We don’t have the best public transport system, especially outside the big cities.
Cars are class
Aye, cuz the cycling infrastructure is shite.
Love my cars.
Cars are class, but tbh this is all down to shit public transport and housing being completely unaffordable where public transport is in any way good. We need to invest so much in rail to have any hope of shifting car dependence.
Dublin needs a complete underground network so we dont have to sacrifice any more precious road space
When we were rural and poor there was decent but extremely slow bus links, I remember many journeys taking nearly a whole day which now only take two hours via motorway. My dad said even hopping on the train to get to Dublin would take a whole day because of the all the rural stops which now would take a few hours on the intercity.
WFH and other decentralising policies is the best countermeasure for our already baked in car infrastructure.
Edit to add urgent policies are needed now to future plan for elderly who don’t have families as carers as was the social practice. Smaller families since the 80s means we’re seeing a shift in care needs, espeically with so many car dependent elderlies losing their ability to drive. They will become a huge drain on public services unless more semi independent living developments mitigate existing car dependency.
Our country hasn’t urbanised to the extent most developed countries have. While public transport isn’t good enough, there is a very large chunk of the population who live far away from any towns and thus really are out of scope for public transport full-stop.
For example, people sometimes compare us to the large Nordic nations, and say they have good public transport despite being sparsely populated except…
Urbanisation rate in Ireland: 64%
Urbanisation rate in Sweden: 88%
Urbanisation rate in Finland: 86%
Urbanisation rate in Norway: 83%
People complain about restrictions on planning in rural areas but honestly, this needs to be improved.
[deleted]
Girls dont think a lads fit for having a leap card
Infrastructure has a lot to do with this. We are going the right way and its a slow process being Ireland usually too little too late.
But this year we have added a number of 24 hour bus services. These service only dublin but that does have the highest volume of traffic.
The luas has been improved, but its not good enough it should get to D15 and out to lucan.
There should be tax incentives for business who allow working from home.
No rail or luas to the Airport.
Nothing that I am aware of for any county other than Dublin, but the above wfh option could take some of these cars off the roads.
I hate the traffic jams here in Dublin.
Not surprising ! Ireland is decades behind in infra not just Europe but even some of the developing countries !
Maaybe because there is no buses outside of dublin?
I dont doubt it, lets take Dublin for example, its the capital city, so it should be a fairly easy city to get around, driving there is bad, walking is ok, bus service is bad, luas does not serve enough area, same with the dart, getting to the airport is not easy without a car. I was in London recently, and you can get anywhere within the limits via public transport, there is a train or metro to pretty much anywhere you want to go, its brilliant. I am not sure how good the bus service is there but I presume its decent.
At the end of the day, if we keep building massive urban sprawl and one off rural housing this will only get worse.
You can’t have public transport to every suburb 30 or 40 kilometres from a city centre.
It is the low density housing which makes it near impossible to have proper infrastructure.
Irish planning laws and ideas, especially in Urban areas, are stuck in the 1950s.
I lived in England for 5 years without driving. It just wasn’t an option at home. I’m coming home Saturday for a week and I’ve hired a car as my parent live rurally and all the things I like to do at home are similarly rural. Never needed the car when I came on holiday to England as the bus coverage in England is pretty good. Is not 100% but it’s not far off
I’m not surprised just off the top of my head
* Bus Connect – Objections
* Increased Luas capacity – Objections
* Increased cycle lanes – Objections
* Increased pedestrianised streets – Objections
The latest 6km line of luas in town took 5 years to complete. The cycle lanes on the quays took 7 years. The first Metro north planning began in 2005 which was 17 years ago and are is estimated to be complete 2027.
The astonishing thing is that none of what i listed is even significant… like it’s all very standard infrastructure. And it’s only when you go to another city you realize how fucking tragic Irelands attitude is toward public transportation.
And it all comes down to planning. It takes me 15 minutes walking to get to anything of significance in Dublin. I have to do that since I can’t drive, but if you are able to, of course you’d use the car. We need medium-rise, mixed-use development if we are ever going to overcome car dependency in this country.
Scooters and motorbikes are the shit for cities. Don’t know why there aren’t more especially now with the electric options.
Problem is Irish road users are morons and don’t see these vehicles, as with push bikes.
I live in the country and driving is part of job so car is a must.
Wettest country (precipitate in the form of rain) has a big part to play in this.
We have no fucking choice.
..at least we’re second best at something!
Yes but:
1) Public transport is bad
2) Villages in the middle of nowhere
Shoite public transport, can’t be bothered making a metro as they’d rather throw money at anything else. No apartments in the city as it will ruin the beautiful sky line. People pushed miles from where they work to afford anywhere to live. But yeah throwing cycle lanes everywhere will fix it
Interesting link about the origins of Dublin car Dependency. Boom home building made faraway places becoming commuter belts for Dublin, like Carrickmacross, Virginia, Portlaoise etc.
Good transport policy is good housing policy, good spatial planning policy, good climate policy etc
We had the best rail infrastructure until FF sold it all after big oil lobbied the government in the 60’s.
That’s why they will never expand the rail network.
Too much tax being generated.
Interesting points in the article that Irish people are less concerned about climate change than other EU members but very concerned about the cost of energy. So in effect, we don’t care because it hasn’t really effected us so far
I saw someone here mention about building public transport routes saying “but it’ll cost 200-300 million”. We seem to have an endless supply of money to build big fucking roads, like that new road between Castlebar and Westport that cost over 200 million and saves 10 minutes of a journey.
Ireland’s love of roads and cars is on par with yanks at this point. While Europe is moving far ahead of us with proper public transportation we are importing pickup trucks and SUVs as status symbols. It’s pathetic.
But we have beautiful beautiful Audis and BMWs diesels to drive around so fuck quality of life cos my lower middle class neighbours have a Ford.
Bunch of Irish small minded clowns.
The Irish planning and transportation system need to grow some fucking bones and push through key infrastructure and transportation projects regardless of objections – objections are one of the key factors currently choking any hope of progress in this island
I mean for goodness sake there isn’t a link between the Luas and Dublin Airport – bloody Baghdad has better connections from its terminals to the city proper
Gonna go out on a limb and say it’s something to do with our public transport system
I would be fucked job wise without my car. I’d need to cycle 30 minutes and then a 2 hour bus to work. But it’s 25 minutes by car.
There has been a lot of suburbanization and sprawl in Irish cities over the last half century. There was a blind bet on the American urbanism model. Densification is the only solution. They should build residential/mixed-use buildings in the parking lots of shopping malls. Outdoor parking is a huge waste of space that could be used in housing.
This just goes to show that zoning in Irish cities is horrible and that urban authorities should change this to allow for more densification, particularly along public transport corridors, railway stations, near shopping malls, on old docks and obviously in downtowns.
Not surprising, place is seething with scrotes and transport feels unsafe in many locations
Shit transport network.. overpriced fairs… Unsafe unpoliced.. etc etc
So many people in this country are so addicted to their own cars, who seem to genuinely think the only thing that should exist between buildings are either spaces for car transportation or car storage. Allocating space for literally anything else is tantamount to an attack on their addiction and by extension, themselves. It’s like how an alcoholic might react if you suggest they cut down on their drinking just a little bit.
Last year I had no car. I live in rural Ireland. Let me tell you lads. It was fucking grim.
Everybody should buy a bike! I cycle along the seafront at Clontarf and pass all the cars with one person in them,absolute madness. There should be carpooling here and everyone should get a Bicycle,simple,clean and very healthy transport. In my day all the children cycled,today you would be lucky to see many at all and practically no schoolgirls cycle! Mummy clogs up my road with her massive SUV as she drops Aoife off,it’s laughable. Even if it meant giving out free Bicycles then so be it but get Dublin Cycling! If you live more than 10 km from City centre then you get a pass but any less than that it should be mandatory to make everyone cycle to work.
40 comments
Mini Americans – seconds fattest too
We don’t have the best public transport system, especially outside the big cities.
Cars are class
Aye, cuz the cycling infrastructure is shite.
Love my cars.
Cars are class, but tbh this is all down to shit public transport and housing being completely unaffordable where public transport is in any way good. We need to invest so much in rail to have any hope of shifting car dependence.
Dublin needs a complete underground network so we dont have to sacrifice any more precious road space
When we were rural and poor there was decent but extremely slow bus links, I remember many journeys taking nearly a whole day which now only take two hours via motorway. My dad said even hopping on the train to get to Dublin would take a whole day because of the all the rural stops which now would take a few hours on the intercity.
WFH and other decentralising policies is the best countermeasure for our already baked in car infrastructure.
Edit to add urgent policies are needed now to future plan for elderly who don’t have families as carers as was the social practice. Smaller families since the 80s means we’re seeing a shift in care needs, espeically with so many car dependent elderlies losing their ability to drive. They will become a huge drain on public services unless more semi independent living developments mitigate existing car dependency.
Our country hasn’t urbanised to the extent most developed countries have. While public transport isn’t good enough, there is a very large chunk of the population who live far away from any towns and thus really are out of scope for public transport full-stop.
For example, people sometimes compare us to the large Nordic nations, and say they have good public transport despite being sparsely populated except…
Urbanisation rate in Ireland: 64%
Urbanisation rate in Sweden: 88%
Urbanisation rate in Finland: 86%
Urbanisation rate in Norway: 83%
People complain about restrictions on planning in rural areas but honestly, this needs to be improved.
[deleted]
Girls dont think a lads fit for having a leap card
Infrastructure has a lot to do with this. We are going the right way and its a slow process being Ireland usually too little too late.
But this year we have added a number of 24 hour bus services. These service only dublin but that does have the highest volume of traffic.
The luas has been improved, but its not good enough it should get to D15 and out to lucan.
There should be tax incentives for business who allow working from home.
No rail or luas to the Airport.
Nothing that I am aware of for any county other than Dublin, but the above wfh option could take some of these cars off the roads.
I hate the traffic jams here in Dublin.
Not surprising ! Ireland is decades behind in infra not just Europe but even some of the developing countries !
Maaybe because there is no buses outside of dublin?
I dont doubt it, lets take Dublin for example, its the capital city, so it should be a fairly easy city to get around, driving there is bad, walking is ok, bus service is bad, luas does not serve enough area, same with the dart, getting to the airport is not easy without a car. I was in London recently, and you can get anywhere within the limits via public transport, there is a train or metro to pretty much anywhere you want to go, its brilliant. I am not sure how good the bus service is there but I presume its decent.
At the end of the day, if we keep building massive urban sprawl and one off rural housing this will only get worse.
You can’t have public transport to every suburb 30 or 40 kilometres from a city centre.
It is the low density housing which makes it near impossible to have proper infrastructure.
Irish planning laws and ideas, especially in Urban areas, are stuck in the 1950s.
I lived in England for 5 years without driving. It just wasn’t an option at home. I’m coming home Saturday for a week and I’ve hired a car as my parent live rurally and all the things I like to do at home are similarly rural. Never needed the car when I came on holiday to England as the bus coverage in England is pretty good. Is not 100% but it’s not far off
I’m not surprised just off the top of my head
* Bus Connect – Objections
* Increased Luas capacity – Objections
* Increased cycle lanes – Objections
* Increased pedestrianised streets – Objections
The latest 6km line of luas in town took 5 years to complete. The cycle lanes on the quays took 7 years. The first Metro north planning began in 2005 which was 17 years ago and are is estimated to be complete 2027.
The astonishing thing is that none of what i listed is even significant… like it’s all very standard infrastructure. And it’s only when you go to another city you realize how fucking tragic Irelands attitude is toward public transportation.
And it all comes down to planning. It takes me 15 minutes walking to get to anything of significance in Dublin. I have to do that since I can’t drive, but if you are able to, of course you’d use the car. We need medium-rise, mixed-use development if we are ever going to overcome car dependency in this country.
Scooters and motorbikes are the shit for cities. Don’t know why there aren’t more especially now with the electric options.
Problem is Irish road users are morons and don’t see these vehicles, as with push bikes.
I live in the country and driving is part of job so car is a must.
Wettest country (precipitate in the form of rain) has a big part to play in this.
We have no fucking choice.
..at least we’re second best at something!
Yes but:
1) Public transport is bad
2) Villages in the middle of nowhere
Shoite public transport, can’t be bothered making a metro as they’d rather throw money at anything else. No apartments in the city as it will ruin the beautiful sky line. People pushed miles from where they work to afford anywhere to live. But yeah throwing cycle lanes everywhere will fix it
Interesting link about the origins of Dublin car Dependency. Boom home building made faraway places becoming commuter belts for Dublin, like Carrickmacross, Virginia, Portlaoise etc.
Good transport policy is good housing policy, good spatial planning policy, good climate policy etc
https://cassandravoices.com/science-environment/environment/sprawl-the-origins-of-dublins-car-dependency/
We had the best rail infrastructure until FF sold it all after big oil lobbied the government in the 60’s.
That’s why they will never expand the rail network.
Too much tax being generated.
Interesting points in the article that Irish people are less concerned about climate change than other EU members but very concerned about the cost of energy. So in effect, we don’t care because it hasn’t really effected us so far
I saw someone here mention about building public transport routes saying “but it’ll cost 200-300 million”. We seem to have an endless supply of money to build big fucking roads, like that new road between Castlebar and Westport that cost over 200 million and saves 10 minutes of a journey.
Ireland’s love of roads and cars is on par with yanks at this point. While Europe is moving far ahead of us with proper public transportation we are importing pickup trucks and SUVs as status symbols. It’s pathetic.
But we have beautiful beautiful Audis and BMWs diesels to drive around so fuck quality of life cos my lower middle class neighbours have a Ford.
Bunch of Irish small minded clowns.
The Irish planning and transportation system need to grow some fucking bones and push through key infrastructure and transportation projects regardless of objections – objections are one of the key factors currently choking any hope of progress in this island
I mean for goodness sake there isn’t a link between the Luas and Dublin Airport – bloody Baghdad has better connections from its terminals to the city proper
Gonna go out on a limb and say it’s something to do with our public transport system
I would be fucked job wise without my car. I’d need to cycle 30 minutes and then a 2 hour bus to work. But it’s 25 minutes by car.
There has been a lot of suburbanization and sprawl in Irish cities over the last half century. There was a blind bet on the American urbanism model. Densification is the only solution. They should build residential/mixed-use buildings in the parking lots of shopping malls. Outdoor parking is a huge waste of space that could be used in housing.
This just goes to show that zoning in Irish cities is horrible and that urban authorities should change this to allow for more densification, particularly along public transport corridors, railway stations, near shopping malls, on old docks and obviously in downtowns.
Not surprising, place is seething with scrotes and transport feels unsafe in many locations
Shit transport network.. overpriced fairs… Unsafe unpoliced.. etc etc
So many people in this country are so addicted to their own cars, who seem to genuinely think the only thing that should exist between buildings are either spaces for car transportation or car storage. Allocating space for literally anything else is tantamount to an attack on their addiction and by extension, themselves. It’s like how an alcoholic might react if you suggest they cut down on their drinking just a little bit.
Last year I had no car. I live in rural Ireland. Let me tell you lads. It was fucking grim.
Everybody should buy a bike! I cycle along the seafront at Clontarf and pass all the cars with one person in them,absolute madness. There should be carpooling here and everyone should get a Bicycle,simple,clean and very healthy transport. In my day all the children cycled,today you would be lucky to see many at all and practically no schoolgirls cycle! Mummy clogs up my road with her massive SUV as she drops Aoife off,it’s laughable. Even if it meant giving out free Bicycles then so be it but get Dublin Cycling! If you live more than 10 km from City centre then you get a pass but any less than that it should be mandatory to make everyone cycle to work.