General Chat

I seldom use a wheelchair as I have chronic bronchitis, one of the downsides of being born and brought up with a coal bing in your back garden, I find that using a wheel chair usually leaves me struggling to breathe.

Modern buses are now equipped with hydraulic ramps to allow wheelchair access, they must be a godsend when they work, pity the trains don't have them, main line stations in central London are not to difficult to negotiate, I find it is the smaller stations that are a nightmare.

I hope I don't get accused of taking thread down an alley. First I think all rail fares are ridiculously high. It is cheaper to drive somewhere by air conditioned car than to be pulled along rails with 1,000 others, crammed together and sweating. Bit slower, but you can listen to radio/cd player whilst sitting in occasional jam. And you go door to door.

But what caught my eye was these journey by train with someone who has mobility problems. I honestly thought that buses and trains were easy to access for those with disabilities. We have just had a thread from Dizzi about the horrors of her holiday in a vehicle that would not easily take her wheel chair. Now this :-0 :-0 Opened my eyes, OFITG.

I used to travel regularly from Bromley area to central London and cost of a return ticket then was less than £5 which I thought was quite reasonable. However I have only used a train twice since I developed mobility problems in 2003, first time was shortly after I started using a mobility scooter and decided to have a day out up town, due to the problems of accessing some of the platforms and getting on and off the train, to put it politely, the day was a complete and utter disaster.

Second time was a few weeks ago when I had to attend a hospital appointment outwith my health authority area, taxi fare would have been £28 so decided to take the train, 90 minutes it took from time I left home till I arrived at hospital, it would have been a 12 mile journey by car, three stations involved, lifts out of order, no escalators, it was a nightmare, next appointment in four weeks time - needless to say I will go by taxi :-(

Shame they don't give a damn about bus fares either. :-|

Around here, the park & ride is £3 a day. This entitles the car to be parked all day and up to FIVE people free bus journeys anywhere around Winchester.
A 'dayrider' ticket on public buses, for the same thing (minus parking) for ONE adult costs £3.80.

So, it's actually a lot cheaper to own a car.

Yet both Winchester City Council and Hampshire County Council are always 'banging on' about people not using their cars!!

Talk about hypocrisy. :-| :-| :-P

So what?

I first started commuting in 1986 when my fare was around £600 per year and have heard the same story every year ever since.

The Rail operating companies pay the lions share of the money they collect in fares to Network Rail who are responsible for the entire infrastructure. NR was, to all intents and purposes re-nationalised by Bliar and Brown, you will recall.

Bliar and Brown also decided that the taxpayer subsidy to rail would decrease in time, whilst cynically increasing the effective subsidy to the road infrastructure, so forcing over inflation rail rises since.

OK, so no one wants to see fare increases, but who is supposed to pay? Increase the burden on the taxpayer or what? Granted, commuters currently bear the burden, but aren't they the very ones who are the 'high earners' we hear so much about?

Incidentally OH and I recently visited relatives in London, 100 miles by East Coast train from Cambs. Fare Up was £10.45 each, Down £12.55, booked six weeks in advance, so rail travel can be cheap.

Is this supposed to be part of the governments attempts to show they are concerned about things that affect the cost of living for hard working people?

The government has announced it is to cap how much regulated rail fares can be increased, regulated rail fares include most season tickets, to help those struggling with the cost of living.

The rail companies powers to increase fares in England are to be restricted, prior to this announcement today, some regulated fares could have risen by up to 9.1% from January next year, however these fares will now be capped at 6.1%.

It appears that from January 2014 they will go up by an average of 4.1% plus 1%, that says to me that fares are still going to rise above inflation and I cannot see how this help those struggling with the cost of living as few ordinary hardworking people are getting any pay rise, and a fare increase of 6.1% is nearly double the rate of inflation - so commuters will still be worse off :-S