Travelling on the bus

[Escapee]

I had a change Saturday night and walked to a pub about one to one and a half miles (25 min walk) in the opposite direction to my local, it was just a change and I fancied a walk. I had 2 pints and decided at about 10pm to have a walk down to my local, estimating a 35 min walk.

As I came out of the pub and to the first bus stop a bus appeared, I decided to jumo on and paid my £1.20. The first thing to hit me was the terrible smell that was a mixture of BO and pee, I mentioned this when I got in my local and the local tree hugging do-gooder dismissed this as lies because he uses a bus to get almost everywhere and it couldn't be true.

He then went on to (attempt) ripping into me about using my car for work, after telling him I only live 6 miles from work. I tried to explain that it was imparactical to take the bus to work because there is not one that goes from Pontypool to South of Newbridge on the A467. He was having none of this and said that I am lazy and I had a just cant be bothered attitude.
(I admit, I did come close to loosing my temper with him)

I have today checked the online timetables and found I am correct in stating there is no suitable bus service available. Generally I leave home in the car at 07:45 and get to work for 08:00am, I leave work at 16:00 and I am home before 16:20. This is not set in stone though because I have regular conference calls with USA and Canada which mean I finish later, just taking my usual hours as an example I have 2 options for using the bus.

option 1

I would need to leave home by 07:00 to catch the Hourly service 21 and walk to town to catch the 07:15 to newbridge, this doesn't go past my work but gets to Newbridge at 07:37am. Wherever I get off would involve a 20 min walk down a main road with no footpath, but it would probably get me to work for 08:00am. Coming home they have a 16:23 that I may be able to catch, if not I would need to wait another hour.

That means option 1 would mean 2hrs 15 mins extra per day

Option 2

The only option for a bus going past my works would be to take a bus to Newport and then Newbridge from there, the details are as follows.

Leave house at 06:20
Bus leaves Pontypool 06:35am
Arrives Newport 07:08
Bus Leaves Newport 07:27
Arrives Newbridge 08:05 (estimate 08:00 bus stop by work)

Coming Home

Leaves Newbridge 17:04 (estimate 17:10 stop near work, not sure where)
Arrive Newport 17:42
leave Newport 17:45 (assuming I get to catch this one)
Arrive Pontypool 18:24
Home 18:40

Thats 3 hrs 45 mins extra per day

So, is it practical to take the bus to work?

[Graham M]

Originally Posted by Escapee

Thats 3 hrs 45 mins extra per day

So, is it practical to take the bus to work?

No. Not for a lot of people anyway, and if the government want to get "unnecessary" cars off of the road, then that is one of the things they will have to fix first.

[Halcyon]

Don't get me started on buses..... I use them everyday and it says on them "Every ten minutes" but like they ever keep on time.
Buses take forever and the only way round it would be if they re-introduced conductor's.
We'd all get on the bus and then it would be able to pull away and get to destinations much faster.
The conductor would also stop people from ripping out seats and peeing all over the back seats or lighting up a cigarette.

But of course this means paying another salary so it will never happen.

[Escapee]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

Don't get me started on buses..... I use them everyday and it says on them "Every ten minutes" but like they ever keep on time.
Buses take forever and the only way round it would be if they re-introduced conductor's.
We'd all get on the bus and then it would be able to pull away and get to destinations much faster.
The conductor would also stop people from ripping out seats and peeing all over the back seats or lighting up a cigarette.

But of course this means paying another salary so it will never happen.

'Every ten minutes' s a lot better than the 'Every hour' service available as my option 1 though!

I think once out of large cities a bus is not an option. Its much the same as the train service, unless you live near a line direct to your destination its not really an option. I looked at getting a train to work when I was working 60 miles from home, I would need to drive 5 miles to the station, or 1 and a half miles away and leave my car at the local un-manned station where they are always being vandalised. It then meant getting a train to Bristol and changing to another train.

Public transport is not an option for many, but I guess it is easy for those living in large cities or just be lucky to have an option open to them to conclude that it is.

[Maggy J]

I live 15 minutes by car from my place of work..However the only direct bus leaves from the centre of the village which is a ten minute walk away.The service also only runs 3 times a day going all round the housing estates before arriving at my destination.The first bus of the day arrives 30 minutes AFTER work starts...No contest.

As for walking no way.It would take me at least an hour and I'd have to dodge all the cyclists on the cycle way.That's an hour that I could be spending in bed if I didn't already have to deliver him indoors to work first.

I am thinking of getting a bike though, not to be green but to get fit.

[Paul]

I bus in to work, have to leave earlier than normal to do it and unless the schools are out for holidays the busses and the roads are terrible. Kids don't care what they do on busses and behave like animals a lot of the time, roads are full of school runs which cause bedlam as they refuse to give way or let busses off stops etc.
When schools are out it's bliss, busses are clean and quiet, roads are a lot quieter and the journey takes about 30 minutes less.

[foreverwar]

I use public transport - I get taxis to the airport, and fly to/from Glasgow every week, and then get the bus to/from Glasgow airport (or doesn't that count).

At the moment, I leave home at 06:10, catch the 7:05 flight, and am in the Glasgow Bothwell St office for 08:30; coming back I leave the office at 15:00, catch the plane at 16:30, and am home for 17:45 (I live 10 minutes from LBA).

If I got the bus/train (and I have), I would leave home at 05:55 and get to the Glasgow office for 12:10 - sorry, I am self-employed, so no contest).

I did get rid of my car, though.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Escapee

'Every ten minutes' s a lot better than the 'Every hour' service available as my option 1 though!

I used to live in a village where the bus came once a day, it left in the morning, came back in late afternoon and you were buggered if you missed it

[foreverwar]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

I used to live in a village where the bus came once a day, it left in the morning, came back in late afternoon and you were buggered if you missed it

That's a bit harsh - couldn't they have punished you another way.....

would have made it difficult to run for the bus the next day, I would have thought.

[scrotnig]

Buses are so council.....they are for poor people who can't afford cars.

[Kevin T]

Bus pricing in my area needs sorting out!

I don't particularly use them, preferring to walk, but a 2 mile journey into the centre of town by bus costs £1.75 each way. From town a return rail ticket to the centre of Manchester (about 7 miles) costs £2.35....

[Escapee]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

I used to live in a village where the bus came once a day, it left in the morning, came back in late afternoon and you were buggered if you missed it

Does remind me of the small village I lived in but too young to really remember, we still have family there and the bus service became poor as more people got cars. I dont think there is a bus service there at all now, and its about 3 miles from town and the village is on top of a mountain.

Not a nice place if you have no car!

[Paul]

Originally Posted by scrotnig

Buses are so council.....they are for poor people who can't afford cars.

Want to quantify that or post proof? The bus route I use is regularly loaded up with professionals using it to get to local stations. These stations then take them on to the city of London. I take it that these are the "poor" "council" people that you talk of?? For the sake of not getting a second infraction warning I won't post what I think of the tripe you posted.

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by scrotnig

Buses are so council.....they are for poor people who can't afford cars.

So I'm poor then because I hate driving and only make journeys that need transport once a week on average (unless I'm going away for the weekend)?

I live five min walk from work and have no need for a car. Does this instantly make me poor because I don't want to spend money on a car that would be used once a week?

The person here who's poor is you my friend - a poor judge of people if you think everyone that travels by bus can't afford to travel any other way.

Edit - as a side thought - even if someone is too poor to own a car, does that mean they are someone who's inferior to you or any other car owner?

[Nugget]

Obviously, I can only speak for the buses in Grimsby but I think that half the problem is that they're comparatively over-priced.

I have to be honest and say that it's over a year sonce I last used one (I work in Scunthorpe so I have to use a car for work) but, when I did, it was to get from the centre of Grimsby to my doctors on the main road to Cleethorpes - it cost me a pound (which, I appreciate, isn't a huge amount of money) to go approximately 3 miles. However, I use the train fairly frequently to go to a friends in Habrough which is a 25 mile round trip, and it costs me £3.50.

Couple that with the fact that, if we wanted to take Baby Nug on the bus, there's rarely any room to put his buggy (even when it's collapsed), there's no advantage to using it All in all, for us specifically, the bus isn't really a viable option.