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You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to get far from the madding crowd.
You may, some days, feel everyone around is is a bit too madding, and, all taken together, make up a bit of a madding crowd. Getting away then becomes a big concern. Getting away or risking imprisonment for wrongfully treating a madding crowd, which, sadly, is still an offence.
First, the bus. If you take the bus, you're not likely to be any happier than you were when you got it into your head to escape the madding crowd, and were currently choosing bus as your primary method of attempting to get as far from the madding crowd as possible.
Bus people are mad. Ing.
Therefore, you aren't technicallly far from the madding crowd. Especially if one of the madding crowd happens to be tapping you, asking you for a cigarette every couple of minutes or so. Especially when you said "No, I don't have any" the first time or so. And, being smack in the middle of a madding crowd, on a bus, one that probably smells a bit funny thanks to the mad(ing) boy in the front seat whom you suspect has a bladder control problem, it's not really an issue of techincalities, because you're pretty obviously surrounded by the madding crowd, part of which is yelling at the madding boy for not being able to control his bladder.
And if they aren't mad in any kind of overt way, they're probably just weird. Sitting there, quietly, and weird.
They're probably plotting something. Like stealing your bag. Or making fun of the shirt you're wearing later.
So, overall, that's a pretty poor way to escape the madding crowd.
The train is basically the same thing, only you can't see the driver, so he or she's probably in on it, too. And it tends to travel quite a bit faster than a bus. Unless it isn't, and it's been diverted through Macclesfield or some god-forsaken wasteland because the driver thought they saw a sheep, and either wanted to divert the train to take a closer look or wanted to divert the train to stay as far away from the sheep as possible, probably because sheep are so well-known for throwing themselves recklessly at trains, then gorging themselves on the wreckage for days. And then the jackals, who had been waiting patiently, move in.
Also, on a train, people from the madding crowd are more likely to think it's okay to get up and walk around, only to discover the glaring omission from physics books that while a moving train has such and such a velocity, with so much force, and such and such an acceleration rate, it also will make walking down the aisle to get to the loo and incredibly non-linear event, and, in being non-linear, intersect with your formerly stationary event of sitting quietly in your seat, wondering who it is is emitting that odour, reading, which suddenyl becomes non-stationary, as you've been hit in the head with a mad person's elbow who is discovering the special rail-physics, sometimes while carrying food back from the dining compartment. In addition to making their madding-ness physically apparent, you're probably bound to take away a few bruises from the whole trip, which are painful reminders of the madding crowd, if you ever get there, because the train conductor's had to stop the train for the last forty minutes because he thinks a cow in an adjacent pasture is giving the train particularly threatening looks.
Planes are bad, too, because you can't see the pilot, but he gets to talk to you. He's probably watching you, too.
disclaimer:
The conclusion you may draw from all of this is to take a bicycle away from the madding crowd, or buy a boat.
I think you'll quickly find, however, that bicycles tend to have to be driven while wearing one of those ridiculous helmets that make you look like you've got an egg carton on your head.
And on a boat you're bound to, again, have to wear a stupid helment, this time a sailor's cap, and risk looking like one of the Village People.
All of which isn't going to help your demeanour any.
A good pair of blinds and a book is what I recommend. Then at least you've got something to throw at any madding crowd that happen to wander by your place.
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Yer Weekly Horoscopes. all snuggly-like.