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Why are so many people ashamed of riding the bus or walking?

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Onarly

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I've come across more people who say they wouldn't be caught anywhere waiting for the bus or walking.

I don't believe the fears of social suicide are realistic when it comes to riding the bus or walking.

Thoughts?
 
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edwin_m

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There's the quote attributed to Thatcher, though it's unclear if she actually said it, about anyone over 25 finding using a bus having to consider themselves a failure in life.

My own view is that buses tend to be seen as transport for going to school, or for those old enough to have bus passes. Young adults in particular don't want to identify with either of those groups. Getting a car and a license is seen as a rite of passage into adulthood so those who start to drive will tend to do so whenever possible for emotional as well as practical reasons, and thus get out of the habit of using public transport. That seems to be changing now with the younger generation less car-dependent - at least in area that have a reasonable bus service!
 

alxndr

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I generally won't use a bus (I find it far too stressful) but I'll gladly walk. I quite enjoy people looking as though I've lost the plot when I tell them of my 4 mile walk to avoid a bus or pay for parking.
 

AM9

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There's the quote attributed to Thatcher, though it's unclear if she actually said it, about anyone over 25 finding using a bus having to consider themselves a failure in life.
That pathetic comment was reinforced in 1995 for the LT area at least when Stephen Norris said that some people wouldn't use public transport because it meant: "dreadful human beings sitting alongside you". Apart from being an ineffectual politician at the time, he was also an ex car dealer. Ironically, in 2014 he was appointed as a non-executive board member of Optare.
 

PaxVobiscum

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I rarely use buses except as a camera dolly :lol: preferring to walk and/or take the train.
(Despite having free bus travel...) ;)

I did enjoy my short time working as a bus driver many years ago though.
 

ivanhoe

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Actually, getting the bus promotes more walking. Few of us live right next to a bus stop but may easy be within 400 metres walking distance. The car tends to encourage laziness. It’s outside your house and you want to park as close as possible to where you’re going. I don’t do stereotypes and the ‘loser’ label is well over 30 years old now.

Anybody who walks on a regular basis is more sensible about their health than the once a week gym pounder. It’s one of the easiest forms of keeping fit. Bus travel should be promoted as a green and healthy option. Big fan of car free days which Councils should promote for health reasons, where possible.
 

geoffk

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There's a perception that, as "opinion formers" and decision makers don't use the bus, except in Bus driving is seen as a job held in low esteem, with high turnover. London and maybe a few other towns and cities like Oxford, Cambridge and Brighton, they are provided mainly for those groups which edwin_m has listed. It's certainly much easier to get people out of their cars on to trains and trams. Is this the fault of the bus industry, decades of poor media coverage or comments from politicians like those quoted above? I worked in the bus industry (admittedly 40+ years ago) and it was all about managing decline, coping with traffic congestion and dealing with poor industrial relations. The managers I knew went everywhere by car and there was little attempt to attract new riders. Has that changed since deregulation, or is deregulation part of the problem?
 
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henairs

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That pathetic comment was reinforced in 1995 for the LT area at least when Stephen Norris said that some people wouldn't use public transport because it meant: "dreadful human beings sitting alongside you". Apart from being an ineffectual politician at the time, he was also an ex car dealer. Ironically, in 2014 he was appointed as a non-executive board member of Optare.
Sounds like Stephen Norris is the dreadful creature in this example. He probity makes fun of the elderly and handicapped as well.
Cheers, Mike R
 

Mwanesh

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Sounds like Stephen Norris is the dreadful creature in this example. He probity makes fun of the elderly and handicapped as well.
Cheers, Mike R
Is this the same Mr Norris who is being bandied around to go on the First Group board of directors
 

Pugwash

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I am not ashamed of getting the bus, it is just too expensive and unreliable in comparison to the alternatives. If there are two or more people it is often cheaper to get a taxi
 

Jordan Adam

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Given the area of the city i live in, if i were to go in to town it's far more convenient to use the bus rather than take the car.

I think if there's good bus provisions, with competitive fares then people will choose the bus over the car. However the further from the city centre you get the more likely people are to just take the car.
 

ivanhoe

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This is were there has to be cross operator ticketing in place, particularly in smaller towns like Loughborough. If you want to get from the outskirts of Loughborough to day Nottingham, it will be two buses and in most cases different operators.Theres a really good bus service from Loughborough town centre to Nottingham but depending where you live, it could be two operators to complete journey. . This is off putting to people and adds to cost. People don't mind changing buses in town centres but don't want to pay twice. Ticketing is a big issue and operators don't really have any incentive to change practices. Understandably, they want to keep all their revenues.
 

Essan

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Within towns and cities I see using a bus as being lazy - journeys are rarely more than a few miles so I prefer to walk.

In the countryside, where it may be a 10 or 20 mile journey (and no paths!) then I have no problem using buses, and find them very useful.
 

Bletchleyite

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Ticketing is a big issue and operators don't really have any incentive to change practices. Understandably, they want to keep all their revenues.

Worse than that - monopolies legislation prevents them colluding. This really needs exceptions added for public transport which, absent a statutory regulator, by far works best as a cartel than with competition.

After all that is how the German Verkehrsverbuende came into existence!
 

Jordan Adam

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This is were there has to be cross operator ticketing in place, particularly in smaller towns like Loughborough. If you want to get from the outskirts of Loughborough to day Nottingham, it will be two buses and in most cases different operators.Theres a really good bus service from Loughborough town centre to Nottingham but depending where you live, it could be two operators to complete journey. . This is off putting to people and adds to cost. People don't mind changing buses in town centres but don't want to pay twice. Ticketing is a big issue and operators don't really have any incentive to change practices. Understandably, they want to keep all their revenues.

Despite all it's failings this is somewhere where Aberdeen/Shire does quite well. For at least 5 years now we've had a ticket (The Grasshopper) which is valid on all services within whichever zone you choose.

For Aberdeen City you have Zone 1 which is £4.50 (Only 30p more than a Firstday) which gets you on all buses, including out to the Airport.
 

TheGrandWazoo

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I know plenty of folks who will use trains but never a bus. That’s an image and perceived safety issue.

Also, we’re in hock to the car lobby. Quite happy to have free parking in town on Sundays, or not to raise fuel duty for 8 years, though reducing BSOG so bus fares become higher whilst car use becomes cheaper in real terms.

Even now we’re seeing clean air zones target buses but not private cars
 

Bletchleyite

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Also, we’re in hock to the car lobby. Quite happy to have free parking in town on Sundays, or not to raise fuel duty for 8 years, though reducing BSOG so bus fares become higher whilst car use becomes cheaper in real terms.

One of the problems with funding buses by punitively taxing car use is that you can't be too successful or you lose your funding. For that reason I favour funding buses through taxation - Council Tax, for instance - and making them good enough that people will want to use them, be that through quality measures like Stagecoach Gold/Arriva Sapphire or the more route-branded approach taken by Trent/Transdev/anyone else that ever had something to do with Alex Hornby. The one exception to this is bus priority measures, which obviously will form both a carrot and a stick and need to be done very well indeed[1] so that the argument of "I might as well sit in traffic in my own car" falls down.

A lot of the quality measures I'm talking about don't cost an awful lot bar designing them - yet some bus companies seem averse to them. For instance, while Stagecoach does fit different seats to Gold buses, Arriva Sapphire is basically just fake leather rather than moquette (=cheaper to clean), headrests (well, upper-back-rests unless you're 4' tall), USB chargers and a different colour scheme.

With regard to town centres, they probably also initially need the car there to keep people shopping there. Distributed shopping and employment kills bus services (this is one key reason why MK has always had disproportionately poor public transport - in a way the "peasant wagon", as some people disparagingly put it, of MK is the bicycle, not the bus, as the bicycle is often much quicker, has health benefits and feels much safer with Dutch style infrastructure). So while it might seem "not fair" that there is free car parking, there probably needs to be to keep the town centre alive so the bus can serve it too.

[1] The foundation of the approach to bus priority should be "the bus stops when it wants, it never has to" - so things like traffic-light overtakes are key.
 

Bletchleyite

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Even now we’re seeing clean air zones target buses but not private cars

Most of these relate to particulates, which means diesel, which means even one that simply mandates a Euro spec for all diesel engines is going to target buses more than cars. And in a way rightly so - electric is now ready, and it needs rolling out across the country. The Chinese are beating us to it.
 

notadriver

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There's a perception that, as "opinion formers" and decision makers don't use the bus, except in Bus driving is seen as a job held in low esteem, with high turnover. London and maybe a few other towns and cities like Oxford, Cambridge and Brighton, they are provided mainly for those groups which edwin_m has listed. It's certainly much easier to get people out of their cars on to trains and trams. Is this the fault of the bus industry, decades of poor media coverage or comments from politicians like those quoted above? I worked in the bus industry (admittedly 40+ years ago) and it was all about managing decline, coping with traffic congestion and dealing with poor industrial relations. The managers I knew went everywhere by car and there was little attempt to attract new riders. Has that changed since deregulation, or is deregulation part of the problem?

Are coach drivers seen in a higher ‘esteem’ than bus drivers ?
 

route101

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Despite all it's failings this is somewhere where Aberdeen/Shire does quite well. For at least 5 years now we've had a ticket (The Grasshopper) which is valid on all services within whichever zone you choose.

For Aberdeen City you have Zone 1 which is £4.50 (Only 30p more than a Firstday) which gets you on all buses, including out to the Airport.

Is the Grasshopper well used ? We have the Glasgow Tripper and ive not heard of anyone using it .

Where i stay you kinda stick out if your waiting at the bus stop , yep plenty will drive and drive to the nearest railway station .
 

AM9

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Worse than that - monopolies legislation prevents them colluding. This really needs exceptions added for public transport which, absent a statutory regulator, by far works best as a cartel than with competition.

After all that is how the German Verkehrsverbuende came into existence!
It's a strange thing that the UK, which arguably, historically had one of the best City transport systems in the world, has let some devisive cynical comments from politicians destroy public support of bus travel. I've just had a 2 week holiday in Canada in three very different locations:
Victoria, Vancouver Island - Local bus services (single journeys up to about 15 miles), single fare CAD$2.50, day pass CAD$5.00
Vancouver, (city) - 90 minute zone passes 1 zone CAD$2.95, 2 zone CAD$4.20 & 3 zone CAD$5.70, day pass (all zones) CAD$10.25
Banff - Town buses (single journeys up to 8 miles), single fare CAD$2.00, ten trip tickets CAD$17.50 & day pass CAD$5.00​
In all three centres, bus travel seemed to be a normal mode of transport for all types of people, despite the roads being busy with cars. It didn't look like bus users were stigmatised by those clogging the roads up with their cars.
 

carlberry

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Most of these relate to particulates, which means diesel, which means even one that simply mandates a Euro spec for all diesel engines is going to target buses more than cars. And in a way rightly so - electric is now ready, and it needs rolling out across the country. The Chinese are beating us to it.
The issue is the zones are a knee jerk reaction to an issue and target buses (because they're an easy target and nobody cares about them), not diesel. If they targeted diesel then they'd make a difference however by targeting buses they'll make little impact and could even make the issue worse.

Each bus produces more particulates then most other road vehicles however each one is also moving more people. Targeting buses increases the costs for bus companies so fares are likely to go up. If they do the result of this is some people decide not to use the bus, they use a car. Even if this car is electric it's now slowing traffic down and, consequently, making the bus produce more particulates. Making the bus cleaner is wonderful however a Euro 3 bus with bus priority will produce less collective pollution than a Euro 6 bus stuck in a traffic queue over the same distance.

This unintended consequences problem happened in Oxford Street when somebody had the bright idea of removing some of the buses because they were always sitting around in queues looking untidy and polluting the place. The end result was that the space was used by taxis doing the same but carrying less people.

The most obvious thing to target quickly would be taxis which are the least productive, and most polluting, of vehicles in these zones. However lots of Councillors use taxis (or even own taxi firms) so we're not going to see it happen!
 

Bletchleyite

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Each bus produces more particulates then most other road vehicles however each one is also moving more people. Targeting buses increases the costs for bus companies so fares are likely to go up. If they do the result of this is some people decide not to use the bus, they use a car. Even if this car is electric it's now slowing traffic down and, consequently, making the bus produce more particulates. Making the bus cleaner is wonderful however a Euro 3 bus with bus priority will produce less collective pollution than a Euro 6 bus stuck in a traffic queue over the same distance.

Of course, as per my other post, the road system needs to be designed so that the bus doesn't get stuck in a traffic queue. However there tends to be a massive disconnect between operator and local authority so this doesn't happen. The Midsummer Boulevard bus lanes in MK which serve no purpose whatsoever other than causing accidents as cars turn left across buses are a fine example.
 
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