What is public transport like where you live ?

When the time comes that I won’t be able to drive, there’s a bus into town, and the stop is just a couple of minutes walk from my house. Really, I should be using it more, but I am lazy and use my car instead.

Charleygirl5

I live in the London suburbs and my local bus stop is about a 7-minute walk away but the service is excellent as it is en route to Heathrow. When I do take a bus I rarely wait longer than 5 minutes. When I can no longer drive or walk to the bus stop it will be minicabs.

I used to use the train a lot when we lived in outer London.
The bus service was reasonably good too, although sometimes unpredictable.

MissAdventure

It's very hit and miss because of living on an island.
There can be queues of people waiting, with no idea that there has been an accident off the island which means no buses can get onto the island.

I read that thinking you meant Great Britain and that is why there are such queues of traffic.

Could be....

Time I logged off I think ?

On moving into our present home we checked bus routes,GPS,shops etc preparing for old age/illness especially as I do not drive.
It was fine 2 buses an hour one way to nearest town, hospital and social meets the other only 20 mins to city stores,theatres etc.Both routes ideal for GP local store and small post office
It wasnt too long before it went down to one bus hour and now more recently one bus every other hour going on complete different route not even going into city.
It is a good half hour walk to GPs/local shop,library and a long uphill walk back. They say survey shows no one using the service but for past 18mths people have been home going no where due to Covid and restrictions.
Whilst my husband is able to drive we can manage but I worry for the future.

We are two miles from the nearest bus stop but I haven't a clue where the buses go.....we have lived here for 35 years and both drive. These days we get most things delivered and go away from home less.

You'll go mad I hear you cry but we won't .......if you calculate the true cost of running two cars and a horse box we will use the cash for taxis when we need to go somewhere......and that amount will pay for several a week if we need to!

It's £5 by cab each way to the nearest railway station and town, same to Drs, hospital is £20. If we sold the cars etc now we would have a fund of several thousand in capital to pay for cabs, and without petrol, servicing, tyres, insurance, road tax we would have spare cash for more with no change in our standard of living.

Very good public transport near me. Not that I need it much. Metro a 5 to 10 minute walk away. Buses into the city (I live right on the edge by fields) or around the suburbs. I assume less buses on Sunday, but the metro is pretty comprehensive.

Once a day

Non existent although I believe there's one bus which comes through the village once a day on its way to the nearest town and returns less than an hour later which is a fat lot of good ?. Luckily we have a shop which sells basics but a car is a must for a proper shop. Taxis are ridiculously expensive and for many residents, not viable.

We live 10 minutes walk to both bus and train station. The train is a little shuttle which takes 3 minutes to the main station. We can use our Senior pass on the train in the West Midlands area. So can travel to Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Coventry etc quite easily.

The buses are regular, every 30 minutes, some even every 10 minutes. So since retiring I use public transport whenever possible.

No public transport from our village, if we wanted to get a bus we would have to drive 6 miles away into town, we have to drive everywhere as our village is cut off from Drs, Dentists, Shops, Opticians and Schools.

Ours is excellent, but I’m in outer SW London. TBH I get a bit peeved if I have to wait more than about 5 minutes for a bus. Spoilt or what?

I use my car an awful lot less now, certainly since I had my bus pass. I dare say many older residents would say the same. There’s often a lot of moaning about free bus passes for people who could well afford to pay, but I’m sure they keep a good many cars off the roads, around here, anyway.

*There’s often a lot of moaning about free bus passes for people who could well afford to pay . . .'

I'm sure there is - there are always people who decide what others can afford, aren't there?

We have a bus that leaves the village once, two days a week and returns later that day. God knows what happens if you miss it! I have visions of people having to camp out in the bus station

We don't use public transport but there's a very good bus and train service where we live.

London suburb, so really good lots of trains and buses. As DH no longer drives due to eye problems it means that I don't have to be on call all the time! I'm sitting on a train at the moment , going into London.

Excellent, provided I want to go from my outer London suburb towards the centre. If I want to go directly the other way, virtually non-existent.

There is a bus very near to me that goes to town twice a day.
But if I walk a bit further there is a bus once an hour to Exeter
or every half an hour to town. So it's not too bad.
But I still love driving so don't often use buses.

I don't drive but public transport is great here in our part of Birmingham. We have bus stops to four different towns and a train station within walking distance.

A close friend of mine, who’s recently been informed that she’s not allowed to drive for at least 6 months, is profoundly thankful that after her dh died, she moved back to a well-connected flat in her native Stockholm, after over 20 years in rural North Devon, where you needed to drive for over ten minutes to get to any shop except the volunteer-run village one.
Which was an uphill walk of half an hour plus anyway, and with very restricted opening hours.

Should add that staying with her and her dh many times over the years, very nice though it was for a visit, put paid to any romantic ideas I had of moving to the country once we’d retired.

Just started using the bus into town from time to time instead of driving and really enjoy it, seeing people (not so many at the moment) and no parking problems.
Bus stop a 3 minute walk away, recently cut to every hour instead of half hour. Train station a 15 minute walk to nearest city 20 miles away.
Even though it’s fine, I envy you London folk and not just for transport!

What buses?
When we can no longer drive a move will be top priority.

I don't drive but Dh does. We have a bus stop 2 minutes away from our house. The buses run every 20 minutes either into town centre or onto Cambridge, 1 hour away. They also run on Sundays, every hour.
Train station is a good 40 minutes walk though.

Gave up the car after DH died, as public transport here is good. A half-hourly bus to town goes from the nearest bus-stop (100 yards away), and a further walk of 5 minutes takes me to stops where the buses are every 15 minutes. The railway station is 10 minutes by bus, and I can get to large shopping centres by bus from our town centre. Doctors surgery, dentist and optician plus supermarkets are all on the bus route. It makes sense for me to not have a car.