Max Raymond

There is a lot of political rubbish that has annoyed me of late and has quite possibly made me a very bad person to be around. My girlfriend yesterday informed that the bus prices were going up again by 10p for a single and 20p for a return. For people who don’t use the buses often, that’ll be miniscule to them. For people like me who rely on buses constantly, it’s more money out of our pockets in the long run. It all reminds me of something for wrote for one of my Year 1 pieces at university.

I think I’ll start this off with an anecdote. Picture the scene at 6pm at Woking. I’ve just had an afternoon of shorthand at university (death by squiggles), have had to walk back to the station in the rain, spent 20 minutes on a train looking out into the gloomy, depressive weather outside and have just walked to the bus station expecting a bus to take me home in about 5 minutes.

So I wait…

And wait…

And wait…

And wait…

It’s now 6:20pm and I still haven’t been able to get on a bus that should have been at Woking about 15 minutes ago. I asked a bus driver where the bus was and he said, in craptacular English, “I don’t know.”

So, I’ve spent 20 minutes in the rain (that, may I add, got worse and worse as time went on) waiting for something to take me home and that is your best excuse?

Buses are the sinners of public transport. In the last year, only half of my buses have actually managed to come on time. Forget complaining about trains – they are actually reliable! Why should I pay £4 for a return ticket for such shoddy service?

I’m not excusing the fact we’re being ripped off on trains too but I think in comparison this is a lot worse. I wouldn’t pay £4.40 for such a lousy service.