On Nov 29, 7:04 pm, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 17:44:18 on
Thu, 29 Nov 2007, Graham Harrison
remarked:

Many years ago (mid/late 70s) I worked in a travel agency in Fleet Street.
Customer came in and I needed his address which he gave me as somewhere near
Coventry. When I asked if he was just in London for the day he said "no"
and explained that he had found that the season fare from Coventry was less
than somewhere like Brighton or Worthing. He also pointed out that Coventry
took no longer than Brighton and plenty of people did that journey.

Much the same arguement (timewise, don't know about the fares) can be made
for Stafford versus plenty of South Coast "commuter" towns where nobody
would bat an eyelid.

It's only a bit over an hour from Grantham to KX (hardly any longer than
Cambridge). It's time that matters, not distance.


It's also price, which varies with distance more than with time.

And also the number of alternatives.

I might choose to allow an hour to get to Euston from some places in
zone 2, as it happens, but it would also take me two hours or less to
walk there from most of zone 2 if absolutely everything went wrong.

In message
, at
12:14:22 on Thu, 29 Nov 2007, MIG
remarked:
It's only a bit over an hour from Grantham to KX (hardly any longer than
Cambridge). It's time that matters, not distance.

It's also price, which varies with distance more than with time.

It's obviously a bit of both, but people are reluctant to commute much
more than an hour, even if it's really cheap.
--
Roland Perry

On 29 Nov, 20:32, Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at
12:14:22 on Thu, 29 Nov 2007, MIG
remarked:

It's only a bit over an hour from Grantham to KX (hardly any longer than
Cambridge). It's time that matters, not distance.

It's also price, which varies with distance more than with time.

It's obviously a bit of both, but people are reluctant to commute much
more than an hour, even if it's really cheap.

I work in London (Zone 2, west london), 3 people in the office have a
1h commute, the other 14 take over an hour. Personally it's 07:55-
09:10 for me in the morning, and 17:30-18:55 in the evening, however
if I leave 5 minute late, or the bakerloo is really bad, I miss the
connection at Harrow and get in 45 minutes later.
Thats bike/train/tube/bike.

Before moving it was a direct tube and took 1h10 door to door, plus an
average 8 minutes wait for the non-timetabled tube, so the same. Bike
all the way took 2h15 though, which is a lot less than it would take
for the 50 miles now

It's also price, which varies with distance more than with time.

And also the number of alternatives.

I might choose to allow an hour to get to Euston from some places in
zone 2, as it happens, but it would also take me two hours or less to
walk there from most of zone 2 if absolutely everything went wrong.

Oh yes. In my Cambridge commuting days, when everything worked I was
pretty smug, but when (for example) the train sat down at Letchworth I
didn't have the option of hopping on a bus with my Oyster. To say
nothing of the numerous times when the portion from Kings Lynn refused
to mate with the portion sitting at the platform in Cambridge, often
leading to the whole thing being cancelled (with me a good 50 miles
from my desk...)

In message
, at
14:36:16 on Thu, 29 Nov 2007, Rupert Candy
remarked:
In my Cambridge commuting days, when everything worked I was
pretty smug, but when (for example) the train sat down at Letchworth I
didn't have the option of hopping on a bus with my Oyster. To say
nothing of the numerous times when the portion from Kings Lynn refused
to mate with the portion sitting at the platform in Cambridge, often
leading to the whole thing being cancelled (with me a good 50 miles
from my desk...)

I gave up when one morning it took three hours to get from Royston as
far as Huntingdon (my ultimate destination Peterborough), a trip that
has a straight road between them, half an hour by car. At Huntingdon we
were all tipped out (for the umpteenth time that day). And as you say,
not much to do then except perhaps get a taxi back home and start again
tomorrow!
--
Roland Perry