills is a killer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Masked Tulip Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 I used to live at an altitude over 1000 feet, I never found it easy walking home. I can walk all day around Nottingham. Next Wednesday I am in London, I wont be using the tube and from a starting point of St Pancras I will be covering a vast swathe of London including the South Bank and possible out west towards Kensington, I don't usually get tired. Cycling up hills is a killer. I think walking in London is one of the reasons why I developed asthma. I used to walk from the City towards the Kensington area regularly - as it just seemed like a short walk - but I fear that walking through all that pollution is not good. I know numerous other people who only developed asthma after moving to London and walking most of the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crashmonitor Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 I think walking in London is one of the reasons why I developed asthma. I used to walk from the City towards the Kensington area regularly - as it just seemed like a short walk - but I fear that walking through all that pollution is not good. I know numerous other people who only developed asthma after moving to London and walking most of the time. Possibly so, maybe if I lived there it might be different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SarahBell Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 Uh, no, they're not. Get rid of buses and you could get rid of bus lanes, and double the capacity of many major urban roads. They have in Liverpool I was told. Not sure if temporary though. And as for prices. I nearly fell over when the driver told me how much it was for a single from Oldham to the Roxy. OK it didn't include the time travel needed. It'd have been a lot more then. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spyguy Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 Last week a mate of mine needed to catch the bus from Sarbie to Whitby, all of 20 miles as the car was broken. The bus driver nearly dropped off his seat when she enquired about the cost of a ticket (everyone else on the bus had some kind of pass). She nearly suffered a heart attack when he requested almost 8 squid. After 9.30am you can normally only guarantee getting on the 93 at Whitby or scabby ends. The bus has a tendency to drive by all places in between - stainsacre thru to Burniston. We tend catch the pre-9am bus into scabby. No point gambling for later buses. We tend to get the earlier buses into whitby too, but tend to taxi it back. The loss of the late-night buses (I refuse to call 7pm anything other than late afternoon) is a killer for locals. Mind you, we only stay later (with kids) in Whitby. Scabby is pretty skanky after 7pm. If you think the 93 is nuts, try either Coastliner. A 3 hours journey (6!!!! hours roundtrip FFS) full of OAPs. Not a single f-cker paying a penny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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