Has anyone here TRIED to use public transport.

[sheerwater]

In an effort to avoid speed cameras , traffic wardens (sorry pet hates!!!) I have tried to use public transport and abandoned hope. The system seems to work if you are unemployed, an old age pensioner or anyone else who has some time on their hands. It does not however work for the majority of people trying to earn a living. Twice my wife tried to go from Northampton to Manchester for business / training only to find that the earliest train arrived an hour to late at the station (with further travel after that) . I recently tried to travel between Melton Mowbray and Northampton only to find the train took a circuit starting by travelling 40 miles in the wrong direction. Even then it was impossible to catch a bus to the station fom my starting point as they only travel a couple of times a day and then my final destination involved two further buses. Similarly we were going to send our daughter home on her own from Hereford to Northampton by train until we discovered that there were three changes of train and knowing the unreliability of connections we were not inclined to take the risk. Even today a friend who works in London, lives in Northampton had his train from Wellingborough cancelled. He was bused to Northampton actually passing his own house on the way!!!! I think that we lost the plot years ago when Dr.Beeching closed all the railway stations and the corporations tore up all the tram lines. Anyone feel the same? Cheers Nige PS I see that BT is going to stop its engineers using vans in London to fix the phones. Dont hold you breath if your phone goes dead.

[Mav_UK]

Same problem in Leicester, a 15-20 min drive takes up to 2 hours by bus as you have to travel into the center of town and then back out again, waiting for the connections / late busses etc. Also costs about 4 pound a day instead of 10-15 miles of petrol (couple of quid).

I don't know why they don't just adopt the Dutch method of trains. whilst they have been getting worse over the last year or so, they are not that expensive, and when you get to the station you go to a machine, type in the number of the station you are looking for, the typ of ticket you want (1st, 2nd, return, single, discount) and you pay. No trying to hunt for a few hours trying to get the best price possible, just one price.

The busses / trams work quite well also. You have a strippenkaart which has 15 or 45 boxes. You get on the bus / tram and stamp 1 box + however many 'zones' you will be travelling. And the ticket you buy in whatever town works in every bus in the country. Simple. And when they do bus lanes they get it pretty right. They have just opened a new buslane from Amserdam to Haarlem. And when I say new I mean it, built seperately from the road, with up to 10 busses an hour in peak times, with never less than 4 an hour, running until 1:30am. You don't que to get on, they open all doors and you just get on and stamp your own strippenkart. If you don't have one, you can buy on the buses / trams but it costs quite a lot more.

I actually use public transport over here, basically as you can! (most of the time!)

Stu

[sheerwater]

Sensible ideas but of course they COST money instead of getting as much in as this Government wants to do. Recently a friend offered t take us to London for a show and a meal afterwards. e couldnt go by train as this would mean rushing for the train straight after the show. Result? 3 cars driven to London instead of the train which would have allowed some relaxation. (and a drink for the nominated drivers!!!) The whole thing revolves around town design. In the mid 1980s we went to Hong Kong. A new estate had been built. 20 blocks of flats of 20 storeys with 10 flats on each floor. The only road went around the outside while in the middle was the mass transit underground system. The infastructure was built as a whole not just add ons to the housing. Ive also been to numerous ski resorts in Europe. I know its slightly different and the cost is questionable but if you have a ski pass you can hop on and off the route buses whenever you want. My daughters school runs buses throughout the town to cater for the kids. Saves a lot of car shuttling Trouble is that currently the cost is £600 per year (well worth it in real terms) but a hell of a lot of cash if you have got to find it out of the average pay packet. Cheers Nige

[morsing]

Nige,
first of all, I love traffic wardens and only wish for more on the street. I was also fortunate enough today to see four cars being stopped in less than 30 seconds for short cutting through a long street where I live that is only meant for buses. Oh joy, did I cheer :)

Regarding the subject of the discussion, I must say that I never use my car to get to work or during rush hours for that matter. I have always regarded people that drive to work or use their car as a mean of transportation (with exceptions of course) as less intelligent people (no offence, you obviously fall outside that category :) )

One of the reason is that it's slower to drive than to use the public transportation system and it is also a lot more distressing to drive which becomes aparent when you watch the way pepole drive and how angry they are.

I Denmark the public transportation system is very efficient. The trains are frequent, on time, VERY cheap, modern and the service is of very high standard. I have lived in London for six months now but in spite of the system here (and the prices) I would still prefer not to drive!!

On of the reasons the system here doesn't work is that Britain is a very primitive country. Countries like Denmark and Holland are approx. 25 years ahead of you, so if you want to see how anything will be in 25 years time, go to Denmark.
You have been resting on the laurels here since your glorious industrial revolution and that's what you need to change.

Sorry, don't mean to offend anyone but I was litterally chocked when I came here by the state this country is in. I think it's time to wake up and stop looking up to France.

I am looking very much forward to the congestion charging starting in february. Well done Ken Livingston. They haven't introduced this in Copenhagen yet and the system that will eventually be implemented there is a real road pricing system, where every street has a cost and the cars are tracked by GPS. Should work I lot better.

Sorry for the complaint but to me a car is something I enjoy like a good cigar. Relaxing in the evening.

P.S. If this post make me appear old then you're probably right but I'm not. I'm in the younger end of the members here.

Cheers and merry christmas.

[sheerwater]

Hi,
I assume from your comments that your work is at a specific place. Yes it is probably possible for someone based in one particular location to travel to that location through planning. I hope however that you are aware that there are millions of people who are not based in one place. Take a doctor for example. It actually makes sense....transport wise for one doctor to travel out to his patients rather than the patients travel to see him. others , myself included have no base as such. I also have no working hours as such. When the need arises I need to travel to a location then to another and another. To wait even ten minutes for a bus which would take me to the next location would mean that instead of 10 visits per day I would probably manage 2. It is assumed by Government that people all work in one location and their policies are based upon this. No doubt those who have their central heating boiler are only to glad for the plumber/engineer to be able to drive to their house rather than take the heating system to the plumbers premises. The same applies to other services such as parcel delivery , UK milk delivery and so on. There are many services which rely on a visit to your pemises i.e. builders, estate agents, gardeners etc. These people are all workers and can certainly be included in the exceptions regarding intelligence. Where things do start to go wrong is when in the UK the price of a pint of milk became cheaper in a supermarket than when it was delivered to your door. Now to ''save'' money people drive to a place to get ''cheaper '' milk!!!!
My job does involves cross town, no bus route locations. It also involves carrying, collecting and fitting items many of which cannot be ascertained until a visit has been made. Well done Ken Livingstone????? He should be shot. Everyone I know who works in London will just up the price of everything to compensate for the extra tax!!!! The congestion charge is just a tax, another tax which will always be charged onto the customer in the same way that Value Added Tax is even though its not itemised. the real crux of the matter is transport policy combined with freedom of movement coupled with taxation of companies coupled with employment locations. As an example ....My father wanted a shed. It was cheaper to buy it from 200 miles away and pay delivery than it was to buy locally. The same goes for employment. it is just as cheap to employ someone who lives 100 miles away as it is to employ someone who lives in the factory street. Imagine if a tax allowance was given for employing people who lived in the same town as an incentive to stop long distance travel!!!!! Note the word tax incentive rather than Ken Livingstones extra tax. I dont know where you live in relation to work but most people prefer to live away from factories and centres in nice houses. The value of the house is often dependent on the distance away from work. How about taxing people according to the distance they live away from work!!! That would stop urban sprawl and compress people into a manageable area for public transport. Wrong. People who travel the most also pay higher property tax and fuel tax already. The only solution really is for everyone to work from home. I see no reason in an internet/ phone/fax/postal service world why anyone need go to work in an office block!!! Sorry I forgot one point. Office people need to work in offices because they have endless meetings to comply with endless Government legislation which requires endless transport to visit different locations.!!!!!! Oh I could go on for ages and bore everyone even more.!!!!! My last point is that every Government proposal involves taxing as a punishment. Where are the examples of tax breaks for being less vehicle dependent. In GB the latest proposal is to take away pensioners concessions on bus fares and make them pay more. All that will happen is that pensioners will use neighbours to drive them, take taxis or make doctors call at their houses. Another Government whizz kid idea.
One final point is that the population of the whole of the Netherlands only amounts to twice that of London, a quarter of the GB population and the GB spent all the money it could have spent on modernising the country on fighting for the freedom of Europe!!!
Nuff Said....Cheers Nige

[George Holmer]

Henrik,

You can't write a post like that and not expect a reply. As a Swede who has lived six years in the UK and two years in Belgium and whose family (wife/kids) are English, I feel able to comment.

Public Transport:
You are completely right in saying that the public transport system in the UK is inadequate to say the least. This is due to a number of facts, some of which Britain share with other countries, some which are unique to the UK and even to the South East/London region. a main problem is the Thatcher years where no or very little public money was spent on improvements in the public transport system and the attitude towards taxes and public spending in general in the UK is very different from continental Europe. One example of this is the lack of any high speed train services in the UK; because Germany, Belgium, France and others can accept having these run at a loss, they have them whereas in the UK, the train service is of course mainly private and so no-one is prepared to let it run at a loss. To this extent, the UK is very similar to the US. There is political will to extend the M25 to 14 lanes but not to invest properly in the public transport system. This will have to change if Britain is to become a "modern" society.

"Britain is a very primitive country":
This is where we disagree and why I used modern with inverted commas. No offence but in the latter part of your posting, I sense the attitude all too common in Scandinavia of a constant need to modernise and to change. A typical example of this is the fact that many city centres in Sweden are as ugly and full of concret as the German ones but whereas Germany was forced after WWII to rebuild their once great cities, Sweden just simply demolished it all and rebuilt with "modern" buildings. Much of this is no considered ugly and inhuman. The British in general are conservative with a small c, their attitude is that there is no need for change when what we have works. Agreed, sometimes what does not work is not changed either but personally, I prefer that to the idea that everything older than 20 years is wrong. For example, many Scandinavians think that Britain is an unequal class society simply because they have retained the House of Lords, have public schools for rich kids and so on. I do not agree, or rather to me Britain is no more a class society than say Sweden or Belgium. I suspect that you think the English countryside is very attractive, I certainly do, but why is it like that? The simple reason is that in the UK, they have very strict planning laws and it is difficult to demolish and rebuild houses. Houses several hundred years old are considered still very much worthy to keep and renovate, whereas in many other countries (including Sweden and Belgium) these are demolished. Perhaps you do consider Britain backwards, I can see why you would, but Britain has retained its carachter and charm in a way very few other countries have and this is one of the reasons so many people come to the UK evey year as tourists.

George

Resident near Leuven in Belgium

'87 745 GLE Turbo Diesel Intercooler
'88 745 Turbo Intercooler

[morsing]

George, I did expect a reply but wasn't trying to offend anyone. Sometimes it is just neccessary to shake people up a bit.

Ok, my living/commuting background:

While living in Copenhagen, I have never lived closer than 10km (6miles) from university or work. I have lived in two different places, both 10km from the center. University and my first job was near the center, the job a bit to the opposit side. My second job was at one of those industrial areas at the northen part of Copenhagen. Again 10km from where I lived.
Dispite the distance I only occasionally used my car to work. I used my bike if the weather was on my side or trains and buses.
Biking is something that London isn't built for, I know, I've tried.
Both places it took me half an hour by one train and then bus to work. By car, I could do it in 15min, if I didn't mind leaving at 0700h, otherwise up to 45min. And again, the stress level of driving in traffic ruins most peoples day, also my colleauges who claimed they didn't care.

Now I live 110m from work. Takes me three minutes on foot :) Nice area close to Hayes town.

Nigel: As I said, you're outside of that category because you don't drive to/from work only. I did only say "people who drive to work".
And as far as I know anyone who needs to go to London in relation to their work are exemt from paying the charges. I don't understand how plumbers and TV repair men will be paying anything.

Well, regarding working home, you're again too close to U.S. mentality: When I started at Safeway, I was told that they stopped giving people home based work because a woman had fallen of her chair at home and sued Safeway because she was "working" at the time.

I didn't quite understand wether you wanted tax relief from people working close to home or those who has to travel? In Denmark you get a tax relief if you have to travel. The government also has a plan ready to demand all new large office building and factories to be based within a certain distance from a metro station.

Regarding "primitive"
I did NOT mean getting rid of anything old. If you buy a flat in Copenhagen you won't find anything less than 100 years old. I have worked for a company which was based in a 1750 grain storage building. It took them three years to get the approval to put up curtains and it had to be a very specific type that becomes allmost invisable when open.
Denmark preserves anything that has even slightly historic value, including castles and large estates in the country.

What I meant was primarily primitive use of technology and infrastructurewise. Anything from banks which are a nightmare to deal with, to missing debitcard/creditcard use, tons of forms you always have to fill out to lack of cooperation between government offices. I had a colleauge that went on vacation last week and he had to spend time on doing his tax returns!! You still do that?!?!?

I don't see how you can defend delaying modernisation. The danish state has saved billions on modernising and all this money can be spend where it is needed and this benefits the danes and in turn helps the government.
I am proud to pay my taxes. Before I came here I did think that the tax level in Denmark was too high but I was proved wrong. I now understand that it is needed to maintain a decent living standard.

I came here because I like the british people, your mentality (except for the U.S. part of it) and the british culture. Unlike all of the foreigners I have met since I came here, I think and speak positive of you, I watch the news, history programmes and anything on TV that will teach me about your culture. I eat your (sometimes strange :) ) food and wear english football T-shirts, even when I go to Denmark, and I hate football BTW. I came here for the sole reason that I like you and I haven't been dissapointed.

Nigel, maybe congestion charging will benefit your business. Look at the positive side: If you can visit 10 clients now, certainly you can visit 15 after February.
And I don't want to start a long discussion but I don't agree on you WWII argument.

Cheers (UK expr.) & Merry Christmas (Eur. tradition)

[sheerwater]

Hi Henrik,
Visit 15!!!!! George gave a different perspective on our problems. The simple answer and it is one that UK politicians do not like is that we are overpopulated. I studies this 25 years ago while I was at university and you could predict the current problems even then. In the UK people who produce 10 or more kids seem to be hailed as heros in the newspapers disregarding the fact that in another few years more houses, cars etc will be required to service their needs. Our beloved UK Government and local Authorities are now going completely bonkers. Firstly they want greater and greater efficiency from all and sundry. Efficiency can only happen if there is complete freedom to change. It happens that in most commercial environments the greater the efficiency to do XYZ i.e. producing a product or service , the more the government takes up the slack with some regulation. For example (not that I disagree with the principle). Kettering railway station is a small town station. To comply with regulations for the disabled the footbridge across the track was rebuilt with expensive lift systemsto go up, walk across the bridge and descend again by lift.. I would estimate the cost of the bridge to be around £1 million minimum. This is to cater for a small minority of people although anyone can use them. They then get on an old train because the money has been spent on bridges as described instead of the transport modernisation. This is complying wih the million and one regulations not providing the transport. As said I dont disagree with the principle but what is the railway trying to achieve. Transport for the masses or compling with regulations. Yes we fill in tax forms still. To comply with tax , tax, and more tax my wifes one person business spends over £150 per week complying with , recording and paying tax. At the end of this there have been days when she cannot earn money due to the fact that tax inspections stop her operating so she can justify the figures. The business costs continue during these days at a rate of one UK pound per minute!!!! with no income. ..................Going back to the transport schemes. No I will not be able to do 15 visits a day because in our town the authorities are DELIBERATELY slowing traffic down. The other Tuesday shoppers, the people who ultimately create wealth could not vacate any car park in the town centre. The reason? A new pedestrian crossing with traffic lights had been placed on a main exit from the town centre and one person crossing the road at a time caused chaos.Why not an underpass or footbridge? The Authorities are also changing traffic lights so that cars sit at traffic lights for longer and when they change they do not allow many cars through. Result is that cars AND public transport in centres is stationary. Further results are that nobody wants to shop in the town. If nobody shops in our town they will travel to another without the problem!!!! My spending power is in the £100K per year bracket and I have several friends in the same situation. I do not shop in my own town!!! neither do my friends!!! The loss to our local economy is reasonably high. This brings me to my next gripe!!. Where is your town hall? All ours are in the centre of the town. So are our local authority offices, tax offices, the social security offices, the hospital etc. So in fact it is the centralisation of facilities in the centre by the Governing body which drags a major proportion of traffic into town. And do the bosses travel with others . NO. They get free parking spaces!!! The classic story is when our deputy prime minister travelled from London to Manchester in a blaze of publicity to show that he was using public transport. TV cameras etc.etc. what was hidden was the fact that his personal Jaguar was driven up the motorway from London to Manchester to pick him up from the station!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Same with our Prime Minister. Does he travel in a small car? No he has a Chrysler Grand Voyager. Frighteningly this is about people control. If you can control the masses by keeping them down then you can do what want yourself. In an age where 1001 things are done by machine ie. weekly washing, no coal collecting for the fire, etc. we should have far more leisure time to sit at home, go on holiday etc. Just as we get the time the Governments take up the time by inventing things for you to do at work!!!!For example it is now illegal for a member of staff to boil a kettle and make a cup of tea!!!! So now a coffee machine has to be installed and serviced by an outside company......more traffic ...traffic which cannot be serviced by public transport and its directly as a result of government regulation!!!. Congestion charging would not benefit my business. All that would happen is more paperwork would be created and the costs would be passed onto my customers. They would have no choice as all my competitors would be passing on the charges as well. If you really want an example of how governments cause waste take Norfolk County Council. With speed cameras they are booking all ambulances going over the speed limit. The fines are sent automatically. The hospital now employs staff to record where and when each ambulance was booked speeding. checks whether this was a vital call and then disputes his with the fine issueing office. This office then processes the paperwork for an exempt vehicle and writes back cancelling the fine. And I thought the money should be spent getting people well again!!!.. and of course in all probability these employees drive to work. Finally regarding the tax increases/incentives. I would suggest that employers should be pay tax at the normal rate for employing people a long distance away and pay a reduced rate if they live near to work. This would also encourage community and communities work better when they have responsibility for their surroundings so then maybe public transport would have a better chance. And Merry Xmas to you...Great to have a good discussion!!!!! Cheers Nige

[George Holmer]

Wow, that's a lot of thext Nige! Indeed, merry christmas everyone.

Henrik, I took no offence and intended none. I like you came to England because I love the place and I find their old and antiquated ways a blooddy relief to Sweden. Walk into a tax office in Sweden, they will ask not for your name, not for your address but for your personal number. This number is on everything offical or semi-offical and is given you at birth. With this number, they cna access an enormous amount of data. Likewise, in Sweden and in Belgium, you are obliged to carry id cards. This, to me, is an infringement of my human rights, my right as a human to be free from governments and authorities. Well, I will not carry on because I suspect we should agree to disagree.

I do agree with Nigel that the UK is overpopulated and what's more, the London/South East region is overpopulated in the extreme. This is a serious problem in the UK.

George

Resident near Leuven in Belgium

'87 745 GLE Turbo Diesel Intercooler
'88 745 Turbo Intercooler

[Mav_UK]

Hey All,

I do drive to work everyday, in one location, (or ride the motorbike) as even with traffic james etc it still takes me less time than using public transport, and costs me less, and keeps me more relaxed - I can listen to what I want, sit in very comfortable chairs etc etc etc. And this is even when the public transport system is good. And there is the real problem with it all. I would use the train if it was cheaper, although the motorbike is still my favortie form of transport. It doesn't get hit by the traffic jams and costs half as much as the car, which is about 1/3 of the train.

As for the continental trains, as far as I am aware, and I could be wrong here, the train system in Europe is so good as at the end ofd the second world war quite a bit of it was destryoed. Meaning that it was possible to start again and design a very good system. The UK didn't have that option and so we are using victorian routes, that have many bends in them, stopping the high speed trains for going as quick as they could......

Finally the congestion tax. It's widely known that the lights have been altered to increase congestion and that they will change again in February. An interesting figure I heard was the average UK journey now takes 16% longer than before, and the increase in traffic in the same time. 0%. It's all down to traffic calming and traffic manipulation.

What is required are incentives to make people start to use public transport, walk, cycle etc.

Stu

PS And a happy new year....

[sheerwater]

Hi again folks,
Adding to the above I believe that the normal ferry from Dover to Calais is not much faster than in the 1930s when they used steam ships!!! Its just the loading thats faster!!!!. And just to show how really mad Governments can get why do you have to drive to Dover(or within a couple of miles) to put your car on a tunnel train!!!! Why not load the car in say Birmingham. or in fact the lorries which would cut some conjestion. I think I'll stay at home for the next few weeks and let the Xmas rush go on without me. Humbug!!!! Cheers Nige

[mike s]

I wish that I COULD use the bus, however I close my business at 6pm & the last bus home(when they run it) leaves at5.45pm from the wrong side of town.
Mike Sterland

[sheerwater]

And for those who tried to go to work in London today 10/12/02 there was yet another failure and the trains didnt run so of course they all walked to work (or took the volvo once again after having to pay to get out of the car park) Cunning ploy at work somewhere. Cheers Nige