...public transport

I've been using a lot of it recently. In the affectionate way that cars sometimes do, mine decided to stop working a few weeks back and I've not got around to fixing it yet. As such, my regular 20 minute commute to work has been increased two-fold and now requires a significant amount of walking and twenty-five minutes or so on the city's Metro rail system.

Now by all usual standards, the Metro is wonderful. Even the coldest and windiest platforms still offer a modicum of shelter, which has been useful in the recent weather (ironic how people complain that it never snows "like it used to" in England any more, yet when it does we all moan about the stuff...), and very unusually for public transport, it virtually always runs like clockwork. Posters around the stations proudly proclaim something like 99.5% of arrivals are on time. The Metro is useable, faily convenient and not unreasonably priced.

It's still not very good though.

Of course, I don't intend to single the Metro out. Hundreds of thousands of people travel on it every year and they wouldn't do that if it was useless. But compared to having your own transport, it falls short, and illustrates nicely why there will always be a market for personal cars no matter how much the powers that be try to eradicate their use.

Firstly, personal space. This concept is lost on public transport. Whether you sit or stand, there is someone you don't know quite nearby. This person might have dubious personal hygeine. They might be loud and obnoxious, or quiet and snooty. They might stare at you for the whole journey or they might refuse to acknowledge when you deliberately move to offer them some space. Whichever of the above (and many more) might be used to describe the person nearby, you are still describing something surplus to what you actually want, which is nobody nearby. A car offers this. If someone is nearby in your car, it's because you let them sit there. They have to abide by your rules and if they create a smell, you can tell them so without too much risk of receiving a kick to the stomach.

Public transport is also significantly less "point to point". Neither the Metro, nor any bus, takes me directly from my doorstep to work. This is downright inconvenient, truth be told, and necessitates a significant amount of walking to connect me on either side of the ride. I enjoy walking, but I prefer to do so for pleasure rather than business purposes. If work paid me from the minute I left my door, then I'd happily walk the whole distance, but I'd prefer to do as little as possible for it otherwise it takes away valuable "sitting down" time, which I also enjoy.

Then there's the cost. Just under £3 a day isn't bad, and I'm sure if I bought a weekly, monthly or yearly pass it would be proportionately even less, but unless I sold my car I'd see no benefit in that anyway as then I'd just be paying for two methods of transport rather than one. As I already have one at my disposal, it makes more fiscal sense using it. I've not worked it out but I'm fairly sure my 7 mile round trip costs considerably less in petrol than £3, and even if my commute took in two laps of Silverstone, which it doesn't, I'm still sure that I'd use less than £3 of petrol. So to me, £3 extra to get to work slower sounds a bit rich.

Personal transport lets you have your cake, and eat it. On public transport, someone would steal your cake, and stick the fork in your eye.