How can the government expect the UK to be more 'green' by using public transport when it's so expensive?!

Question

When I was debating to use the car or Train to Nottigham from Milton Keynes it was either - Bus to train station £3 return, Train £32.50 return, Bus to my house £3.40 return, (£38.90 for public Transport). Or to use the car for £15 fuel total. On top of this the train would take about 2 hours extra.
So as an incentive of using public transport and saving the environment we get offered a much more expensive, longer service costing us a lot of time and money. So with this in mind, why isn't there a change made. Which is a 'greener' option, keeping the expensive trains with few people willing to pay for this service over a car, or lowering prices and having filled up, cheaper trains ? I know what i would do if i had a political say..

Answer 1

The problem is that instead of using transport taxes to fund all the infrastructure they only fund the roads and keep 90% of the tax to squander on the EU and other things that the electorate do not want. At present the rail companies have to fund maintenence of the rails from the fares the level of maintenence has to be much higher, by law, than the government requires for roads thus the difference. Also during the 60's Beeching removed most of the secondary lines so that you now have to travel a longer distance to go between places, just think what would happen is all secondary roads were removed and you had to use motorways and major arterial roads you would have the same problem that the railways have. Also remember that public transport has to stop to pick up others and that will increase the journey times, I would think that if you added up the time during which you were actually moving it would not be much different.

Answer 2

I agree that the Government should be making Public transport cheaper. It bangs on about the environment but does little positively to make things greener. I agree with much of what has been said already. But a couple of points. Someone has said the fare from London to Manchester is £250. That maybe the 'book' price - but there are a lot of cheap deals, if you care to spend time looking, on all rail routes. On that London/Manchester route, my son recently travelled on a special Virgin deal for £6 return!. And you make an elementary error in comparing the cost with the cost of travelling by car. You are not comparing like with like. You need also to factor in the cost of insurance and road tax + the depreciation in the value of the car itself. If you brought it new, it will have dropped one-third in value immediately you put it on the road.

So far as time is concerned, the problem is that often cross country travel is difficult, if there is no direct route - which there isn't from Nottingham to Milton Keynes.

Answer 3

Hi I agree with what you say Train/Bus/Tram fares should be lower, but then the price of petrol is going up then we now have congestion charges (here in London) then there is the price of parking so in the long term it will get cheaper to travel on public transport.
Also think of it like this: The UK has the oldest Railway which up until a couple of years ago was under invested in. The Train Operating Companies do not own their stations they are rented & slowley these stations are now getting rebuilt (Like the two Kings Cross Station - Kings Cross & Kings Cross Thameslink, which are costing £400,000K, then you have all the tracks being replaced & the resignalling of Portsmouth which is costing £100,00 ) where does this money come from? Not the goverment, but the train tickets!

Answer 4

I totally agree. The government persecute drivers with high taxes but do not offer a proper alternative. Its still more expensive to get a train than it is to drive. Its unfair to provide a below average public service at such high costs. Yet the transport companies say that the reason for this inflated price is to improve the service for the future. I think its non business like to charge the customer in order to provide an adequate transport system. A non transport company has to find its own funding to start a business and trade with the general public. Why is the train service treated differently. The reason is because many people have no choice but to use public transport

Answer 5

The government is after people to cut down on energy use but they really don't have any viable alternatives. They are putting the cart before the horse. Maybe we just need to go back to horse and buggy. Oh wait, the methane problem and they eat the grain that is used to make ethanol. When I was a kid, they had trolley cars running on tracks in the nearby city where I grew up. It looks like our civilization is now moving backwards. We aren't ready for this big change. We are supposed to cut our energy usage by 20% by 2015 and 80% by 2050. I won't be around in 2050 but I can't imagine what life will be like.

Answer 6

Hi i just wanted to add that as well as the problems wih the expense, the buses in particular where i live are spectacularly inefficient! I once waited 40 minutes for a bus that is menat to come every ten minutes, and i have often had problems with massive delays on trains!
In theory i am a big fan of public transport, but you are right there are very few incentives to use it if you have any other alternative!!

Answer 7

I think fares on public transport should be subsidised to encourage people to use it. But the government also need to improve the public transport infrastructure particularly in rural areas. What good is a rural bus service that only runs twice a day to fit in with school times?

How to finance this? Nationalise public transport and plough any profits back into the system rather than paying dividends to shareholders. Cut the salaries of the fat-cat bosses in the public transport companies & plough that money back in.

Answer 8

At the end of the day the gvment don't care about the planet, all they care about is taxing us as much as possible. What ever mode of transport we choose they will tax as much as they can. When unleaded was introduced and no one used it it was cheap but as soon as everyone started to use it the gvment slapped the price up, same with diesel and if everyone starts to use gas the same will happen with that.
If everyone got rid of cars we would have to pay bike tax or shoe tax, the gvment will never let us get away from being taxed as they need the money to pay for expenses on trips abroad.
£87.6 million is not good value when one MP is using over £20,000 just for post and stationary is taking the p**s.

Answer 9

pretty much the same or similar situation in the States
Public transport is safer and far more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly
but it is too expensive, the benefits of getting more people on public transport are myriad
but to be affordable it HAS to be publically funded, and finding politicians with the foresight and courage to look beyond the next election and adequately fund these projects is difficult.
Even the politicians that agree are too intimidated to buck the system.

Answer 10

Trouble with the transport system compared to car journeys is also down to time of travel. If you are travelling in the peak time it will be more expensive. If you had travelled off peak, i am sure it would have cost less as the price of £32.50 would have gotten you into London and back.