Paul Weaver wrote to uk.transport.london on Fri, 27 May 2005:

However, you are only one person. I could give a counter-example, in
that it takes my husband approximately 45-50 minutes, door-to-door,
going to work by public transport. On the rare occasions he takes the
car, it takes him at least 1 1/2 hours.

Why would he take the car?

If we are going on somewhere after work - most usually, it is more
convenient for both of us for him to meet me at the station (not
necessarily near his work, often near where we are going) so that we can
drive home together afterwards, usually late at night.


I think I've missed something here - why would people not use public
transport most of the time, but occasionally use the car when they had a
good reason to do so, such as PT not running?

Once you own a car, the cost of a journey collapses dramatically
(insurance, tax etc doesnt increase per mile), and ends up below that
of P.T. For the majority of the country a car is always faster than
P.T. London is a special case, as it's such an overcrowded ********,
but even in London its faster offpeak to travel by car.

Depends on when off peak, and where you are going! In the small hours
of the morning, I'd be inclined to agree. But at 2.00 or 8.00 pm it can
be very slow going. Our car tends to live in the garage and only come
out for the occasional evening trip (and the occasions described above,
which are not frequent) and on weekend mornings.

I agree I will subject myself to the train if I have to get into work
for some unusual time like 9AM, however those are few and far between
(and last time I drove in for arround 9AM - as there were 2 trains an
hour peak time when there's normally 6) I went to heathrow, and it
ended up faster anyway.

But if you were going to Heathrow to fly on, then it works out more
expensive since you have to pay for car parking! There are times it's
worth doing that, but not often.
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 23 May 2005