Breathe your own air or I'll give you a Glasgow Kiss, mate (Public Transport in general)

Member Name: rabidsquirrel

Product:	Public Transport in general
Date:	29/01/02 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Environmentally friendly, erm... that's it

Disadvantages: Prices, reliability, the other people

The person who came up with the idea of buses (or public transport in general, for that matter) must have had a few screws loose. Only on public transport would you share the same breathing space as a complete stranger at such close proximity without feeling particularly uncomfortable or nervous about it, and without feeling the need to say anything to this complete stranger. Why is this? I don't know, I was asking you. Nevertheless, the person who considered the idea of public transport was making a huge gamble.

The truth is, he probably didn't even consider the possibility of people being squashed into tube carriages, unable to move, with your face about three millimetres away from somebody else's. This has only become the case because the demand for public transport (due to a growing population) has overtaken the growth of public transport. In some areas and times of the day, this is not really a problem. The bus services where I live, for example, rarely become busy outside of peak hours. But during times when kids are either going to school or coming out of school, these services suddenly become overrun with annoying 11 to 12 year olds – not mature enough to stop acting like a child, but just old enough so that they don't feel nervous travelling alone (or without their parents supporting them, anyway). Kids at this age are at their most annoying – their high-pitched voices cut through my head like a chain saw, and their idea of what is funny is pathetic. Oh, look, I'm really cool and hard because I'm ringing the bell thirty thousand times, but then when the bus stops I'm not actually going to get off the bus. No, you're not cool – you're a sad little boy who still watches Rugrats on TV and thinks it's a good programme.

Go into London and things get worse. Not many school kids, but more people in general. Peak times on the underground are no-go times. You will find people literally takin
g run-ups so that they can launch themselves into the packed trains. It's a wonder I've never seen fights break out on these trains, some of the people are so obnoxious and rude. Because catching the next train is not an option. That will get them back home, ooh, at least three minutes later. Three minutes that could be spent vegetating in front of the TV.

As a result, on these trains, you will find conditions unbearable. The heat given off by the sheer number of bodies becomes unbearable, and if it's been raining that day, the whole train turns into a sauna. The air conditioning isn't very effective, and so you will often find yourself with a headache by the end of the journey, gasping for the few remaining pockets of oxygen that some git hasn't already used. It is not a very pleasant experience.

Let's have a look at the types of people who use public transport (excluding in London, because that's a completely different kettle of fish.

1. Schoolchildren, who take over the buses and trains like parasites between 3:30 and 5:00 p.m. I was one only a couple of years back, so I won't lay into them too much. However, I can see why other people find them, especially the younger ones, so annoying now.
2. Old people, who are too physically impaired to drive any longer. These people normally take between ten and twenty minutes to get on or get off the bus, and another thirty minutes to find the money to pay the driver.
3. People who either don't drive or can't afford to buy a car. I probably fit into this category, although hopefully not for much longer.
4. Tramps and the mentally disturbed. I've noticed at least one paranoid schizophrenic who regularly catches the bus on the route I normally travel (that diagnosis is from my rudimentary knowledge of psychology) – he will sit next to another passenger, stare at them smiling for the next ten minutes, and then tell them that he's going
to call the police because that other passenger is harassing him. I don't know how tramps can afford to catch the bus – they're probably not tramps, but they stink like excrement and fit the general description of a tramp.

I'm not saying that all of the people from the above categories are the lowest forms of society, but a lot of them are. <Stand by for some abusive comments from users who think that I'm a bigot.> Harsh, but true. I mean, I use public transport, and look at this horrible opinion I'm writing. Do you really want to catch a bus with someone like me?

The fact is that public transport is too expensive to be considered a viable alternative to driving a car. Someone who is able to drive has two options in getting to work. Firstly, they could catch the train, wait twenty minutes longer than you're supposed to in the freezing cold because there was a dead cow on the track (or some equally feeble/unbelievable excuse), wedge yourself into a seat because the legroom is pitiful or the seats aren't large enough, and suffer an hour of listening to the same mobile phone ringing again and again, and the same dialogue again and again: "HELLO! – I'M ON THE TRAIN – YEAH – YEAH – HELLO? HELLO? Oh, sh*t," as the train goes through a tunnel, cutting off the signal. You pay five quid for this privilege. Secondly, you could drive in the comfort of your own car, in your own personal space, and get there in half the time for half the cost. Which would you rather do?

Difficult one that, isn't it.

Have you made your choice yet? Yes? Well done, you've made the correct choice. What the government needs to do about this if they want people to use public transport is simply to reduce the cost of travelling on public transport. At the moment, I pay around £2.50 a day to get to my college and back, depending on the time of day I travel. That is far too expensive fo
r having to put up with rude bus drivers, doubled travel time, and invasion of personal space. If they were to make public transport cheaper than the costs of running a car, then they would get more people abandoning their cars to use public transport. But as it is, anybody who can drive will drive.

In addition, they need to improve the standards of public transport. Reliability needs to be improved, as well as the amount of public transport available. Buses and trains become congested at peak times at the moment, and with increased numbers of users, the situation will become as bad as the situation on the London Underground, with trains holding three or four times the number of passengers it should hold. Therefore, more routes need to be made available, and more buses or trains need to be put into service, if they want people to use public transport instead of their own cars.

I can see the good side to public transport – it is not all one sided. I can see the environmental benefits of having fewer vehicles on the road, as well as the fact that there would be fewer incidences of road rage due to roads being less congested. I know that the carbon dioxide that is emitted from all cars contributes to the greenhouse effect, and that there is not an unlimited supply of oil on this earth. However, if the government is aware of this and wants us to be more environmentally friendly, then why aren't they giving us incentives to be so? Given the choice, humans, especially in the Western world, will choose the easiest option for themselves every time. It's a sad fact, but it is true. Do the government really believe that people will use public transport when there are much better alternatives? Public transport may be better in the long-term, but for now the disadvantages vastly outweigh the advantages, and so I'll be abandoning public transport as soon as I've passed my driving test.

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