A wonderful illustration showing how much public space we’ve handed over to cars

fits

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120959868#Comment_120959868

They don’t deliver to one household at a time. At least in my area. They have slots for particular areas and the van will deliver several orders together.

it saves my precious free time also.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120959832#Comment_120959832

those were different plans scrapped during the recession. thankfully we have greens in government now and they have progressed the project and it's looking very likely that it may have advanced too far for it to be scrapped before the next government is formed, although i wouldn't put anything past SF never mind a bloody farmers party being in government

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120959872#Comment_120959872

Yeah there will be more of them though is my point.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120959883#Comment_120959883

Why are shopping centres and retail parks doing so well then? When these shops close up in City centres they can go for 2-3 years without occupation. 6 weeks usually in retail parks

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120958935#Comment_120958935

There will always be a reason not to.

I have a family of 4 and we get a Tesco delivery every week. We also have a milkman who drops milk every Wednesday. The only time I go to a supermarket is to grab a sandwich when I am on lunch at work or I might pop up to the off licence on a Friday (about 1km away). Yes it takes a bit of extra effort and planning.

fits

No idea. I’m just saying I don’t use them. I don’t like spending my free time at weekends doing any kind of shopping.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120959936#Comment_120959936

So you shopped for a household of four by bicycle when you were overseas? Yes or no?

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120959949#Comment_120959949

whut?

fits

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120959949#Comment_120959949

I never said I did!

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120958976#Comment_120958976

An e-bike is still a motorised vehicle.

fits

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120959982#Comment_120959982

Yeah. That uses a tiny fraction of the energy for same journey.

DownByTheGarden

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120959832#Comment_120959832

And people who want to complain about cars and want rid of them dont seem to understand that. The public transport system must be in place first. You arent going to get rid of the car and THEN put in the transport. The country would certainly grind to a halt if you do that. And you are right. all that happens is talk about improving public transport. Yet it never happens. So you get a new bus here or there. You change the timetables for a bus. All terrible and pathetic efforts in the grand scheme of things.

I sold my car 6 months ago. Worst decision ever.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120960009#Comment_120960009

I'm not on here defending cars but defending automated transport.

Give me a grass lane and I'll ride a horse to work. I don't care.

But walking and (unassisted by motor)cycling cannot replace cars sans huge expansions in other forms of automated transport (e.g. electric trams) for anything other than relatively short journeys.

People now live longer but in a diminished capacity - e.g. Parkinsons medication keeping you alive with decreased motor function instead of your just dying.

Many people in the coming decades will have parents who are too healthy to go in a home but must instead be driven to hospital appointments, physio appointments, eye and ear appointments etc.

g g murpho

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120959868#Comment_120959868

The same van will serve several homes in the vicinity at once, so yes, it very much DOES reduce vehicles on the road.

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120960171#Comment_120960171

They do not necessarily have to be driven. There are taxis, buses, trains, trams etc depending where you live. One of the hysterical points about the waterwork/infrastructure upgrade in Fairview that shut the roads was that due to diversions old people will miss so many hospital appointments. Funnily enough not a whisper from anyone that actually missed an appointment.

Your point about an aging demographic is well made though and the decisions of many local authorities that granted planning for one off housing with no amenities will indeed come back to bite us on the bum in the future.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120960260#Comment_120960260

Is the taxi shortage over? I haven't taken a taxi in a while so I don't know.

An expanded fleet of ambulances would be nice too.

Considering that a 'giveaway budget' will only fuel (potential) inflation I would just plonk extra revenue on new transport infrastructure, if it were up to me.

Emblematic

Just looking at the OP's question: Why is there a persistent mindset that the “car has right of way”?

I think the answer to this is:

1. A lot of people currently have cars and spent money on them. They don't like alternatives being made available as it undermines their decision to own a car. These people also have votes.
2. Car journeys generally are more pleasant than public transport as it exists in this country.
3. A general resistance to change.
4. Once things are car dominated as they are, public transport such as busses that share the same space as cars suffer thus creating a vicious circle.

So probably back in the 60s or 70s we made a decision that the car would be the normal mode of transport for normal decent people and now we're finding it difficult to change. It's still the dominant point of view that if you introduce more busses you will cause traffic congestion for decent people in cars.

So, as well as the usual "stick" based measures against cars, we better need investment in public transport. In cities, I'd like to see a decent metro as well as more Luas style lines. Also encourage more residential use of inner cities so that people can live and work in the same area.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120960017#Comment_120960017

This same horsecrap gets trotted out all the time. You cannot improve public transport while people in cars are dominating the space required for the alternatives. And this "removal" of people from space reallocated towards PT needs proper enforcement by a willing police force which we don't have here.

However, the biggest part of your post that I disagree with is your comment that people want rid of cars. This is complete bullsh1t trotted out to strengthen anti-PT posts because nobody has actually called for it! As I posted in this thread yeaterday, even the motorist's public enemy #1, Eamon Ryan, hasn't called for it.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120960171#Comment_120960171

Many people in the coming decades will have parents who are too healthy to go in a home but must instead be driven to hospital appointments, physio appointments, eye and ear appointments etc.

but an obvious response here will be that people who are active walkers and cyclists will stave off the effects of aging in this way for much longer.

DownByTheGarden

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120960378#Comment_120960378

Im sorry but have you read the thread. Have you even read the first post. Thius is full of people who want rid of cars. Im sick saying it at this point. People wont even want cars if you provide them with a viable alternative. What could be simpler to understand. Sick of hearing of all these great plans and how this time its different. And next year ... blah blah blah. Yet it just stays the same.

Strumms

You want less cars…………..invest in better public transport.

we simply haven’t done so, that’s why there are so many cars. Cars are expensive. People aren’t using them for the craic.

I don’t know of any large city that I’ve visited, capital or otherwise where such appallingly poor public transport exists.

Copenhagen has a similar population to Dublin… yet has had for years..:::

Metro (4 lines)

S-Train (7 lines) basically like their Dart., but fast efficient and actually very good.

and of course buses.. land and waterway.

In comparison Dublin has 2 lines of a Luas and buses and Dart… Luas is 19 years old, nothing since.

26 out of the 69 Luas stations/stops serve the north side and mostly inner city. 43 out of 69 serve the south side. Dart is slow as fûck. No use to most Dubliners as only 1 line. It’s an anomaly…

Despite living in a busyish north Dublin suburb….I’m still about 2.4 kilometres from the nearest Luas stop, about 5 kilometres from the dart yet I’d have to take two buses to get to either … and I’d be going away from the city to get both.

I can drive and be parked up in Brown Thomas car park in 20-25 minutes vs taking 35-40 minutes walking and on the buses just to get to the Luas stop, then the Luas journey itself has to be factored in…… basically 20/25 minutes driving vs 65/70 minutes and a shît load of effort on public transport..

nothing has been handed over to cars. The political leadership in the country has simply failed commuters for decades… that cannot be argued. They can find money, the will and the planning asap to help a certain war torn country and its citizens out here almost overnight but cannot efficiently or effectively manage to get public transport infrastructure in place for citizens and taxpayers..decades it’s taken and nothing.

Yes, still waiting on that metro… left with a poorly planned, poorly ran and poorly integrated public transport system. The metro also has been planned and designed for a city with a far less population then it will be forced to serve. So when it does arrive it’s going to be absolutely chaos trying to use it….

nothing has been handed over to cars…. But if you want less cars… build better public transport… but we haven’t. Not like we haven’t the money…. Look at what we are spending on and where it’s been spent 😏🥱

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120959446#Comment_120959446

Is it though? The most up to date CSO figures still indicate that more than 55% of commuters in Dublin rely on cars and 70% of Dubs own cars, just over 30% of Dublin commuters rely on public transport.

If the Irish city with the most potential to switch to public transport is failing so badly what hope is there for the rest of the nation. This isn't a Dublin centric conversation Public Transport needs to work for everyone and at the minute its not even close to working for half the countries population. Money needs to be spent on public transport to convince people to get out of cars. Trying to frustrate them out of the cars will not work and will make city centers less attractive for those that do drive.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120960385#Comment_120960385

Country is full of people horsing cocaine and eating ultra-processed food on the regular.

Gym, tennis, walking, cycling and careful diet would be much better yeah. Yoga also for range of limb movement. But there just will be lots of people needing assistance in coming decades there's no getting around it.

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120960293#Comment_120960293

Is there a taxi shortage? Every time I have ordered one it arrived. I don't do it too often though

John_Rambo

Well, from CSO.ie "Just under half of Dublin city and suburbs workers commute by car, which is the lowest across the State" and don't forget Pre-COVID 19 Dublin traffic count showed 71% of commuters using sustainable transport, car use declined to just 28% of commuters entering city centre, bus use overtook car use for first time. Data from November 2019 showed a further decline in car use into Dublin City centre in the morning rush hours, with an increase in people walking, cycling and taking public transport.

Just because we own cars doesn't mean we use them for every trip!! I frequently cycle, or walk by my car!

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120960733#Comment_120960733

Yep, nail on the head. If the service was there and was clean and safe then it'd be used a lot more.

We have no excuses. We just elect people who don't get the job done. It really is as simple as that.

They can waste money billions easy in an "emergency" OVERNIGHT on face masks and hand sanitizer or give it to the ******* banks and property developers, etc etc etc and act like big ****** statesmen.

But anything that is a long term strategic investment and they roll over and ****** die. It's not like rail transport is new. It's been done to death all over Europe.

And you know the ******** recession will come around and they'll say they have no money. When that is the EXACT time to build cheaply and invest in the economy.

It's like we kind of never left the UK and are lost and still waiting on instructions now, from some other overlord to decide what we do next.

fits

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120960733#Comment_120960733

Can you really not get a bus?

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120960804#Comment_120960804

Articles about taxi shortage in the national media begin mid 2022 and trail off around May 2023. It was discussed a lot here on boards too. Might be resolved now.

Tenzor07

Getting a bus isn't a realistic option, for me in Dublin I'd have to walk, wait for Bus number. 1, again walk wait for Bus 2 or walk an additional 15 minutes, wait for Bus number 3 then walk to office, in Bus fares so for the week it would be €39 enough to buy 20litres of Diesel for the car, and would add on another 7 hours a week commuting time...

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120960862#Comment_120960862

It's not comparable to covid though. New rail, bus lanes etc. impinge on people's property and annoy motorists and local politicians will fight tooth and nail to stop these things. Maybe you would oppose it too if it meant your driving or parking was affected.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120960447#Comment_120960447

I have indeed read the thread and don't recall anyone saying that we should get rid of cars. Actually, given that you used it as an example for your point, maybe you can show where in the OP it mentions anything about getting rid of cars...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058308472/a-wonderful-illustration-showing-how-much-public-space-we-ve-handed-over-to-cars

I'm not defending the lack of pace in the rollout of public transport infrastructure (I don't think anyone on here is!) but going back to your earlier point about building the infrastructure first and then people will get out of their cars won't work because you need to reallocate space in order to build that infrastructure.