Thank the lord that Mr Clarkson isn’t in a position of decision making. A man of complete excess and don’t think he gives two hoots about the environment unfortunately. It’s his type of throwaway comment that helps to stigmatise public transport, especially in the more materialistic UK, rather than actively encourage it, which is what’s very much needed imo. I have the luxury of several modes of transport, but I would actively choose to use public transport more if it was made available, as a means of helping to reduce road use and somehow help the environment. Numbers of cars on the roads around the world have exploded as countries become wealthier and more developed. I just wonder if we’ll ever reach ‘peak car’ use, or will it just keep continuing to increase. When I had to travel to Asia it was astounding how much traffic was on the roads and how much pollution existed. People could start to afford vehicles but the infrastructure just didn’t develop fast enough, or not at all in some places, so what you had were massive jams of stationary vehicles pumping out massive amounts of fumes - horrendous! Maybe living in one of those locations might change Mr Clarkson’s mind 
Way back before 6 May 2010 I used to oversee a £60million rural transport grant - to help “make”lines break even, bring in more local transport, provide wheels to work and other sorts of community schemes. All gone now of course. A drop in the ocean but surprising what was managed with it.
After my lauding of the Dordogne/Charente bus service the other day my son and I have been unable to come up with a suitable bus for the return journey to connect reasonably with the 1236 train from Angouleme next Wednesday.
I came up with 2 suggestions. one was to go the day before, or travel the day after, and spend the night in the Angouleme hotel, and the other, in the light of his excellent taxi experience yesterday, to get a quote for her to take them all door to door. €100 is the cost which we both think very reasonable and much more convenient, and possibly affordable, than a hotel. The distance by road is around 60 kms I think, if I was delivering a dog between those doors I would ask €28, but I am not running a business so no profit margin or wages.
What Clarkson says and what he thinks are often very different…
Does he think?
Indeed. He thinks things like “What can I say that will generate the greatest amount of publicity or notoriety?”
Hi Mike
It really does depend on where you live in France. We lived in department 59 at a small town called Mouzon. Every Thursday morning there was a bus to our main town Charlesville Meziers and a return bus in the afternoon. That was our bus service!
If you travel from France to Luxembourg City the part of the journey in Luxembourg will be free because all public transport (Train, Bus and Tram) in Luxembourg is free.
“…doesn’t give two hoots about the environment”
Perhaps you should watch “Clarkson’s Farm”. You will see a different person from someone simply trying to outrage and entertain. Not an uncritical Clarkson apologist, mainly because he lamped a producer and can’t drive that well! You never see him actually at the wheel in any of the many TG or GT oversteer external shots.
He has done a lot to improve the public perception of farming in the the UK at least, particularly how hard and unrelenting the work is, the vagaries of the weather and fluctuating commodity and fertiliser prices. Sure a great deal of it is staged but talk to any farmer about what they think of him. He does appear to trade off some profit for the environment in this area, though of course Amazon, I am sure, are generously bankrolling the whole thing. Be interesting to see how it goes when they pull out after his Meghan diatribe.
It does cover first class on Intercities.
Random quote i did just now.
It’s not always so cheap though. Im paying 51€ for the reverse trip today and it can go into 3 figures.
I will be living very near Chef-Boutonne in the south of Deux-Sevres (departement 79).
If you are lucky, you can time it to take advantage of the discounted price for the railcard. I think around October they start offering the railcard with a 10 or 20 € discount.
I simply cannot get past the fact he’s a nasty , beligerent , misogynistic bag of entitled hot air with nothing between his ears.
In PACA, considerable reductions are available for both bus and train for the whole region - here is the link:
https://zou.maregionsud.fr/commander-une-carte-zou-solidaire/