OK, here’s my take on it as a 30-year-old who’s never owned a car and has managed to get away with it for so long.

Firstly, addressing the provision of public transport in Hampshire. Undoubtedly, it could be better (particularly with regards to later-evening services and employing a flexible fare structure that would encourage people to switch if only on a casual basis) but it receives a small subsidy from county budgets and this decreases year-on-year. Given your journey is “village to village” I could argue you have a pretty good bus schedule for the potential level of usage along that route and it was a lifestyle choice to base yourself somewhere that has a reduced infrastructure meaning a dependency on a car is far more likely.

If you’ll allow me to be smug for a minute or two, my current car-free arrangement works fine for me: I have a bus service (running hourly) to and from work whilst most things I need (supermarket, other shops, train station) are all within a few minutes walk. There are some things I miss out on by not having a car but that’s the compromise I’ve made here. I haven’t really done it to be green per say. More just because it’s the way I prefer to live. If that sounds a bit too smug, I don’t mean it that way, I certainly have no problem buying a car and driving if the circumstances require it (and some days I do feel like I need to get one)!

As for the green question, I agree with your thinking the car sharing option would have been the greenest option. Unfortunately, given the way our working environment has evolved, it is becoming increasingly difficult to implement. We no longer ‘clock in’ at 9am and ‘clock out’ at 5pm. It’s highly unlikely now most people want to arrive or, more likely, leave at the same time. From my own experience, most of my meetings are between 4pm and 7pm and do not require me to be in the office so I am increasingly going home early, say 3pm, to take these calls from home.

I’m not sure I follow your point about the bus when you took it not being especially green. As the ethical man says, the bus will run whether you are on there or not. So your contribution it could be argued is negligible. If you are referring to passenger numbers, remember there will be people who would have boarded and left before you got on and others will use it later. I find the comparison with cars here on cost per passenger mile here a little misleading. Buses and trains will be pretty much the same cost regardless of whether they are full or not. If all those passengers elected to drive instead you will see a multiple of each of the average car cost. Car ownership also encourages in increase of ‘unnecessary’ journeys because of the connivence of using it (Hey look, it’s right outside outside house ready to go 24 hrs a day!). You’ll probably end up doing a lot more things because of that flexibility you don’t have with public transport. Ultimately, we’ve convinced ourselves that a car is a pre-requisite to fully participate within society and most are unwilling to compromise, green agenda or not.

I hope that doesn’t sound too smug. I will buy a car one day. Perhaps. When I need it.