Tag Archives: Public Transport

Commuter Frustration #3 – Spitting

This seems to be a norm these days, but it is still unhygenic and disgusting. I’d love to push the spitter’s face into their own spit and order them to lick up every drop of it…. But I’d probably be violating their “human rights”….

Commuter Frustration #2 – Bikes

People who bring full sized bikes onto trains. Tolerable on rail services, as some train stations are quite far out of towns, but on underground trains where every inch of space is a premium, and valuable, a bike is worth at least three spaces…. Posted from WordPress for Android

Commuter Frustration #1 – People who don’t move down inside the cars

It’s rush hour, and a busy carriage, and there’s space inside the train, but people don’t always want to move down inside the car because it’s harder to get off.

Stockwell Tube passenger dies after being hit by train as he ‘bends down to pick up bag’ – Telegraph

British Transport Police says John Burgess died three days after suffering serious head injuries in horrific accident at Stockwell Underground station

After now using public transport a lot more since changing jobs, accidents such as this now make a bigger impact to my commute to and from work. Even the announcers on the platforms are now tell people not to look over the edge of the platform.

Stockwell Tube passenger dies after being hit by train as he ‘bends down to pick up bag’ – Telegraph.

Related articles

Why you should never swear at strangers on the train http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568330/s/4392a07e/sc/7/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cnews0Cnewstopics0Chowaboutthat0C114242260CWhy0Eyou0Eshould0Enever0Eswear0Eat0Estrangers0Eon0Ethe0Etrain0Bhtml/story01.htm

Why I don’t use Public Transport to travel to work

People tell me I should use public transport to save on money, so I decided to check cost differences.

To use buses only, would take me 2 hours on a good day, and on a bad day, possibly 3 hours to get from one end to the other. A single bus fare would cost me £2.40 (2 buses), costing £24 a week.

To use underground only, would take me 1.5 hours to 2 hours on an average day. I have to travel from Zone 5 to Zone 1. I travel during the peak so that costs me £4.60 each way, total of £9.20 per day, or £46 per week.

If I wanted the flexibility of using both, a monthly season ticket between Zones 1 and 5 costs me £205.10 or £51.28 per week.

Buses, so far are the cheapest option, but they are the slowest (at 2-3 hours) and are most prone to have disruptive commuters (school kids, drunks, smokers)

But what about if I use a car? In a car it takes me 30-45 minutes to get to work in the morning, and about the same to get home. If I hit a peak of traffic, it maybe, at worse, 1.5 hours. Compare that to a 1.5 hours BEST case on the underground and 3 hours WORST case on the buses.

Here’s my breakdown of costs:

Diesel: Approx £16 pw — I fill up every 3 or so weeks, and on everage, it is about £16 per week of fuel

Road Tax: £0.39 pw (£20 per year)

MOT: £1.05 pw (£54.85 py)

Service (Full): £6.05 pw (£314.36 py) — including work done. If no work actually needs to be done, then this is much lower.

Tyres (4): £4.58 pw (£238 py) — assuming I have to change all tyres at least once a year. Not likely as I don’t do too much mileage, and I have only had to change the tyres once since buying the car.

Insurance: £8.65 pw (£450 py)

Total Cost Per Week: £36.72

So, even with the worst case scenario (lots of work to do on the service and yearly replacing of the tyres), my weekly running cost is STILL less than a season ticket on the Public Transport (and I also get to and from work a HELL of a lot faster).

Average commuter burns more than 320 calories getting to and from work

To put it in perspective, a medium fries from McDonalds is 330 calories, so heading to and from work will burn this off.
This DOESN’T however, mean you can slack off the trip to gym.