Investing in public transport is the only real sensible option here. Once you have it in place, you can then introduce congestion charges.
“need to improve public transport first” completely ignores the fact that reducing cars on the road directly improves public transport. There’s a reason none of the busses in this country ever show up on time and it’s because you can’t have a reliable bus service when the roads a clogged full of single occupancy vehicles.
This is the biggest load of shite. If I could get a house in Dublin I wouldn’t have to use a car to commute at all. I’m literally being priced out of existence.
I commute from newbridge on the train. As it is I’m standing in an absolutely rammed train in both directions.
Can’t remove people’s ability to use a car when public transport is in such a piss poor state
Or maybe how about doing neither, and instead focusing on making the public transport better. If that means narrowing and reducing the number of driving lanes, so be it, but shit like congestion charges or insane parking fees will just reduce the amount of people going into the city centre altogether.
Laughs rurally
A person who has no alternative to driving is still going to drive. This does nothing for routes / times where there are no public transport alternatives.
Build more mass transit systems for our cities and increase capacity on what we currently have. At that point it makes sense to start in with this stuff. Where good reliable public transport exists, it’s being used.
They need to be investing in public transport 20 years in advance of doing anything like this. Like I’d love to use the red like the whole time it’s not 24/7, I’d love if there were enough buses, in my area there are two and they are hilariously long routes to the city, I’d love to take the train but there is none nearby, I’d have to go to Heuston and then get the train. If we don’t have options this shit is just a tax.
The bus is wonderful, ya get to listen to others people music. Nothing like Indian music screeching through cheap phone speakers to uplift your travel journey.
Give Cork light rail.
Inceased public transport routes and frequency would go a long way to help.
But…. I’m sure the Alright Jack who lives on a 145/155/46a South County Dublin bus route thinks the buses are good enough for everyone.
I do live on that bus route, but when 3 people in wheel chairs are trying to get on a vastly overcrowded bus…… well, far from perfect (not to mention buses just disappearing as they become due).
Governmental knee jerk measures are frequently not the answer to a feasibly sustainable future.
I can’t even buy a bus ticket from the incorrectly named pub that hasn’t been where the bus actually stops for ten years now online. *If* the bus comes that day.
Last time I was in Busaras I got the second last bus out just in time to hear one of the workers inform a busload of people from **Donegal** that their bus wasn’t going so they had literally no way home that night. And then tell them they needed to get out of the building because it was closed for the night.
There are literally zero public transport options where I live.
Ah yes let’s tax the fuck out of everyone that should stop the climate changing
Plans to cut car use BY THE POOR AND WORKING CLASS you mean?
people in Black Rock, etc, will still drive around their Benzes. It’s just your 2016 shitbox sedan that’s not welcome.
Cowboys
I’d gladly leave my car at home but that’s not an option. Live in East Cork and work in the city, public transport consists of 6 bus trips in the whole day so its not viable for me. I’m not the only one.
Increasing public transport only works if the right links are put in place. Where I work we start at 6am so no buses even then.
They need to invest in public transport, or alternatives to single people in private cars, but the issue is how to do that logically. You can hardly widen many of the roads in Ireland. Especially given that we’re one of the most expensive countries in the world in terms of making roads, let alone the obvious lack of space and the problems the scale of the work needed will pose. Rock and a hard place imo.
At the same time punishing people for using their private vehicles is not the way of achieving anything but annoying the fuck out of us all. Many people live in areas not well serviced enough and cannot afford to move somewhere with better connections. Those people have no choice but to drive their own cars and now they will be punished for where they live essentially.
More stick. No carrot.
Get cars and taxis out of bus lanes.
Make bus lanes where there are none.
Add more busses.
The greens are anti human
Improve public transport, but we’re 50 years away from it being on par with countries like France and Denmark that are so well serviced.
I couldn’t get a bus or train from my home place, and I have friends forced to drive 30 mins to the nearest train station. If you’re working nights, forget it, car is the only way for where they live.
In Dublin I’d love to see the area inside Nassau Street, Dawson Street, Stephen’s Green and George’s Street completely pedestrianised. This would mean that a couple of car parks would have to be written off, but tough shit.
However, being realistic; Irish people love cars and are going to use them until public transport dramatically improves – which I can’t see happening any time soon.
Getting cars out of the center of any city/town I agree with but public transportation will never work for the majority outside Dublin and maybe Cork? Towns need some parking options outside the centre so folks can park their vehicles and walk to it. Maybe multi store or underground ones? Just like apartments there are not enough of those in Ireland.
Why is it that everytime we have a choice between introducing a carrot or a stick, our government choose the stick and claim it was the only option?
We were able to pump money into making our roads what they are. Why the hell can’t we do the same for public transport.
Why is it that the only way they see to get people to use the existing system is by making the alternative shitty.
Why does making society consistently shittier seem to be the only way to act like something is being done about an issue?
Ahhh wouldn’t it be funny if we introduced these things, then just didn’t bother making public transport any good?
I’d be happy enough to drive to a park and ride, or take a local bus route to that park and ride, and then commute by train into the city centre instead of crawling on the N7 each day. Funny thing is the local bus route and the park and ride don’t exist. And the train is at complete capacity with no plans to upgrade it in the foreseeable future.
Build public transport and a means for people to access an integrated public transport network that makes sense and people will use it. Provide the infrastructure and people will use it. The government continues to push climate plan actions and congestion charges yet the public transport is diabolical. It’s embarrassing how many people from other countries have commented about this. We are as bad as the US.
Once again it’s a case of penalising the working class because they need to get to work. The wealthy people won’t feel the pinch of the added expense and quite often the disadvantaged people can just avoid rush hours
I really think our governments only play is to make private car ownership so unpleasant that we will use any level public transport.
Seriously out of touch yet again by the government to even think of this, we haven’t the infrastructure to achieve any of this, sooner the better the greens are hammered at the election polls and all these stupid suggestions are gone
nope having a car and being able to go where ever you want trumps shitty public transport everyday.
and also its just so classic for greens to introduce a tax. climate scaring is just a tax grab
On hearing the news that Dublin was slipping to 2nd place in the most expensive cities in the E.U , Eamon Ryan leapt to his feet with a plan.
32 comments
Investing in public transport is the only real sensible option here. Once you have it in place, you can then introduce congestion charges.
“need to improve public transport first” completely ignores the fact that reducing cars on the road directly improves public transport. There’s a reason none of the busses in this country ever show up on time and it’s because you can’t have a reliable bus service when the roads a clogged full of single occupancy vehicles.
This is the biggest load of shite. If I could get a house in Dublin I wouldn’t have to use a car to commute at all. I’m literally being priced out of existence.
I commute from newbridge on the train. As it is I’m standing in an absolutely rammed train in both directions.
Can’t remove people’s ability to use a car when public transport is in such a piss poor state
Or maybe how about doing neither, and instead focusing on making the public transport better. If that means narrowing and reducing the number of driving lanes, so be it, but shit like congestion charges or insane parking fees will just reduce the amount of people going into the city centre altogether.
Laughs rurally
A person who has no alternative to driving is still going to drive. This does nothing for routes / times where there are no public transport alternatives.
Build more mass transit systems for our cities and increase capacity on what we currently have. At that point it makes sense to start in with this stuff. Where good reliable public transport exists, it’s being used.
They need to be investing in public transport 20 years in advance of doing anything like this. Like I’d love to use the red like the whole time it’s not 24/7, I’d love if there were enough buses, in my area there are two and they are hilariously long routes to the city, I’d love to take the train but there is none nearby, I’d have to go to Heuston and then get the train. If we don’t have options this shit is just a tax.
The bus is wonderful, ya get to listen to others people music. Nothing like Indian music screeching through cheap phone speakers to uplift your travel journey.
Give Cork light rail.
Inceased public transport routes and frequency would go a long way to help.
But…. I’m sure the Alright Jack who lives on a 145/155/46a South County Dublin bus route thinks the buses are good enough for everyone.
I do live on that bus route, but when 3 people in wheel chairs are trying to get on a vastly overcrowded bus…… well, far from perfect (not to mention buses just disappearing as they become due).
Governmental knee jerk measures are frequently not the answer to a feasibly sustainable future.
I can’t even buy a bus ticket from the incorrectly named pub that hasn’t been where the bus actually stops for ten years now online. *If* the bus comes that day.
Last time I was in Busaras I got the second last bus out just in time to hear one of the workers inform a busload of people from **Donegal** that their bus wasn’t going so they had literally no way home that night. And then tell them they needed to get out of the building because it was closed for the night.
There are literally zero public transport options where I live.
Ah yes let’s tax the fuck out of everyone that should stop the climate changing
Plans to cut car use BY THE POOR AND WORKING CLASS you mean?
people in Black Rock, etc, will still drive around their Benzes. It’s just your 2016 shitbox sedan that’s not welcome.
Cowboys
I’d gladly leave my car at home but that’s not an option. Live in East Cork and work in the city, public transport consists of 6 bus trips in the whole day so its not viable for me. I’m not the only one.
Increasing public transport only works if the right links are put in place. Where I work we start at 6am so no buses even then.
They need to invest in public transport, or alternatives to single people in private cars, but the issue is how to do that logically. You can hardly widen many of the roads in Ireland. Especially given that we’re one of the most expensive countries in the world in terms of making roads, let alone the obvious lack of space and the problems the scale of the work needed will pose. Rock and a hard place imo.
At the same time punishing people for using their private vehicles is not the way of achieving anything but annoying the fuck out of us all. Many people live in areas not well serviced enough and cannot afford to move somewhere with better connections. Those people have no choice but to drive their own cars and now they will be punished for where they live essentially.
More stick. No carrot.
Get cars and taxis out of bus lanes.
Make bus lanes where there are none.
Add more busses.
The greens are anti human
Improve public transport, but we’re 50 years away from it being on par with countries like France and Denmark that are so well serviced.
I couldn’t get a bus or train from my home place, and I have friends forced to drive 30 mins to the nearest train station. If you’re working nights, forget it, car is the only way for where they live.
In Dublin I’d love to see the area inside Nassau Street, Dawson Street, Stephen’s Green and George’s Street completely pedestrianised. This would mean that a couple of car parks would have to be written off, but tough shit.
However, being realistic; Irish people love cars and are going to use them until public transport dramatically improves – which I can’t see happening any time soon.
Getting cars out of the center of any city/town I agree with but public transportation will never work for the majority outside Dublin and maybe Cork? Towns need some parking options outside the centre so folks can park their vehicles and walk to it. Maybe multi store or underground ones? Just like apartments there are not enough of those in Ireland.
Why is it that everytime we have a choice between introducing a carrot or a stick, our government choose the stick and claim it was the only option?
We were able to pump money into making our roads what they are. Why the hell can’t we do the same for public transport.
Why is it that the only way they see to get people to use the existing system is by making the alternative shitty.
Why does making society consistently shittier seem to be the only way to act like something is being done about an issue?
Ahhh wouldn’t it be funny if we introduced these things, then just didn’t bother making public transport any good?
I’d be happy enough to drive to a park and ride, or take a local bus route to that park and ride, and then commute by train into the city centre instead of crawling on the N7 each day. Funny thing is the local bus route and the park and ride don’t exist. And the train is at complete capacity with no plans to upgrade it in the foreseeable future.
Build public transport and a means for people to access an integrated public transport network that makes sense and people will use it. Provide the infrastructure and people will use it. The government continues to push climate plan actions and congestion charges yet the public transport is diabolical. It’s embarrassing how many people from other countries have commented about this. We are as bad as the US.
Once again it’s a case of penalising the working class because they need to get to work. The wealthy people won’t feel the pinch of the added expense and quite often the disadvantaged people can just avoid rush hours
I really think our governments only play is to make private car ownership so unpleasant that we will use any level public transport.
Seriously out of touch yet again by the government to even think of this, we haven’t the infrastructure to achieve any of this, sooner the better the greens are hammered at the election polls and all these stupid suggestions are gone
nope having a car and being able to go where ever you want trumps shitty public transport everyday.
and also its just so classic for greens to introduce a tax. climate scaring is just a tax grab
On hearing the news that Dublin was slipping to 2nd place in the most expensive cities in the E.U , Eamon Ryan leapt to his feet with a plan.