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A message of horror from No. 3 Son.
Imagine the lad's aghastness, upon arrival at Watford Junction for a train to Birmingham, to be regaled over the public address system by the dulcet tones of Mr Haircut 2012, namely London Mayor Boris Johnson. Boris the Blue was warning the good folk of Watford to be aware of the implications of the Olympics on public transport. These implications reinforce previous advice to emigrate to Rockall Island or stay in bed for a month! See "Boris Writes a Letter" (read again) and "Particularly Pointless Pedestrian Proposals" (read again).
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Listen (here) to Boris at Watford - IF YOU DARE!
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What a grim start to the working day!
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Listen (here) to Boris at Watford - IF YOU DARE!
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What a grim start to the working day!
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Back to the comparative sanity of bus services in Aix-les-Bains.
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fbb could find no on-line record of how much subsidy is paid out to support the Ondéa network, but guesses it might be substantial. The Lac du Bourget "conurbation" has 54,492 inhabitants, so a comparative town in the UK would be, possibly, Hereford**; although for a whole raft of reasons direct comparisons are very difficult. But this review of bus fares is very revealing about the French way of "doing" public transport.
Calculations are based on an exchange rate of €0.784 to the pound. A "single" ticket costs £1 and is valid for one hour. Changing onto another route is permitted but not a return journey on the same "ligne". The 10 journey version is £7.05 and a "day rover" is £2.35.
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Monthly season is £21.95 ...
... and a joint monthly ticket for Ondéa and the "Stac" network in the neighbouring town of Chambéry is £26.50.
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The annual season is just ...
... £180.32. Registered disabled users can get a further discount annually at ...
£145.82. Fogeys fail to travel free in the bit of France, but the "OAP" annual rate is ...
£57.23!
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Before blog readers start drooling lasciviously at these bargain prices, it is worth remembering that there is a higher level of subsidy and, to fund it, higher taxation. Larger French towns have all sorts of innovative ways to support their public transport, notably a tax on businesses. So, in the end, everyone still pays; it just comes out of different pots! Some experts would suggest that, in total, public transport in French towns is significantly more expensive than in the UK, and significantly less efficient.
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But one stunning offer is left till last. Hotel owners may obtain these lovely little cards ...
... which are distributed FREE to tourists (but probably funded by yet another tax on hotel visitors!) fbb doesn't think there could ever come a day when Blackpool's visitors could ride the shiny new tramway for FREE.
Imagine; a proposal for a tram network in Hereford!
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And as a final delight, Ondéa has an enquiry office located at the railway station open Monday to Friday from 0830 until 1810 (with an hour's lunch break) and Saturday from 0830 until 1230.
fbb will leave his readers to amuse themselves translating the description of what can be obtained there.
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L’Espace Ondéa est le nouveau point d’information et de vente du réseau Ondéa et permet également de disposer d'informations sur les autres modes de transport disponibles en gare SNCF (TER, Cars départementaux, taxis, ...)
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Outside of the PTE areas and a few larger towns, such luxury is unknown in the UK. "Cars", by the way, are coaches.
It almost makes you want to emigrate!
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**Hereford : there are other towns in the UK which are closer to the population of C.A.L.B. but they are in more "urbanised" areas. Hereford has rural surroundings similar to C.A.L.B.
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TER is a brand for the local and regional railways in France, as opposed to the equivalent of the former "InterCity" in the UK.
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fbb could find no on-line record of how much subsidy is paid out to support the Ondéa network, but guesses it might be substantial. The Lac du Bourget "conurbation" has 54,492 inhabitants, so a comparative town in the UK would be, possibly, Hereford**; although for a whole raft of reasons direct comparisons are very difficult. But this review of bus fares is very revealing about the French way of "doing" public transport.
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Monthly season is £21.95 ...
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The annual season is just ...
.
Before blog readers start drooling lasciviously at these bargain prices, it is worth remembering that there is a higher level of subsidy and, to fund it, higher taxation. Larger French towns have all sorts of innovative ways to support their public transport, notably a tax on businesses. So, in the end, everyone still pays; it just comes out of different pots! Some experts would suggest that, in total, public transport in French towns is significantly more expensive than in the UK, and significantly less efficient.
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But one stunning offer is left till last. Hotel owners may obtain these lovely little cards ...
Blackpool, not Aix-les-Bains.
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Two other delights. Despite being a relatively small community the Lac du Bourget area is currently planning a tram network! An exhibition has been held and the politicians are keen on the idea.
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And as a final delight, Ondéa has an enquiry office located at the railway station open Monday to Friday from 0830 until 1810 (with an hour's lunch break) and Saturday from 0830 until 1230.
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L’Espace Ondéa est le nouveau point d’information et de vente du réseau Ondéa et permet également de disposer d'informations sur les autres modes de transport disponibles en gare SNCF (TER, Cars départementaux, taxis, ...)
.
Outside of the PTE areas and a few larger towns, such luxury is unknown in the UK. "Cars", by the way, are coaches.
It almost makes you want to emigrate!
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**Hereford : there are other towns in the UK which are closer to the population of C.A.L.B. but they are in more "urbanised" areas. Hereford has rural surroundings similar to C.A.L.B.
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fbb is particularly grateful to friend David (who drove his lorry from Kent to Aix, as in this blog's title) for supplying many of the pictures in this series. And to show his appreciation, fbb appends a photo of David, scanned from an ancient festering colour slide serendipitously found languishing in a heap of rotting vegetation in what fbb laughingly calls his "office".
It was (badly!) taken about 40 years ago on the beach at Seaview Isle of Wight and multiple machinations of confuser software have produced something resembling an extract from a Hammer horror movie, "The Hairy Monster and the Curse of the Sloping Sea". David will be impressed??? How to ruin a long and enjoyable friendship.
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Next Blog : Thursday 19th July
Methinks you have errant decimal point and a schizophrenic currency. One Euro equals £0.784 (my keyboard doesn't like Euro).
ReplyDeleteThe way in which most French bus operation is divided into Periode Scolaire and Vacances Scolaire (at substantially lower frequencies)shows what great importance is attached to getting children to school by public transport or, conversely, that except for getting children to school they don't really care for buses at all.
Corrected, Dad! Never did understand this new-fangled furrin' money! Much happier with tanners, bobs, florins, crowns and guineas.
ReplyDeleteThe £euro; symbol can be delivered easily on a web page by using the appropriate embedded HTML code as here. A similar procedure should be possible on most confusers by entering a similar ASCII code; but I don't know how to do it either.
On Friday last week my son (who has a disabled ENCTS pass from Poole) and myself went to Blackpool to inspect the new trams, and found that full "bus" ENCTS concessions are available on them - so at least some (actually probably a lot) of visitors can travel free on the trams.
ReplyDeleteKen Traveline Dorset.
Nearly there but it is Pound to the Euro, not vice versa.
ReplyDeleteP Dantik here! The ASCII code for the € sign is Alt+Ctrl+4. Press these one at a time but holding down each key as you press the next, then as you release all three keys, the € symbol appears. Use the 4 key on the top row, not the keypad on the right.
ReplyDeleteHope this helps.
Peter (Dantik?!) - that may work on some computers, perhaps dependent on operating system, and language of the keyboard, but this is what I get from my German, Mac keyboard:-
ReplyDelete¢
I'm inclined to suggest using the three letter currency codes, as these are fairly unambiguous, such as EUR, GBP etc.
Getting back to your observations about French bus services and timetables, I have been looking at some possibilities for excursions into the part of France (the Vosges, Colmar, Mulhouse, Selestat) near to the area of Germany where I live. The bus operations look to be very thin, especially on a Saturday, which is the most convenient day for me to make such an excursion. The first impression from the timetable is that there is little more than a 'basic needs' service. Granted, it's a rural area, but also a popular tourist/leisure destination, so one would have hoped for something a little better.
ReplyDelete€ - hooray, it works on mine! See "PETER" above.
ReplyDelete