Traffic Congestion.

That 30% is amazing.

We live 1km from the local school.

At least half the estate drive their kids to the school.

There's a ginormous footpath and cycle lane with zebra crossings at every junction.

My mother also lives 1km from the national school. Nice wide path to it. In the countyside. Nobody walks/cycles to that school. Nobody!!

Yep.

Impossible price a job before it's designed.

But AFAIK Jacobs are designing it these days so there should be some some of estimate

But to put the luas underground would cost a multiple of the 10 billion

Takes Leap surely??

vast majority of people that had access to a car but used buses / trains or Luas for say convenience to get to work faster, the environment or whatever.... will have been back into a car as a result of covid...

last three months I’ve noticed a serious upsurge in traffic congestion around here and also on the regular trips I make weekly.

what you incentivise should be based on a strategic policy .. and you can have more than one strategic policy at a time. Incentivising EVs should help the transition from burning fossil fuels as part of personal transportation which is a strategy that is needed. While separately the incentivising of public transport will encourage more people out of single vehicle commuting. Both can operate together - so no need to pitch one against the other.

The tax saver / bike to work schemes are examples of incentivising of non car related commuting - you can argue the merits or failures of each incentive. But they are there in order to encourage more people to leave the car at home.

Realistically a massive proportion of people who are on the M50 each morning do not have an alternative - otherwise they wouldn't be there. I know this from experience. If like me who spent the guts of 15 years working in Ballymount ... buses were not an option. I was coming from the M1 .. if I were to do it by bus / train .. I'd have to drive to bus station .. 45 mins on bus .. change in City Centre and another 45-60 mins out to Ballymount. There was no alternative but to go via the city centre. As bad as the M50 was - 1h20-1h45 hours average commute was a superior option to similar if not more jumping between buses / trains and the expense of it. Fuel / tolls were cheaper than commuting.

This is why I am looking at this problem from a different angle .... get people out of the city .. fundamentally change how we work ... COVID proved that a huge portion of the working population could do so without having to arrive at the same locations at the same time as everyone else every day. Even if 30% of commuters didn't have to at a desk in the greater Dublin area for 9am each day suddenly the massive need to invest in more roads, bus lanes, parking etc would be reduced

Taxing / charging people who have no alternative isn't a sustainable solution to a problem ... as with most things in life it is about supply and demand. Reduce the demand for rush hour traffic and the supply will look after it self

I agree with this totally. But the government are junkies on the revenue it brings in... this is what makes it such a farce, I've been saying it for years. New petrol and diesel sales, should have way higher vrt or motor tax I'd actually be in favour of banning new diesel sales by 2025...

That is a sentiment that is worthy of a caller to Joe Duffy really.

Ireland is a small island .. Dublin is the capital city and the ‘managers’ of Dublin City have refused over generations to actually allow enough homes to be built in the greater Dublin area … so in order to have the workforce to keep Dublin going people have been forced to commute further …. You know to staff the hospitals, Garda stations, supermarkets and those shiny office buildings …. So if you want Dublin to be self contained … be prepared to leave the office at 5pm and put on a pair of scrubs and get down to the Mater to give a dig out as a nurse in the evening.

Why should employers subsidise a subset of their employees (generally a better-off, higher-paid subset) with a benefit of significant value when no equivalent benefit is available to those who walk, cycle or use public transport?

The 'don't have an alternative' point isn't supported by the evidence that shows that a large percentage of car journeys are for distances that are easily walked or cycled, <4km.

I can quote the evidence that confirms that large numbers of car journeys are distances that are easily walked or cycled;

Traffic congestion does go beyond the M50.

That's the point I'm making .. those on the m50 don't have alternatives ... but no excuse for using the car in the city centre the majority of the time

Not just a city centre issue - fair bit of scope for cycling to cover journeys of two junctions and eBikes for longer journeys there;

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/m50-to-become-a-managed-motorway-in-major-changes-in-response-to-traffic-volumes-1.4676155

Totally missing the point ... the m50 is a ring road ... a typical commute would entail 5-10km along the m50. And the majority of these drivers would have a multiple of that distance before getting to the m50 ... and again very few would be going in to the city. The notion that cycling the m59 route is a valid option is just that .. a notion !

and/or they make it so the car takes 3 times as long as other means. :)