TRAINS and BOATS and PLANES .................BUSES and CARS and TRAMS

This latest musings is about public transport or at least some aspects of it, as usual written from a purely personal viewpoint, errors and inaccuracies are subordinated to opinions and beliefs !

Had I been doing this blog a few years ago, then this is probably not an area I would be prompted to deal with. In fact I can probably account for 20 plus years when I rarely used public transport, with the exception of the train to London.

Of course when I was young....a long long time ago........ buses were a regular feature, I went to school and back on a bus, I went to work on a bus but............ then I bought a car. The story of my car ownership may wait until another day, but the freedom of your own personal transport was not to be underplayed. When I lived in more rural areas like North Yorkshire and Derbyshire, then the frequency and journey times of buses and the local trains meant they were not a reliable method of going anywhere where you had a time to be there.

Now I have discovered buses and trams in particular, both of which Nottingham has. Three main reasons, one whilst once upon a time you could park in Nottingham City, it like many conurbations, is discouraging you from driving in and charges very handsomely if you dare to do so and that applies to Council Carparks as well as private ones. (I shall not repeat my moan about NHS carparks previously made in another posting.) The second reason is that by surviving to the age of 60 I qualified for a free bus pass, so the cost becomes irrelevant (see later for the counter argument) and the third was that my post retirement activities have evolved to some of them requiring attendance in the City Centre.

So does the public transport option prove viable ? Well in part, I have to drive to a car park at a shopping centre about 2 miles away, from where I can catch a direct bus. This is actually fairly convenient, though limits the opportunity to have drink or two because you are still driving albeit a short distance.  So I am on the bus and it travels to Nottingham, though in common with most buses via a roundabout route thus taking 45 minutes compared to 25-30 by car, excluding rush hour, more of which later. I have now mastered the stops and know where to alight and mount but for those who don’t know Nottingham has two main bus termini, one at the South end and one at the North end of the City Centre.

One place I visit I get deposited  only 300 metres away from my venue, others, using the same bus, are however a 10-15 minutes walk. Given my bad knee I try and reduce the walking so now have to consult various timetables and find ways of starting at the same place but ending up in different places. Gone of course are the days of monopolies there are now multiple operators offered diverse routes and frequencies. If readers have a similar issue then I recommend http://www.traveline.org.uk/  which allows you to find the routes and times from anywhere in the UK to anywhere else, by train, bus, coach, cycle and walking or a combination of them all.

This multiplicity of operators can also cause confusion on using the bus pass. On Trent Barton you show the pass to the driver, tell him or her, where you are going and you get a ticket printed with £0.00. On Nottingham City Transport you need to swipe the pass on a machine, the drivers don’t talk and no ticket is forthcoming, on My Bus you wave the bus pass in the general direction of the driver and then just sit down. Once you learn all the rituals its all right, I still have to test the methods on other routes and operators, it could be the coffee table book of “101 ways to use your bus pass”, watch the best seller list next year.

However back to changing buses mid journey and taking pleasure in small victories I have now cracked getting from home to the North end of Nottingham City Centre (Victoria Centre/Milton St/Trinity Square for those with local knowledge) by Trent Barton and swapping over at Beeston Bus Station to NCT or My Bus, and the same on the way back.

But here we also uncover the flaws with public transport.

1. standing in the cold and rain waiting.......and sometimes waiting and waiting
2. seeing the connecting bus pull away just as you enter the bus station
3. Trying to travel in rush hour and having buses stuck in traffic, despite bus lanes which are often blocked by cars collecting chinese take aways or taxis just waiting and
4. buses filled to the gunwales  with people and all their luggage
5. Buses running late or in bunches because of people volume and traffic congestion (why does everyone - lots of them anyway - go to work and come home at the same time ?)
6. Buses with seats designed for small people less than 5’3” I appreciate that they want to get the most people on but coming from cars with adjustable, comfortable leather, powered seats ............. maybe buses should be like airlines have a business or first class.

Clearly one answer is to travel off peak though this is not always possible. I recently did the return from Nottingham on the two bus connection plan as described before and part one was OK, but then the second bus came through packed solid, it went off and there was within minutes an even longer queue. Hating queues at the best of time but when tired, weary and hungry, I stopped queuing and went to the nearby Wetherspoons and had a drink and a steak, when I returned to the Bus Station the next bus was delightfully only a quarter full. Of course including the price of the meal and beer as compared to the free bus travel, changes the cost - benefit equation a bit and in total it took me 3.5 hours to get home, luckily no one cares when I get in and I can still watch Coronation Street on catch up TV !

Enough of the logistics, overall the travel is OK in the spring and summer, my main bus route has air-conditioned buses with leather seats, though non adjustable and still short of leg room, but I have had to buy a new coat and hat for the rain and cold. I had taken for granted that in a car you can take everything with you just in case, hat, gloves, umbrella, waterproof coats, fleece, parka etc on public transport you have to make the decision on clothing before you leave the house.

Lastly a small observation on who are the fellow travelers on public transport. Well out of peak hours, I have noted that a good percentage are all using bus passes of various types and the bus can resemble an OAP outing. Throughout the day you get students, lots of students, many of whom are Chinese, not that this is in any way a problem but I suspect that if the Chinese stopped going to Nottingham University their income might be cut rather drastically. Also traveling are, (by stereotyping on appearances and overheard conversations only), the more disadvantaged of society, who appear to represent a greater percentage than in other gatherings of the general population.

Being a British bus, people generally do not talk to even the person sitting next to you and actually avoid eye contact, I bet its rather different on a Spanish or French bus !

Finally it seems that the bus is the place, to listen to music, sometimes through leaky headphones, and especially to make and receive telephone calls, it is not unusual to hear people talking away for over 30 minutes and continuing to talk as they struggle with bags and or babies to get off at the right stop ! Well at least Orange, O2 etc get a benefit from bus travel.

I guess until I can afford a chauffeur to drop me off and pick me up, or someone invents Star Trek style 'beaming' from place to place, in this crowded Isle then public transport as well as cars will be necessary..................what I really hate is the thought that one day I cannot drive and thus I only have the bus, tram or train. On that depressing thought I shall go and do something else, until the next time happy reading and tell your friends to visit me via the internet of course, not by bus !