AHAHAHAHAHAHAH oh, Heldy-poo. Let me tell you why private transportation is infinitely preferable to public tranport here. I will just talk about trains to start.
Let's say that it takes you 1 hour to drive somewhere. By train, it will take you two. And it will cost you about $20, more or less, depending on where it is. The price is the same for one way and round trip. Which makes sense to nobody.
Let's say that it takes you 2 hours to drive somewhere. By train, it will take you about four, and will likely cost you at least $55. Again, almost the same pricing for one way/round trip, maybe a dollar or two difference.
It takes about 40-60 minutes (some journeys take 2 hours if you hit one with looots of stops) by train from where I live to London. That is not really that bad at all, considering that London is a nightmare. It costs about $30, though, so for commuters? A yearly pass from where I live to London costs over $6000. Plus parking fees, I believe, unless you have someone who can drop you off or an easy way to get the bus there, which will likely end up costing you hundreds more pounds per year.
Oh yes, did I not mention you have to pay to park? It costs about $13 to park at the train station for the day. And then also you have to consider that you might not even get a seat on a train. Often, they are packed to the point of exploding. They are not always reliable, either. Weekends, especially Sundays, often mean construction, delays, some lines not even running and other lovely surprises. I imagine that now, in the snow, they have stopped running.
And also, you assume you can go everywhere by train or bus. You can get to supermarkets by bus, sure, but imagine doing a weekly shop with four or more heavy bags on a crowded bus then having to walk the 5-10 minutes home from the stop...in the rain. And then, say, if you wanted to visit somewhere in the country, with no train stations or bus stops nearby, what do you do then? Well, frankly, you go ******** yourselves, because you can't without figuring out an elaborate bus schedule. When I went to the local college, I had a friend that would spend 2 hours getting there, and another two hours back, for a journey that I think would have taken half an hour to forty minutes by car, at most. I think the bus stop was a 30 minute walk from his home.
Well, I think with all that, you probably get the picture. Our roads are badly planned and packed, but the public tranport is just as bad. This country wastes money and cannot manage s**t. I recently learnt about a guided bus-way thing between St Ives and Cambridge, a distance of around 15 miles, that cost over £116 million to build.
Mink: Yeah, when I see my cat's paw, I feel faintly sick and I'm all worried now. I never saw her limping, and it looks like it's been there for a while, so I'm wondering if it happened while I was at uni. But my parents would have noticed something, I would have thought, since she jumps up on the beds a lot. Guuuuh, I dunno. >_<;;
