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EddyBerckx wrote:

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

Cycling largely displaced walking for me.  Even walking is quicker and more reliable than the bus (I don't know why any able-bodied person bothers with those useless things).  (I can understand using above-ground trains...and the Tube is OK if you are both wealthy and have a high-tolerance for being packed into subterranean caskets in conditions that would be illegal for cattle...but buses have always been rubbish).

Tube is for the weathly?

I might be employing a slightly hyperbolic use of 'wealthy', but are you saying it's not absurdly expensive or denying that low-income people tend to use buses instead?

It has gotten progressively more costly for decades now. It feels to me like every time I have used it, after a break from doing so, going back several decades, I've been shocked to find how much more expensive it is than I remembered. As far as I'm concerned at this point it's just throwing money away - better to walk or cycle and save the £6 or £7 a return to central London costs to spend on something more worthwhile.

Mile-for-mile it costs several times as much as Concorde. If there are two of you it's cheaper to share a minicab than to go a couple of stops on the tube. It's more expensive than any other European metro system, or NYC's for that matter (_far_ more so than the Paris Metro, say), because it isn't subsidised, users have to pay their way (unlike car drivers).

You really think someone on a low income would take the tube if they had a choice?

These are a few years out-of-date, but I don't think it's gotten any better since

https://metro.co.uk/2015/11/12/is-the-london-underground-the-most-expens...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-39806865

Cycling is more reliable than public transport. When I go to the bike shed I am confident my bike will be there, and that it will then take me about an hour to get home. Now in theory the train takes less than half that time, but its unreliable to the point of being a lottery. I could wait half an hour before giving up and getting the bus, which is a pretty wretched experience in itself.

I could easily have bought and run a cheapo car for the money I've spent on cycling but that's not the point. Cycling to work saves me time, saves me getting too frustrated (I'm not patient enough to sit in stationary traffic for hours!), saves my mental and physical health and also saves the planet. Cycling is also my hobby so it's not just about commuting. But, with bikes, you can pretty much spend as much or as little as you want.

Cycling largely displaced walking for me.  Even walking is quicker and more reliable than the bus (I don't know why any able-bodied person bothers with those useless things).  (I can understand using above-ground trains...and the Tube is OK if you are both wealthy and have a high-tolerance for being packed into subterranean caskets in conditions that would be illegal for cattle...but buses have always been rubbish).

I found that the money I don't spend on public transport gets spent on more food on the days that I ride to work (have only driven to work one day in the last three or four years).