Do you use buses?

Use your bus or lose it. We have had all our bus services cut, another company have taken over some routes, but many folks are still without a decent service. I only have a bus available every half hour. Sometimes they don't turn up. They can,also be absolutely manky, but that is passengers not the bus company. The fares are extortionate and just went up again in Feb. They also keep changing routes and timetables. I guess its better than no service at all and I feel fortunate to at least have a bus service, when many people have lost theirs. They keep telling people to leave their cars at home! How can they?

I love my bus pass!
Free transport all over Scotland.
I use it every day and change buses. My house is 1 minute from the stop.
I visit my DD who lives in rural Aberdeenshire. It takes 5 hours and 3 buses. I like listening to the changing accents. I sometimes knit, or read, chat to fellow passengers.

The car is quicker still for long journeys and useful for carrying passengers and stuff, but we are lucky to have such a frequent bus service.

Phoenix my Mil had one bus a week from her Somerset village. It gave her just enough time to walk the length of the High Street, pop into the supermarket and catch it home again.

I feel very fortunate, though we did choose this house carefully for its local facilities and good transport connections by road, rail and bus.
I catch the bus at least twice a week to do my voluntary work in the city. Buses are every 10 minutes during the day and pretty reliable. Also evenings and Sundays, and we are only a few yards from the bus stop. I can break my journey to go to the bank and for me it is free with my bus pass. I enjoy seeing people of varying ages and backgrounds.
My city has very good transport and encourages people not to drive into the city. I never do. There are electric buses and trams too.
In fact I only use my car to visit my daughter who lives in a village with very few buses a day, and to go to choir at night. I walk to local shops, church library and doctor.
I think I may change to an electric car next year for my short local journeys,
DH, on the other hand is practically married to his car and goes everywhere in it.

We have 2 bus routes going past the end of our street each with a 10 minute service. Both buses stop at various Underground stations so travelling anywhere is easy and free with the Freedom Pass.

We gave our car to our son as he commutes about 25 miles each day and we tend to use the bus every day. At the moment we don't miss the car but that could change if mobility becomes compromised as we age and in that case I would think about getting another car.

I get a bus regularly 10 miles to our nearest coastal town for a walk and coffee by the sea. Beautiful countryside on the way - fabulous journey. Also get a bus to nearest city too. Love my bus pass.

Have given up driving through choice, but I have a good bus service with a choice of three different buses and three stops within 5 minutes walk from my house. One is only 100 yards away.
They generally keep to time, about every 10 minutes or so into town. Once in town I could if I wanted get a bus to two large towns/cities which run every half hour.
So yes, I am happy with what is available.

Yes, I’m in SW London and use them a lot, they’re very frequent and free, thanks to our Freedom Pass. We do know how very lucky we are. IMO the F Pass does keep a lot of cars off the road, though - I use mine far less since I’ve had it.

I would love a bus pass, but here we have to wait until 67. I use the bus all the time, and if I want to go into the city centre they are fairly regular, but expensive (£7.20). To get anywhere else, such as to nearby towns they are a nightmare.

I really think that public transport is overlooked, and if we invested in it so many things would benefit. People would be less lonely, the air would be cleaner, the roads would be less congested, and businesses would do better, as people could actually get to them without taking a car and having to find someone to park.

I got my bus pass last September and now use the bus to get me to and from work for free. Bus picks me up right outside my house, drops me outside my office door, no petrol or parking fees; what's not to like?

I agree with previous posters, West Midlands bus services are good, and with our pass including the metro as well, we can get right across the conurbation, about 30 miles, so long as the journey starts after 9.30 am. Locally we can use the buses before that but have to pay a token fare of £. Only snag with the buses, they amble round large estates, taking twice as long as the main road!

Rural bus services have been cut so drastically that the bus companies can claim that nobody is using them and cut them further.
Our nearest town is 15 minutes away by car, 40 minutes by bus and you either come back after less than an hour or are stuck there for 3 1/2 hours.
There are no afternoon buses because they’re all doing school runs. No evenings or Sundays either.
My brief hospital appointment will mean I’m out for 4 hours and get dropped a ten minute walk away on a muddy verge, no footpath.
Nobody would use our buses if they could possibly avoid it.

There's a fairly reliable service here (Greater London) and I make good use of my free bus and train travel. I don't drive and parking is a nightmare anyway. In case there are delays, I always take change for a minicab as there are plenty I can call from my mobile.

ExD1938 if you have any Tesco Clubcard vouchers you can use them to buy a Railcard.
It's a good exchange rate as every £5 of Tesco vouchers you cash in gives you £15 towards a Railcard (or National Express coach pass).

Yes, I have four bus routes near me. I have an app that tells me when a bus is due, so I don’t have to wait long. We seem to have particularly friendly and helpful drivers, too. We also have a growing tram network in Birmingham, for which I can use my travel pass. A friend and I were talking about using buses when our children were small, and how difficult it was to get baby, toddler, pushchair and shopping on. Now there are special places for buggies so you can leave the baby in and don’t have to fold the buggy up, and the driver can lower the bus to the kerb to make it easier for buggies and wheelchairs. However, I know some people who don’t like to use the bus at night, and I think manning buses with conductors would make people feel safer.

Not me. I use a bus once in a blue moon. It’s over three miles to a bus stop and even then, there’s only one route available.

We also used to have a weekly bus but that’s stopped now. It gave you precisely 1hr and 35 minutes in town and then you had to come home again. Unless you waited until the following week.

Very rarely. The only reasonable service (twice an hour) is into Norwich and can mean a long wait standing at a draughty bus stop as they get out of sync coming back.

I wish I could use the bus to go into our small town but unfortunately, although we only live a couple of miles away, we don’t have a bus service which is within easy walking distance of the house. The nearest one is more than half a mile away in the opposite direction to that we want to travel to.

We used to have an hourly daytime service at the end of the road but that got the chop a few years ago - just after I’d got my bus pass in fact.

Since I obtained my bus pass 2 years ago, I use the bus regularly. I live 10 minutes from the bus station. I can also use my pass on the trains in the West Midlands and regularly go to Birmingham now for free as the train station is 10 minute walk away too.

Living in a West Midlands towns can have some advantages!

We have a regular service to town every half hour. I use my bus pass so it’s free too. I take car near to our local hospital then get free shuttle to main hospital as it’s v difficult to park.

We get more than one bus a day to our villages but.... unless you're willing to spend all day in our nearest very small town (and very little to keep you occupied all that time), the only day to go shopping is a Thursday when there's an early afternoon bus back. Otherwise you're stuck there until about 5.

We sometimes go on a Thursday, joining the friendly local crowd, partly to keep the bus service going.

I would love to use a bus but we don't have any here, so a car is essential. Some people use taxis because of parking difficulties.
I don't bother getting a buspass (no point( but I would love a reduced railcard.

I use the bus a lot. Our main problem is that there are hotels on the main route into town and crowds of tourists hold the bus up for ages asking questions to the driver or not having the right money etc. All this information is available at the bus stop but they don't bother to read it.
This makes us regular users late for work or appointments. Sometimes they fill up the whole bus and us locals are left at the stop. My poor son had to run to work one day after a group of 50 tourist students filled up his normal
bus. No wonder we're keen for a tourism tax up here. The infrastructure is creaking.
Rant over but its a very sore point on the bus.

I prefer the metro. But where I am now, buses are free, so I use them if I'm too lazy to walk.

I am spoilt for choice when it comes to buses, I live in the South.