Transport adventures in Poland

Owning a car is one of the conveniences I allow myself. Besides, only in a large city would it be possible to live without one. This is progress, there are several electric cars in my area, but they do not yet meet my requirements in terms of range and charging time. At least I don't drive diesels anymore.

I'd love to get rid of ours and just hire one now and again if needed. Especially since it's mostly gathering dust.

I hate driving, especially in built up areas and the other person who drives it is much the same. We're stuck with it for another two years though.

We're about 15/20 minutes walk dfrom the end of the metro and it's a shame the metro doesn't go two stops further.

I do too but the public transport over here is absolutely shocking. Don't even bother trying to catch a train on weekends, it will be cancelled/diverted. It took me 9 hours to get home a while ago as the train at the start of my trip was cancelled. That was actually on a week day. The knock-on effect had me diverted to various parts of the country. Buses are no better. I rarely use them but tried to get to my work conference on one last week. Stood for an hour at the bus stop and it didn't turn up. Had to get a taxi in the end as there was no parking at the venue or anywhere near.

For a government pushing net zero they seriously need to think about the public transport situation. No-one is going to give up driving over here with such a poor public transport system.

From my experiences in Poland, public transport is way better than over here and I've used trains, buses and trams. Frequent and on time. Never had a problem. As Alien pointed out, in a large city it may well be possible to do without a car, especially for those who are single or who don't have children, but in rural areas, not so easy. For families, life is just that much easier with a car.


You're braver than me. I wouldn't even consider driving in Poland....but good that driving appears to have improved.

If Europe went to completely net zero it would have almost no effect at the global level....

When western European governments talk about that it's pure clout chasing.... they're not inconvenienced by their addlebrained idiotic policies and they don't care if it takes you 20 hours to get home as long as they can preen about how much they caaaaare.

+1

It gets on my títs that they use so much marine fuel importing hydrocarbons from the global south rather than maxing out out own North Sea reserves while we can and providing jobs for workers and tax revenue.


It's sort of a post code lottery. Where I am there it's pretty good for local and express trains and our Labour regional mayor (coronation street's Tracy Brabin) has forced fare caps (was £2 max with a £7 max a day total but now going up) and insisting service level agreements are kept by the privatised bus companies and will take them back into council ownership soon.

True, yesterday I watched a report about old cars from the European Union exported to Africa. Very often, the first thing done in Africa is to remove advanced exhaust gas purification systems. These cars are meant to be driven for the next 20 years, earning their keep. The climate effect, globally speaking, is negative.

I know, the whole thing is ridiculous.


I think Starmer and Miliband have blocked granting new licences for drilling in the North Sea. They haven't revoked old ones but Miliband is pushing the green agenda big style and there was also a problem with the supreme court blocking drilling in the North Sea.

theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/19/uk-ministers-to-restart-approval-process-for-two-north-sea-oilfields

What infuriates me just as much is the lack of gas storage capacity here. It leaves the UK vulnerable and dependent on imports. I'll leave it here though as I'm getting way off-topic.

They're afraid of losing some of the more middle class constituencies to the Greenies.

What a lot of the public don't get is that North Sea crude is such high quality that it mostly doesn't end up as petrol or marine/road bitumen anyway; mostly kerosene and as ethylene/polyethylene which we'll still be using in a century.

We also import coked coal from South America and India and anthracite from Poland. Milliband should be ashamed of himself, in a constituency (Donny North) which has high unemployment and is literally sat on some of the world's best coal deposits.

Yet 'Just Stop Oil' glue themselves to the road surface (made of oil) with superglue (also made of oil) and film it on their phones (made of oil too).


I'm the same. The tank farms along the banks of the Thames Estuary (and to a lesser extent Stanlow) are incredibly vulnerable. The Tories should never have privatised BP and ICI.


You wouldn't believe the state of some of them.

The Toyota Hi Lux, the most desirable car there, runs forever. Have you watched Top Gear?

Fully pressed brakes saved my life again. In the middle of the night, a large deer walked out onto the road, turned its head towards me, and stopped in the middle of the road. Never in my life have I braked so quickly from 100 km/h to zero. I stopped 5 meters in front of this beast, it just looked at me again and slowly moved out of the way with stoic calm. Of course, 200 m further the same thing with another, but smaller deer.🦌

Better luck next time. Hey @jon was I right about competition in the Polish rail sectir drastically reducing fares and increasing service or was I right?
I am referring to Regiojets incredible 4 class service Warsaw to Krakow that for the first time is showing how much of a rort the PKP Pendolino was.

Don't turn the steering wheel, because then you'll hit a tree. Just keep the steering wheel straight and floor the brakes.

On Friday, for the first time, we were checked at the border when entering Poland.The border guard lady was very nice and when I answered her in Polish she was happy to meet fellow countrymen. 👩‍✈️

When I was in Poland in August I did
Seems to have a bit of a nightmare cancelling over 1000 connections often very shortly before the planned journey.

So it is better to travel around Poland by car.

I've come to love gasoline at 2 euros a liter. Traffic jams have disappeared from the highways in "my" part of Germany. What a relief. 🚘🚲🛴

In the meantime, petrol is even cheaper in Switzerland than in Germany.....and on top of that, I have a week of vacation during which I am unavailable. 😊

The last ticket I bought was on a normal PKP train in first class and was cheap.

@Amiga, I noticed something when I bought the ticket. It didn't use to be possible to buy a ticket from Berlin to Warsaw via PKP or from Warsaw to Berlin via Deutschebahn; you had to buy it from the train company in the country you started the journey from. Now, that's changed. I checked the Warsaw-Berlin ticket on both and the same ticket on the same train was about 30% cheaper from DB.

That's great news! I hope the same will apply to other international destinations (Prague, Budapest etc). PKP do run good sleeper services.

3 motorcyclists killed in accidents within a 15km radius of my home in 4 days. Massacre. 🙉

Those pesky deers again?

Nobody likes banning things however so many people die on motorbikes and most of them young. Perhaps it's time.

If not a ban, then road tax that covers the likelihood of a motorist needing intensive care and rehab after accidents they survive.

I just had a look at road death stats. The ones Google brought up were for America however they will do. Motorcyclists account for 15% of road deaths with riders 28 times more likely to die per mile traveled than car occupants and 90% of them are male.

Same is usually true with Ceske Drahy.

Czech private rail carrier RegioJet has said it will stop running domestic services in Poland from May 3, citing unfair market actions by state-owned operator PKP.

Those State Monopoly Fat Cat Commie Dogs!!!! Feasting swill from the trough Swine !!!!

Pendolino and Intercity prices on the routes previously served by RegioJet will now rise 70-120 percent.

These are the laws of the market and competition in this market.