When will the penny drop that we cannot keep building large roads?

JimmyVik

JimmyVik wrote: »

The reality is that a car is a necessity in Ireland though unless you live in a city and only travle to other cities or large towns, and have a long time to get to your destination.
I for one am glad I have a car in Ireland and very glad of the roads.
Trains and buses by no means suit everyone for every trip.

Just for one example I looked this trip up for public transport. I do this one about once a month.
I collect the aul wan and then the aunt and take them down to see the other aunt.
<snip>

I leave them there for the day and go off to meet up with some cousins in Limerick and then bring them back home in the evening.

And sometimes i just go down and collect the aunt and bring her up.
I looked it up on google maps to see how it would go with public transport and google could not compute.
I guess you could do it with a few lifts and a couple of buses if you really had no transport but that involves cars too.
Imagine people in their 80s trying to do that on public transport in Ireland.

So what you're saying is because your one very specific convoluted use case, that we should keep building more roads for cars and give them free reign wherever they want to go?

Or was there another point you were making that I missed?

magicbastarder

i suspect you've given away your home location there, unless that's not your house which is the starting point.

bk

magicbastarder wrote: »

i suspect you've given away your home location there, unless that's not your house which is the starting point.

Snipped it for privacy, just in case.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

So what you're saying is because your one very specific convoluted use case, that we should keep building more roads for cars and give them free reign wherever they want to go?

Or was there another point you were making that I missed?

The details may differ but that is very much the experience of the majority of people who need to visit or live in rural Ireland.

Economics101

Just came across this interesting discussion. Here's my tuppence worth:
1. Rail is inherently more energy efficient (assuming adequate amounts of traffic), even if only because steel wheels on steel rails offer a lot less rolling resistance. This has obvious implications for carbon emissions.
2. Irish rail won't order any more purely Diesel trains. They may go for hybrids in the short to medium term (electric-battery, or electric diesel) or alternatives such as hydrogen.
3 Electrification is far more suitable for rail than for cars - look at the 80% to 90% of European rail traffic being electric.
4. Electric trains are just about as cheap to purchase as any alternative, and generally cheaper to run in terms of (fuel)(energy) costs, maintenance costs rolling stock life.
5. I would agree with the Dart+ and the Cork suburban developments, plus some limited commuter services for Limerick, Galway and possibly Waterford.
6. Forget hugely expensive grandiose intercity high speed lines. Electrification of existing main lines and some track and signalling improvements can get you 125mph over much of Dublin Cork and 100mph on many other lines. The big problem is Dublin-Belfast, where much of the solution will be in extra suburban capacity from Dublin to Drogheda and Belfast to Portadown,
7. Land take for a double track railway is a lot less than for a motorway.
8. The energy savings for freight going in containers from ports could reduce emissions by at least 75% per tonne-km and as under slightly more optimistic scenarios by 90%
9. A big opportunity as we have a Green minister for transport. But he seems to be more interested in bicycles.

magicbastarder

Economics101 wrote: »

2. Irish rail won't order any more purely Diesel trains. They may go for hybrids in the short to medium term (electric-battery, or electric diesel) or alternatives such as hydrogen.

i thought most trains in ireland were diesel electric anyway (question borne of genuine ignorance)?

Economics101

magicbastarder wrote: »

i thought most trains in ireland were diesel electric anyway (question borne of genuine ignorance)?

Locomotives are generally Diesel-electric, i.e. a Diesel engine drives a generator, which supplies electricity to the traction motors on the axles. All the electricity comes from the diesel-driven generator, no room for renewables, unless it's bio-diesel, but that has its problems too. Better to generate electricity efficiently and cleanly and send it through the wires to the trains.
Multiple units (aka "railcars") are driven directly by diesel engines, i,e, most Irish passenger trains.

Markcheese

The reality is the more roads you build the more you encourage road use - if you can easily use the train or bus to go to college - or starting off on a regular commute , then you probably won't need need a car - maybe later on you can be a one car household -
And when you do need to do an awkward once a month trip - just use a go-car ...
But - spending money on restoring defunct rural rail lines without any major trip generators is just taking money from decent urban transport projects ..
Honestly private coaches on bus lanes are the future - but they'll need state infrastructure

Isambard

Economics101 wrote: »

Locomotives are generally Diesel-electric, i.e. a Diesel engine drives a generator, which supplies electricity to the traction motors on the axles. All the electricity comes from the diesel-driven generator, no room for renewables, unless it's bio-diesel, but that has its problems too. Better to generate electricity efficiently and cleanly and send it through the wires to the trains.
Multiple units (aka "railcars") are driven directly by diesel engines, i,e, most Irish passenger trains.

to expand, a "Electro-diesel" loco is an electric loco with external electricity supply plus an auxilliary diesel engine for moves on un-wired sections. All the rage overseas it seems.

Electrification isn't the be all and end all, as there are enviromental costs from all the infrastructure necessary and a lot of Capital expenditure, it isn't necessarily "better" in all situations..

bk

Economics101 wrote: »

Just came across this interesting discussion. Here's my tuppence worth:
1. Rail is inherently more energy efficient (assuming adequate amounts of traffic), even if only because steel wheels on steel rails offer a lot less rolling resistance. This has obvious implications for carbon emissions.

This isn't always true, in particular for lightly used rural lines.

It is definitely true for a packed DART, but for a lightly used rural line, if you aren't carrying many passengers, it can be worse then a smaller/lighter coach that better fits the demand.

In one of the Irish Rail reports on closing one of the rural lines, they actually pointed this out. The train was carrying so few passengers that it was producing twice amount of green house gases as a Diesel coach they were recommending to replace the line.

And that was without even talking about EV or hydrogen coaches.

Economics101 wrote: »

3 Electrification is far more suitable for rail than for cars - look at the 80% to 90% of European rail traffic being electric.

Of course historically overhead electric trains have been easier to electrify as battery tech wasn't good enough until recently. But in the past 10 years battery tech has greatly matured and as a result all forms of transport, including cars will be electrified.

I'm really blown away by the number of EV cars I'm seeing around my area, it seems that any of my neighbours who have bought a new car in the past year or two have bought an EV. Loads of Telsa's, ID3/4, Kon's, eNiros, Ioniq's, etc.

In the last few weeks I noticed that both my local An Post and DPD drivers have EV vans.

The NTA has just placed an order for EV single decker buses and are tendering for 800 EV Double Deckers.

The electrification of all transport is happening quickly and it certainly won't be limited to just rail

The point I'm making, I've seen some "rail advocates" try and push the idea that there will be some sort of widespread renaissance in rail, in particular rural rail and rail freight, because of need to de-carbonise.

I disagree, instead I believe we will see all transport become electrified, ICE cars will become EV *, ICE vans and trucks will become EV, buses and coaches will become EV and use rail will continue to be electrified, either with overhead cables our with battery or hydrogen trains.

* Note I'm using EV as a shorthand for both battery EV's and Hydrogen fuel cell EV's.

I honestly don't take we will see a massive shift in the faith of either rural rail or rail freight because of de-carbonisation. I suspect most people in rural Ireland will just switch to driving EV cars and trucks will become Hydrogen.

On a positive note, I do think we will continue to see the massive growth in urban rail, commuter rail and mass transit, where the demand exists and there just isn't the space for so many cars.

Economics101

BK: You said about my point regarding the inherent efficiency of rail : "This isn't always true, in particular for lightly used rural lines." You seem to have overlooked my qualifying clause: "assuming adequate amounts of traffic", which was intended to meet your objection.

You seem to assume that electrification will happen within various modes, and that shifts between modes will not be all that significant. The whole point about proper carbon pricing is precisely to induce a shift to low-emission modes, which should benefit rail, albeit to what extent is hard to say.

The UK has made a total mess of its recent GWR electrification, which has given the whole thing a bad name. One lesson is that we should be careful how we look to the UK for any lessons on how to get things right

end of the road

Markcheese wrote: »

But - spending money on restoring defunct rural rail lines without any major trip generators is just taking money from decent urban transport projects ..

they aren't as there will be money available for such projects.
however nobody has suggested such anyway so it's a mute point.

Markcheese wrote: »

Honestly private coaches on bus lanes are the future - but they'll need state infrastructure

the future of what though?
it's still more road transport so it's unlikely to be the future of anything, but will certainly continue to target the market that does exist for it.

bk

Economics101 wrote: »

BK: You said about my point regarding the inherent efficiency of rail : "This isn't always true, in particular for lightly used rural lines." You seem to have overlooked my qualifying clause: "assuming adequate amounts of traffic", which was intended to meet your objection.

Yes, but I thought it would be better to clarify this point, since I see a couple of people around here repeatedly advocate for rural rail on environmental basis, which is dishonest/misinformed as hydrogen or EV powered coaches would actually be a more environmentally beneficial in these cases.

Economics101 wrote: »

You seem to assume that electrification will happen within various modes, and that shifts between modes will not be all that significant.

Yes, that is exactly what I expect to happen. At least for rural rail and rail freight. I'd expect no more then single digit shift between modes in Ireland, but nothing significant. I'd hope to see more significant mode shifts in and around our cities.

Economics101 wrote: »

The whole point about proper carbon pricing is precisely to induce a shift to low-emission modes, which should benefit rail, albeit to what extent is hard to say.

No it is not. The whole point is to reduce our green house emissions. To de-carbonise various industries and reach Net-zero.

No where in that is there any requirement to mode shift. The requirement is to de-carbonise, not to mode shift. Some mode shift will of course occur, but it isn't intrinsic to the goal.

Rural rail makes up less then 1% of all rural trips and rail freight, makes up less then 1% of freight carried in Ireland. Focusing on de-carbonising that, while ignoring the 99% of Diesel spewing cars and trucks would be a terrible mistake.

Electrification of cars/trucks/bus/coach is happening fast and can't be ignored.

I suppose my focus is on the bigger picture then just rail. I want to see us improve all our infrastructure, to help make people's lives better while reducing our impact on the environment.

Rail of course plays a big part in that. But just a part, all public transport, including buses, coaches, trams, etc. are just as important, as is improving walking and cycling infrastructure and yes de-carbonising our road transport.

Economics101

BK: I agree that the whole point is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: modal shift is simply a means to that end, but it could be significant in some areas of transport. We can agree to disagree about these details as perhaps we don't have enough detailed information on carbon pricing strategy (watch the politicians try to dodge some awkward issues there).

Markcheese

end of the road wrote: »

they aren't as there will be money available for such projects.
however nobody has suggested such anyway so it's a mute point.




the future of what though?
it's still more road transport so it's unlikely to be the future of anything, but will certainly continue to target the market that does exist for it.

The Future of public transport - outside of city centres,
Yes it's more road transport - and that's a good thing - buses and coaches are more flexible - and not dependant on the state for every step of the way -
Just think how many people use aircoach , go-be Dublin coach company and a plethora of others ,

Thelonious Monk

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/we-will-build-bypasses-instead-of-motorways-from-now-on-to-save-dying-irish-towns-eamon-ryan-40579975.html

No more motorways say Government

Cookiemunster

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/we-will-build-bypasses-instead-of-motorways-from-now-on-to-save-dying-irish-towns-eamon-ryan-40579975.html

No more motorways say Government

That'll be after what's in planning is built. Which isn't much in reality, and after what's in planning is built there'll be no need for any more motorways.

end of the road

Markcheese wrote: »

The Future of public transport - outside of city centres,

not going to happen.
it will be 1 form of transport but the time for it to be the future of transport outside the cities has come and gone.

Markcheese wrote: »

Yes it's more road transport - and that's a good thing - buses and coaches are more flexible - and not dependant on the state for every step of the way -

who builds the infrastructure they travel on? who maintains that infrastructure to the standards required to facilitate them? who picks up the major costs of the infrastructure? the state, ergo they are dependant on the state to exist successfully, they just won't all recieve an operational/day to day subsidy.
however without the motorway network a lot of those services wouldn't exist, either to the extent they do, or at all, or if they did, they would be a lot slower i should think.

Markcheese wrote: »

Just think how many people use aircoach , go-be Dublin coach company and a plethora of others ,

big difference between some people using those services because they genuinely find them a more convenient option, and that particular method being the future of public transport outside the cities, replacing everything else, in fairness.