£2.50 for a *Single* High Wycombe - Beaconsfield. Value?
For the sake of comparison, the LACMTA serve the County of Los Angeles.
LA Co. covers an area of some 4,061 square miles. Any single trip on
an MTA (better know as Metro) Bus, or Train is USD1.35 that would be
well under GBP1.00). No transfer is allowed on a single ticket.
However an all day pass is USD3.00.

A monthly pass is USD52.00. However many employers subsidize transit
and van pool commuting. For example my employer buys the monthly
passes from the MTA and sells them to staff for USD28.00. With the
pass my employer gives me a discount card. All meals purchased in the
company's cafeteria are reduced in cost by 25%. In practice that means
lunch costs me 3 to 4 dollars a day instead of 4 to 5 dollars. I
calculate that, with the meal discount, my commute of 28 miles each
way, twice a day is costing me under USD8.00 a month. That would be
under GBP5.00 a month.

So, I do find any bus and rail fares in the UK expensive. That aside,
I still enjoy my visits.


A.

On 27 Jul 2005 14:37:53 -0700, "Adrian Auer-Hudson"
wrote:

I think it is, Aylesbury hasn't had such a good train service in years!

So if there was an hourly service to and from Birmingham, Banbury and
Buckingham, running sans stops, save Amersham and Harrow, between
Ayesbury and Marylebone, you would consider that good? Right?

It would certainly be interesting if Chiltern decide to run any such
services after the line through GX reopens.

There is obviously plenty of demand for Watford-Birmingham travel, as
Virgin stop (some of) their trains at Watford Junction, so it's not
totally inconceivable that a decent-sized market exists for direct
Harrow/Amersham/Aylesbury to Birmingham services too (and to Banbury,
etc).

(Although the Chiltern route is slower, I'd say it's still a valid
comparison - most people seem to place more value on the fact that
it's a through service. And of course there's the price difference.)

asdf wrote:

It would certainly be interesting if Chiltern decide to run any such
services after the line through GX reopens.


The normal service is just fine, with an easy interchange at Princes
Risborough. I have used it often.

In message .com, at
15:00:55 on Wed, 27 Jul 2005, Adrian Auer-Hudson
remarked:
For the sake of comparison, the LACMTA serve the County of Los Angeles.
LA Co. covers an area of some 4,061 square miles. Any single trip on
an MTA (better know as Metro) Bus, or Train is USD1.35 that would be
well under GBP1.00). No transfer is allowed on a single ticket.

Fares are much the same on the Atlanta Marta ($1.75 for a single fare
that could be - and I made that trip frequently - as far as 20 miles
[further than Gerrards Cross to Central London]).

But the Marta fares only pay a third of the cost of the system. The
other two thirds is paid for by an extra 1% sales tax levied on the
residents of certain well-off counties in the metro area.

As far as I'm aware, the lines being compared within the UK don't have a
public subsidy, and have to run at a profit (or even worse, have to pay
the government a levy).
--
Roland Perry