Poll: Public transport - how long does it take you?
 

Following on from this thread about the pros and cons of car use, I'm interested to know how people's travelling time compares by car vs the best alternative in each case. Please take 'public transport' to include walking, cycling, hitching a lift with another driver etc - anything that doesn't involve a car being driven just for you.

Please feel free to post below if the options I've come up with don't really apply or you want to elaborate. (I, for example, always get the train to travel into or around London, even though it may take longer).

Just trying to get an idea of how well public transport actually works in practise...

I only live a mile and a half from work. I can walk in twenty minutes, and driving takes ten (LOADS of traffic lights... :mad: ). I usually walk unless I need the car at work.

M

Had to answer in context to the majority of my travelling which is the daily commute which is train/tube. Driving everyday to work would be silly for me and £££££££££...and it's quicker by public transport too.

Easily more than an hour for me. Live in St Helens and work in 8-4 Bury so i would have to get the 1 or 2 busses to St Helens Junction, a train to Mcr Picadilly, the metro to Whitefield and a bus to the office - reckon a best case scenario of 2 hours each way with changes and a lot of careful planning - Can drive it in 45-60mins...
Cant be without the car plain and simple - wish the office was only a few miles away because I'd cycle...
P

sorry to go off on a tangent but it needs to be recognised that people organise their lives around the expectation of being able to drive. for instance my daily routine is:

drive from house to yard to arrive by 06.30 am. takes 10 minutes to drive. public transport would involve two or more busses - not sure they even operate at that time of the morning. assuming it's possible it would take at least 40 minutes, including waiting time.

leave yard at about 07.30 - drive to stevenage. driving time about 45 minutes. to do this journey by transport would involve bus, tube, overland train and then a walk at the other end. approximate time 1 hr 45 minutes.

then do the whole thing in reverse at the end of the day. i wouldn't consider doing it by public transport (at least not regularly). it's just too much. i would arrange things differently if i wasn't able to drive. e.g. work at home instead of going to the office.

I regularly need to use my car at work so It's no contest.

i do as well but i was trying to go along with the hypothetical situation.

you're just copping out cos you don't want to have to try and balance 4 bottles of rioja on the back of your bmx, on the way home of an evening.

:)

public transport = big joke.

walking / cycling not feasible as i do 150 - 200 miles a day to get to my 2 main offices.

longer if i have to actually head north of bristol to scary parts of the country ;) :p

but this depends so much on what your commute is. if i worked in the city it would take me 30 minutes to get there by tube from here, or about 25 minutes to liverpool st on the overland. under these circumstances it would make so much more sense to use public transport than to drive.

however - i don't work in the city. :p

I work from home at the moment so no problem. BUT if I have to go out it has to be by car.

Looked at plane and train to Dundee recently. Trains (from the web site) - 2 or 3 changes, 7 or 8 hours. But I also have to get to Reading and then from the station to hotel etc. Cheapest fare - £120 (ish) - on set trains. Over £200 with flexible times.

Plane - from London Docklands. £240 (ish) return. BUT I have to get there by car/train/whatever. Even cutting it fine it would still take 6 hours plus.

Went by car - £75 in diesel. Stopped when I wanted, listened to what I wanted and it took 7 1/2 hours. c. 1000 miles.

The only times I even think about PT is going into the centre of town and out. Especially London in the week. At weekends or evenings I'll drive (unless I'm out on the lash). The same for Reading. I can park for free most of the time and I would have to drive to the park and ride anyway. When I was on jury dty the p and r was great. But not when I have to go shopping. And especially now with an 8 week old baby. PT is right out the window.

Keep PT for what it's good for - those urban areas such as London where it can transport lots of people into and out of work easily and quickly. Also intercity for some people. The rest of the time the car is king. The only reason the gov. won't just accept this and act accordingly to dort out congestion etc is that they want to be able to control where and how we travel.......

Dave

hutton_d - not criticising your choice at all.....however, some may actually prefer the train from London to Dundee IF they could use the time on the train productively to work (if their line of work allows it). It's also probably a lot more relaxing to sit on the train and chill for 7 hours (ie, once you've left LondonKX, you've got 6-7 hours without a change to get to Dundee).

Why does the last option have to have the word "bothered" in it?? I've never used my car because parking is too expensive and i enjoy the sleep on the train, but it's certainly not because i haven't bothered to find out. Ignore me if i'm being over-sensitive about the choice of phrase.

I go into work by car - pretty essential when I spend about half time out in the field with customers. Quite a few calls are same day notice so not feasible to get the bus in. Gawd knows how long it would take if I did though.

I do go down to London on business a few times a month and use PT. I take the train down as there's bugger all parking where I end up and it means I can sleep all the way down. Yup, I'm in the one in your carriage, mouth wide open, snoring and dribbling :D Coming back I might watch a DVD or do a bit of work. Return fair works out at around £120 which isn't very cheap IMO but not a problem when the customer is paying.

I live in Hertfordshire and my office is in Slough. I dread to think how long it would take by public transport. There is no direct rail link, so I would need to get into Liverpool St and then take a tube to Waterloo (I think) and a train to Slough. Then I need to get a bus from the station to my office - or walk about 2 miles. I would reckon on roughly 2 and half hours each way on a good day with no delays or cancellations. By car it normally takes about 70 mins, on a good day it can be as quick as 55 mins. No brainer really.

Cost wise - a season ticket into central London is about £2500. I've no idea what it would cost to extend that to Slough. Perhaps £3500 + bus fares from Slough. So I would guess it would be cheaper from a petrol point-of-view too (plus I get a fuel card :) so I'm only actually paying about £50 a month in tax for my petrol).

Of course, one thing everyone has assumed is that the poll is solely about work & commuting. I guess it has to be really, but for those that have an essential car journey for work purposes, do they use public transport at other times outwith work?

ie, socialising, weekend trips, cinema, etc.....

Or do they still jump in a car no matter what?

Good point - if I'm working in London, I always take the train. Driving into London is a deeply unpleasent experience. Elsewhere in the country, I normally drive (occassionaly take a plane if it is a long way). Socialising depends - if I'm drinking, then I take the train :) If not, then it is the car everytime.

Chris

cycle practically everywhere.

only use the car when i am either going to purchase something that i cant fit on my bicycle, or on the rare occasion that im doing a journey that couldnt feasibly be cycled in a reasonable time.

For me to go on town a couple of weeks ago it used to take half an hour. They have now closed all the subways and put pedastrian crossings to make it easier for pedastrians. A sum total of 7 new sets of traffic lights in about 2 miles, my journey now takes 50 minutes.

All to cover 7 miles if I were driven the direct route in a car.

If I drive in to work it takes about 45 minutes (about 10 miles, inc about 1 mile through Brighton town centre).

If I jump on a train it takes about 20 minutes for the train journey and then 10 minutes to walk, and its loads cheaper on the train. A weekly ticket is £21. To pay in Brighton is anywhere from £5 - £10 per day.

I'd love to drive to work in a Scooby (when I get one ;)) but the train makes sense for me.

Darren

Saves me about 2 hours and £5 each day by driving :)

Am working in herts mon-fri, and essex sat and sun, so fri and sun nights are spent travelling to/from herts.

Doing it by car takes about 1 hr 15 mins, doing it by train takes 1 hr 30 mins on fri night, but 3hrs on a sun!!!!!!
A 3 hour train journey is just what i need after working a 9 and a half hour day! :rolleyes:
Paying £13 for the priviledge too! Lol.

Imlach - you didn't read my post re. the train. 7 or 8 hours for the trip BUT that was station to station NOT door to door. There would still have been journeys either end. As for relaxing on the train there were also 2 or 3 changes (depending on time I went) and with luggage plus laptop NO way was I going to take the train which was a) a longer journey and b) cost more. Excuse me???????

Dave

By car in the morining (leaving around 6.30 am) gets me parked in half an hour and in work 10 minutes later.

Taking the train (5 minutes from house at one end, five from work at the other) takes about an hour and 10 minutes door to door.

Takes a bit longer to get home at night.

Leaving aside the fact the car is quicker (and like some, I need to have the car available) and more reliable, and the fact that I'm not tied to certain times, the main issue for me is the fact that public transport is just that, public.

I really don't want to have to spend 2 hours of my day beside people I don't know, many of whom inevitably have hygene problems or anoying personal habits and or illnesses of some description....

Sort that and I'll use public transport.

Totally agree! I don't like most people

Public transport would cost me and the misses 3 times more than we pay in diesel each week so whats the point. Especially when the trains brake down and are late as often as they are, Down here in cardiff they usually have to close the line and call out engineers when a single leaf it spotted on the track.

work is 300 metres away, takes less than 5 mins

most i've lived away from my office / place of work is about a mile, closest is down two flights of stairs

What do you do? Walk there on your hands? :confused:

lol, theres a fecking great hill and i have to walk around a fence before i get in

anyway, i said less than 5 mins - that could be 40 seconds couldnt it

smart4rse :D;)

LOL :D

;)