don't have a problem with under 16's having free bus travel,BUT

How does what older people did in the past mean that young people of today can afford bus fares? Bus services used to be regulated as transport was nationalised, for one thing, and wages were proportionately higher than now. Paper rounds and milkmen with paid help are vanishingly rare now (in most places they have vanished altogether) so your points of reference are odd to say the least, and I don’t know how anyone can say what others ‘can afford’.

Also, even if it were true (which statistically is not the case) that young people are getting a better deal than older ones did, isn’t that progress rather than something to be squashed?

Here in Scotland the under 22's have been free on the buses for a few years.

Despite a few bad eggs who get a lot of media attention, I think that the majority of youngsters are becoming independent using their bus passes to go to after school activities etc
For example there's a lad who carries his double bass on the bus.

What I hope is happening is that this generation will become accustomed to using public transport and will have the ability to get about without depending on getting lifts and there won't be an urgency to get their own car.

Good point. Anything that encourages public transport and discourages selfish single-car use has to be a good thing.

It would be handy to have buses, let alone free transport for our children.
There are 5 buses a day, Monday to Saturday leaving our village for the nearest market town 5 miles away. The last bus of the day is at 1542, before the senior school children get back from school, returning at 1800.
No chance of them being able to go to town to shop or socialise after school.
Free buses during the holidays would be a bonus.

When my boys were teenagers one of them calculated they had walked 13 miles one day between villages in the holidays in order to meet with friends, along country roads without pavements.

Rural life is very different to town living!

With a

Posted too soon. Meant to say with a million NEETS in the country how can they all expect to fund themselves?

Buses? .... don't have them here!

But I do not subscribe to the premise in the original post. The "It was good enough for us ...." mantra is not for me!
I am all for getting people out of their cars and onto the buses.

Doodledog

Good point. Anything that encourages public transport and discourages selfish single-car use has to be a good thing.

Speak for yourself! My car are my legs! As long as the government keep putting the age back to receive a free bus pass, I will continue to keep using my car.

Am all for under 16s getting on a bus for free. But would also like the majority of councils in England to address the issue of bus passes not being given to older people until pensionable age and with the pensionable age now being 67 and probs moved to an even older age soon, this means many older people now miss out on what people my age 77, had much earlier.
I know bus passes are given at 60/65 in some parts of the UK but not in most of England which should also do this.

Correction pensionable age now is 66 but if you are 65 now it will be 67

I used to yearn to live in the countryside and still daydream about it but we were always thinking of the practicalities and our forever home this one that I am now selling is 10 miles from the city centre, on 5 bus routes, across the road to the shops, a walk to school but a very short walk to open countryside.

So many of my friends spent their time ferrying youngsters to school or to after-school activities.

DD lives 12 miles from the nearest town in the Scottish Highlands and her DC have to be driven everywhere. It's a paradise in the Summer but can feel very isolated.
Her DC have bus passes but never use them.

Fallingstar

Am all for under 16s getting on a bus for free. But would also like the majority of councils in England to address the issue of bus passes not being given to older people until pensionable age and with the pensionable age now being 67 and probs moved to an even older age soon, this means many older people now miss out on what people my age 77, had much earlier.
I know bus passes are given at 60/65 in some parts of the UK but not in most of England which should also do this.

Absolutely 💯 👍🏻

Husband should have received his free pass this year, but they have put it up to pension age. Our plan was to go down to one car but that’s not going to happen.

infoman - perhaps you should come up to date a little!!! All those part time jobs you mention do not exist now. One of my 16-year old g.children has applied for (sent in CV) to nearly a hundred firms looking for a part-time job - not even got an interview. Those contacted say they are looking for 'experience'. How are they to get that pre-16????

All of my children (now in their 50's) had part=time employment back when they were teenagers. But it is very, very difficult for youngsters to get this these days, and once over 16 have to pay full adult prices for everything.

I have always been a great supporter of free (or very cheap), bus travel. A good, reliable, cheap public bus service is the best way to encourage people out of their own little chariots. But to get these, needs to have the whole bus work brought under control of local government and supported and subsidised by national government