Great stuff noiw we will get to see the greens vote to cut the bus service

derry

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2009/0116/1232059653700.html

Am I glad I voter labour every time

I never thought I would ever see a green party vote for more cars .The world must have gone mad.I would have expected the greens to walk from the kickback regime before agreeing to cutting the bus service.Must be the pensions from 5 years in government that appeals to them

Now from a simple every day point of view with fumes and haze and emmisions and health its a no brainer that busses make less polution.Millions of cars burning fuel in trafic jams just makes more pollution and more slow traffic crawl

In Europe all public transport is heavily subsidized as it keeps traffic flowing reduces polution and improves the economy.

For oil companies they must be breaking out the Champain at all the new oil to be burnt in traffic jams


Whatever chance there was I might change camp from labour to the greens is down the tube when the greeens vote to cut the bus services and increase the polution that Dublin has to suffer every day

Having lived in and wworked in many EU big cities with my work in the past I find that on average Dublin is the most poluted city other than Athens that I ever had to endure .

The kickback regime will be well rewarded for the new trafic jams .Our deterioting health for city dwellers will of course be forgotten about in order to keep feeding the defunk tiger that now we see was only a jumped up alley cat in in a mangy tiger suit anyway


Derry

Macha

FUnny...I heard Eamon Ryan on Newstalk earlier today stating that Dublin Bus's decision to cut jobs was going to be stopped by the government.

Also, did anyone hear the interview with Dublin Bus's PR person on the same station? She was asked if any of the management team would be cut and she said no. When asked why not, she just kept parroting away her lines. She didn't like it at all!

probe

Dublin Bus = transport for peasants. No integrated ticketing. They are still living in the 200 year old stage coach ticketing system era (they still use "stages" if you read their rule book!!!) - rather than multi-modal integrated travel between zones. People want to get from one location to another, not from some CIE stage 123 to stage 987. The company is living in the dark ages. Many buses have only one door to get on and off, causing delays at stops. Ugly, third world, bus interiors. Unreliable. Crappy information at bus stops. No network maps. No predictable arrival times.

A totally unrefreshing approach to public transport.

Is it any wonder people commute by car. A silent passive boycott of poor quality public transport which has been going on for decades.

While one can't condone attacks on public transport crews or their equipment which are appalling and inexcusable, deep down one has to suspect that it is part of the contempt that the general public holds for the public transport "system" - in Dublin and elsewhere in Ireland.

The entire system needs a shake up. Give the drivers white coats to wear over their clothes, to look professional in their job (like a surgeon or dentist). Encourage carnet (10x card) or subscription ticket holding, by making one off ticket purchases from the driver ridiculously expensive to speed up boarding and keep the bus running to time. Ticket validity compliance should be enforced by random inspections with big fines a la Luas, so that passengers can get on and off using all three doors (on the replacement fleet as it is phased in), rather than a cattle stampede at a gate.

The system needs to be made civilized, reliable, predictable. If Dublin Bus/ Bus Eireann can't do it, the job should be contracted out route by route, on an integrated systemwide basis. The red and white Bus Eireann livery used outside the Dublin area looks ugly, and probably gets them 30% less passenger usage compared with a "hot design"!

Grudaire

while I agree with most of what you say probe

probe wrote: »

The entire system needs a shake up. Give the drivers white coats to wear over their clothes, to look professional in their job (like a surgeon or dentist).

Also the link is to the letter's about the bus cuts, not something that says the greens are going to vote for it...

derry

Most any people in most big cities of Europe will tell most cities in Europe cant possibly operate without thier well developed and mostly very cheap sometimes free service.
In most of the EU public transport will move ~70% of the population in the larger cities and often growing .
In ROI public transport would be more like ~25%. and falling

Without a drastic change to the logic that this regime imposes on us the likey result is that we will see less public transport and more cars and more spreading Suburbia

The main reason that public transport in ROI finds it difficult to operate is that city planning and legal and social forces dictate that high density housing is a non starter and Public transport iworks best in high density cities

In ROI if you buy a apartment often you buy a pig in a poke with very feew good legal protections for things like neighbour disputes or mangement chrages etc.Most single people likie me or families given a choice wont touch a appartment in ROI for these reasons.

Having lived worked and rented apartment across the EU and finding that they worked there the resons they worked was the legal structure ensured appartments were a suitable solution

So no proper clear legal structure that ensure greedy bastard property devolpers cant screw us for high densiuty appartments then I dont expect the Irish to be following the EU appartment trend .Therefore expect the low density housing to predominate and expect a crappy public transport

Another factor is the high cost of car ownership car parking charges and other factors.For me using my 50 M()PG 1998 suziki swift and I buy an old banger every few years and insurance etc it s still cheaper for me to use my car for most things .If the bus was free then I would use the bus .Lots of cities make peak time buses extra low cost or free to encorage users to leave the car at home .


Also there is the issue that there is no way to know where the bus is without to stand at a bus stop.Surely I could have a cup of coffe at the coffe shop and watch a LED screen like dart service has to see when the bus would arrive.When I saw it was immenent I could dash to the stop and catch the Bus.failing that maybe a free mobile prhone service SMS or similar story could notify us where the bloody bus was.(I dont mean that crappy expensive SMS service that CIE has where they tell you the jackanory story shedule that isnt true anyway)Then at least often you could nip into a shop or pub whatever and buy something while waiting for the crappy bus .


Also why cant the taxi service in Dublin and bigger town not run the same taxi solution like Belfast does where they run routes

It should be then only taxies on fixxed routes should be able to be on the bus lanes as taxis empty or taxi with one passenger isnt really public transport

Then there is the issue of where to park cars if you are one of the plebs on the main bus routes.there isnt even a place to park cars. Housing estates are now big parking places if there isnt any parking to be had .Then there is the crazy high chargess for parking at places like train stations or similar which defeats the advantes of the dart or train solutions which often act as feeders to the bus route solutions .

Then there is the lost time and sheer costs to the economy from thousands of traffic jammed cars.Gazzilion of liters of fuel is burnt in traffic jams and makes Arabs or Russians and oil companies richer.jaded out commuters cant help out society in volinteer funcions like GAA or similar like .they did in the past. Then kids in housing estates can become dejected and go ferrel and create expensive destruction in cities

The policy that Public transport has to pay for itself is costing ROI dearly on most every social and economic front that we can look into

Only a change of this property devolper kick back takers and car loving regime and forcing all polititons to use taxis or normal cop cars instead for fancy Mercs and a heavily subsidised public transport can make ROI a nice place to live in instead for a commuter hell hole


Derry

Del2005

probe wrote: »

Dublin Bus = transport for peasants. No integrated ticketing. They are still living in the 200 year old stage coach ticketing system era (they still use "stages" if you read their rule book!!!) - rather than multi-modal integrated travel between zones. People want to get from one location to another, not from some CIE stage 123 to stage 987. The company is living in the dark ages. Many buses have only one door to get on and off, causing delays at stops. Ugly, third world, bus interiors. Unreliable. Crappy information at bus stops. No network maps. No predictable arrival times.

A totally unrefreshing approach to public transport.

Is it any wonder people commute by car. A silent passive boycott of poor quality public transport which has been going on for decades.

While one can't condone attacks on public transport crews or their equipment which are appalling and inexcusable, deep down one has to suspect that it is part of the contempt that the general public holds for the public transport "system" - in Dublin and elsewhere in Ireland.

The entire system needs a shake up. Give the drivers white coats to wear over their clothes, to look professional in their job (like a surgeon or dentist). Encourage carnet (10x card) or subscription ticket holding, by making one off ticket purchases from the driver ridiculously expensive to speed up boarding and keep the bus running to time. Ticket validity compliance should be enforced by random inspections with big fines a la Luas, so that passengers can get on and off using all three doors (on the replacement fleet as it is phased in), rather than a cattle stampede at a gate.

The system needs to be made civilized, reliable, predictable. If Dublin Bus/ Bus Eireann can't do it, the job should be contracted out route by route, on an integrated systemwide basis. The red and white Bus Eireann livery used outside the Dublin area looks ugly, and probably gets them 30% less passenger usage compared with a "hot design"!

If you look at some of the posts by DB staff on the Commuting and Transport fourm you'll see that DB tried to do most of this, but the Department of Transport knocked them back.

Tomk1

Public transport in rural areas a joke: A taxi driver from cork city was down getting his car fixed, had to leave it overnight. He found out the bus times etc, and said he would get a bus. We told him are you joking they won't stop. So he waited 20 minutes (the time to drive to Cork and have the kettle on) on the side of the road. Bus came Bus went, he was still standing on the side of the road.
If you lived in the countyside without a car, you might as well live on the moon.

kpbdublin

The Greens really are as useless as a nun in a lap-dancing club. Public transport is the environmentalists' wet dream. So what happens?
1. They have allowed train fares to be hiked, an incentive for car users.
2. They allow savage cuts to Dublin Bus.
Also in the last election, they had a grandiose 50 point education plan.
But now their great govt. is running amok with an axe in schools.
Gormless seems to be infatuated with Fianna Fail and the state car.

Run_to_da_hills

I can understand DB cutting back on routes due to a fall in passenger numbers due to layoff particularly and migrants returning home however there is one route that would have dramatically increased, IE the one to the labour exchange.

ebmma

Doesn't recession mean that with more people out of work and broke there will be less people who can afford a car and therefore more demand for public transport?

Am I missing something?