(no subject)

[andrewducker]

I used to commute by train. I still occasionally travel by train. It's a great way to travel 30 miles without having to worry (or stay awake) and you tend not to hit traffic jams or have to chat to the driver.

The UK rail system isn't in a very good state of repair, and it's slowly being sorted out, but I always assumed this was a worthwhile project. Once we had a rail system that was working again it would be a great asset.

Except that I just found this snippet:

Just 6% of the workforce commute by rail and one out of every two people never take the train.

The £3.5 billion paid in fares last year barely covered half the cost of running the railway.

Network Rail has said it needs £11bn extra to maintain the railways up to 2006, equivalent to £440 for every household.

There's no figures available for how much the railways will cost to run once they're brought up to scratch, but you have to wonder if you'd be better off just handing everyone £440 each towards bus fares.

Comments

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

And it ain't any better for long distances. Not just Easyjet, but even regular BA flights to London (Gatwick) are cheaper than the train from Edinburgh.

[diffrentcolours]

Public transport is a tricky game - the more people that use it, the more money it gets, so the better it gets. Once it's underused, it's hard to stop it from getting worse. Public transport has an (initially fully deserved, now less so) appaling reputation, so people don't use it.

I use the train a lot; I get the bus to work; I take the coach to London. It's not perfect, and in all honesty it'd probably be cheaper for me to buy a car, not to mention more convenient. Why do I do it? Because I believe in public transport. Same reason I use Linux when a lot of things would be more convenient in Windows. I'm supporting the underdog because it has the potential to be much better than it is, but it'll only get there with support.

I think throwing money at railways is a good thing, because for people who can't afford cars they're the only real means of intercity travel (coaches are just a no-no, I'd rather not travel somewhere than take a long coach journey). Unfortunately, there's a big PR problem - while trains are much better than they used to be, their reputation is so awful that people won't give them a second chance. And people generally aren't interested in social or environmental conscience once they can afford the petrol for their fume-belching SUVs...

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

I was without car living 6 miles from work for about 4 months.
The 9:26 would get me to work more or less on time if it all went to plan.
It never went to plan.
For 4 months the 9:26 never arrived at 9:26. Not once. It occasionally got in only two minutes late. Ten minutes late was the norm.
When I got to Guildford I had to walk for half an hour or wait 10-15 minutes for a bus. There were two rival bus companies and they wouldn't take each other's tickets. So if you arrive at work on one bus you have to wait for the same type of bus to take you home.
On Sundays, a day I quite often work, there is a train an hour from Godalming to Guildford and a bus an hour from Guildford to my work.
As you can imagine, they never missed each other than by less than half an hour.

After 4 months I bought a new car.
I can get to work in under 10 minutes and the petrol costs me less than the train fare, let alone the train and bus fare combined.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

Why not cycle? 6 miles is an ideal distance, it'd take about 20 minutes, gets you fit and it costs you nothing (once you have the bike and that can be a cheap one).

I live 20 minutes walk from work now, but I commuted to London for ages. Many many many many people use the trains into London, mainly because the traffic is so bad (this seems smewhat contradictory). I live 20 miels form central London and you'd ahe to allow at least 2 hours to do it by car (45 mins by motorbike, 40-45 my train). The London tube is almost impossibel to use (for short journey it is quicker to walk) because it is so crowded that you ahve to wait so long to get on. all of this has got worse from 1996 to last year (last time I commuted).

London clearly DOES need more public transport but there just isn't the room. They can't really run many more tubes that they already do. They could run maybe more trains, but everybody wants them at the same time. They are doing some longer trains but clearly there is a limit.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

I've considered cycling and the weather is now getting good enough to do it.
However, I haven't ridden a bike since the mid-80's and the only viable route is on a thin strip of land next to a canal.
Plus I'd have to find somewhere to store my bike at home which isn't as easy as it sounds.

However, it does seem like a fun option.

[allorin.livejournal.com]

Ho ho - and the main reason I don't get the train is that it's too expensive.

"Oh, the ironing...."