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Do you use public transportation often? I love it and think it's great but in a smaller town such as mine I don't get to use it much (despite the fact that we've got free buses and such.) The coolest kind is a monorail. I've been on the one in Seattle a couple of times and it's super neat. :jess:
I would love to ride a passenger train! Sadly we just get the freight ones coming through my town.
Besides like a school bus, I've never really been on public transportation much. Although, places I've lived in haven't had it too small/poor. I used some when I was in Europe? Trains are awesome! But never here in the states really. Like seriously, TRAINS ARE AWESOME.
I agree with Freya. Trains are quite simply the greatest form of public transportation ever. I love my three-and-a-half hour train journey to Glasgow whenever I visit my best mate. Not that I'm a posh knob, but I always pay extra for a first class ticket. It's only an extra £8 if you book in advance and it's well worth it.
Sat in a comfy seat with a few beers, Game of Thrones to read, PSP to play Final Fantasy and a nice lady bringing me biscuits... perfection.
This thread is aptly timed. I just ten minutes ago returned from my first major "all public, all the way" trip around soul. Me and a buddy, both of us having just gotten to Korea a couple weeks ago, finally decided to figure out the public transportation so we could actually go out and do stuff. We learned three major lessons.
One, Korean bus drivers are apparently convinced that they are driving extended rally cars through a closed course where traffic laws/signs/lights have no meaning to them. They are also oblivious and/or simply do not care that most of the passengers are standing. It is an experience.
Two, Go for the young folk when in a foreign land and trying to figure out the subway system for the first time. We got a very helpful older gentlemen with exceedingly poor english to help us, and after ten minutes a younger cat with far superior dialect managed to fix us up in about 30 seconds. It took another ten minutes to explain to the very helpful older gentlemen that we knew where we were going now, and he did not have to excitedly lead us to the track.
Three, public transpo is pretty awesome once you know what you're doing. It takes a little longer, but over here at least it's cheaper than dirt. It cost us less than $2.50 american to bounce all over Seoul via subway, and the hour train ride to seoul in a reserved seat (as opposed to standing) was only about $10 either way. We could have done the same trip entirely by subway from where we're at, but it came highly recommended that we take a train for the major jaunt first, as the subway results in standing for 2 hours and the train has a comfy seats and took 45 minutes less time due to less stops. I highly enjoyed myself, and am definitely looking forward to using the ever loving piss out of it over the next year.
We also learned that the local rock climbers are embarrassingly strong and will make you look like a total chump. They will laugh at your failures in a totally friendly, pleasant way. We shamed our entire country, sorry USA.
trains trains I like trains
If I so choose to wake up early, i can take a train into the city every day. it costs the same as a bus ride.
As for the tax subsidized TTC, it needs to go away.
In my area, short range public transportation is the most depressing thing in the world. I have never used a bus nor will I ever. I get up pretty early for work. Most of the year the sun is barley out or not even out when I wake up for work. Anyway, this allows me to see easily into buses and everyone looks like they are about to shoot themselves.
Other kinds of public transportation is tolerable. Flying or taking a short or long train trip is no problem, nor carries a depressing vibe to it.
There are buses running around here but, I've never used them. They don't come through my town a ton and it seems to be random times. they connect the entire area I live in called the Upper Valley. There's 3 cities and 5 or 6 town they run through so it's a pretty spread out area for like maybe a handful of buses to go.
This past quarter I've taken the bus from 7:20 to 9:00 in the mornings, and then again from 3:22 to 5:05 in the evenings. That's a lot of bus time! I'm definitely thankful for the system, but I wish it would come to my area more often. It's not really very convenient! My classes all got out at 12:05 this quarter. Waiting until 3:22 to take the bus got boring! :p
I have a (officially) 42 minute train journey to work every morning at 08:10. The trains are dirty, stuffy, full of screaming babies and drunks and are often late. And it costs me almost a tenner a day. Yet it is still a far better option to driving. Screw capital cities.
If California had public transportation like Japan, I would use it every day. It was heavenly.
The bus system in San Francisco was okay.
I looked into taking the bus to work out here. If I drive it takes me 30 minutes to get to work (20 minutes to get there and park, 10 minutes to take the shuttle from staff parking). If I ride my bike it takes me an hour, but there's a health benefit and work gives me $1. If I take the bus I have to take three different buses and it takes like an hour and a half. It would cost $5 but work would reimburse me. Screw that.
Edinburgh's local bus company is freaking awesome. I mean, I have a bus stop outside our block of flats and I have a link that tells me, using GPS systems, when the next bus is likely to arrive, and when the next three buses after that are likely to arrive. For each bus route. And wherever I'm going, it's likely there is a bus route that will take me to within a few minute's walk of that location and the bus will probably go down that route every ten or so minutes on a weekday, maybe 15-20 minutes on a Saturday and 15-30 minutes on a Sunday. I love Lothian Buses <3
Main site: Bus tracker - Edinburgh - Real-time bus information
My local bus stop: BusTracker - Edinburgh - Next departures from Restalrig
You can even get maps showing every bus stop on a route so you can find out when the next bus is going to arrive at a certain stop, or just get an area map so you can find a stop and then see what bus will get you there, etc. It's awesome. :D There are also live updates on the company website detailing things like diversions, not to mention they do the same thing on their Twitter account.
I once left a phone on a bus, and going by the schedule I was able to find out when the bus was going back the other way on it's return route and managed to get my phone from the driver as it came the other way. :)
Train, train, take us away
Take us away, far away
Into the future we will go
Where it leads, no one knows
I bike to work every day and avoid the trains if I can. But since I don't have a car, they ARE super useful, and you can go just about anywhere!http://www.kevinneal.com/blog/wp-con..._koiki_eng.gif
Well when I moved out of home (years ago) I had to leave my car (was a learner), so to fuel my addiction to cheeseburgers I required a bus/train into the city. I tend to only walk wilfully when drunk.
I get buses and trains absolutely everywhere.
Public transport on the coast is rather bollocks but in the city it's like, internationally recognised or some tit.
Subway, trains, buses, and taxis are the way to go specifically subway cuz you avoid alot of tit you don't have to deal with while walking or driving except crazy Jamaican women.
I'm getting more into driving though since I don't have much of a choice with Cali's lame ass public transportation system.
Your choices?
A. A bus consisted of speedfreaks fornicating
B. A cab driven by a redneck Keyser Soze
or
C. A trolly with annoyingly whimsical tourists.
Your choice.
The local bus lines here are terrible, full of nothing but hoodrat ghetto people who want to beg you for money.
And the drivers are terrible.
I hate public transportation around here. :mad2:
Living in London has it's perks compared to the rest of the UK, we regularly have transportation redundancy such as 3 buses what serve pretty much the same route and same destinations, often with just a 15 minute divergence in their paths. For example the route 57 and 131 to Kingston only seperate when the 131 goes down to New Malden before Kingston whilst the 57 is quicker because it goes straight on to Kingston. We also have an extensive route of night buses what serve London. They can be slow but they're not so bad, especially since it means I can go to my favourite clubs north of the river and still get home by about 5am even with having left the club at around 3am. That's before I consider the trams, rail and underground networks. I have to get the underground pretty extensively to go work, gym, parents, out just about anywhere. I'm about to go get it now.
I'm really considering leaving London though as the city is far too expensive. My public transportation costs alone each month come to about £140 and that's without even leaving London to go anywhere else, which would probably consist of me paying for coaches or trains. Trains are vastly superior to coaches but also ridiculously over-priced too. When I went Glasgow recently the coach cost around £60 return. The same journey by train was almost £200 and only took 3 hours less time to get there so I just decided to book an over-night coach ride and got in to Glasgow by about 7am.
I usually take the bus to get to a different area, but if i were to go downtown thats a different story i take the train.
Now I want to go on a train ride with Bubba.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bubbaforever
I take the bus to and from work everyday because it's all we have. They aren't particularly interesting and their schedule generally sucks outside of working hours, but I get to sit on my ass and read while a crazy mother smurfer does the driving for me and that's cool with me.
You don't take the bus within 50 miles of Detroit because they're infested with "rats". I wish public trans was a viable option here though, I'd drop diving a car in a heartbeat. No more worrying about gas, repairs, insurance, registration....so on and so forth. Im so over owning a car.
Give me a shout next time you're on the 5.20pm from Manchester to Glasgow!Quote:
Originally Posted by Vivi22
Buses are by far the worst forms of transport. Unless you're in the back of a hearse... then yeah, that's probably worse.