Five Cities Demand Management Report (Congestion Charges, 15-min city, parking charge increases etc)

There's an element of this I'd like to see dropped. LEZ/ULEZ/CAZ setups just cause most affected owners to buy new ICE vehicles, scrapping working vehicles with life left in them. Might be good for local air quality, but if you're selling it on a planetary basis, it isn't. Even those that replace them with EVs are not actually helping congestion. They don't appear to cause much modal shift.

There are perfectly working, sub 20 year old vehicles with long remaining service lifes being replaced in London due to the ULEZ extension - that won't reduce total emissions for that user at all.

My own quite old car, bought after the CO2 tax emissions came in and it was cheaper annually for me to buy a higher emissions version of the same car (which is actually what I did, albeit not for that reason. Although that is what I told the Green candidate on the door in the 2009 Local Elections!) is likely compliant with most ULEZ setups so it doesn't affect me, I'm not saying this out of personal interest.

How about ban all cars altogether?

Otherwise it's just a charter for the rich to be permitted to drive around a city.

If retail is under pressure, the solution is lower rents, not to scrap plans to reduce car use.

Retail rents in Galway city are too high, they exceed Leeds/Manchester/Edinburgh/ and London (City)

That's utter tosh.

Actually BusConnects was changed from a fundamentally flawed initial plan, the design of which was framed by ludicrously idealistic parameters set by the NTA, to one that actually should represent an improved bus service in the second and final drafts. It also focussed far too much on new passengers, to the detriment of the people who already used the bus service.

The NTA wanted to significantly reduce the number of buses coming into the city centre, and force people to change to LUAS or DART with many existing direct services switching to become feeder services into rail or LUAS. The problem with that was that the rail and LUAS were already jammed to capacity. That was never going to work.

The first plan also cancelled many direct routes to/from the city and replaced them with infrequent connections at the outer sections. This meant there was the potential for waits of up to 30 or 60 minutes if the bus coming from the city ran late and missed the scheduled connection. Again, that wasn't acceptable.

The NTA also failed to understand the importance of the bus service within local communities, particularly in what would traditionally have been council estates, many of which have a large older population, and force people to walk out onto the main roads, and that fundamentally got people's backs up. That was political suicide.

In my own case, the area I live in would have lost one high frequency citybound route along with an orbital route, and certain direct connections would have been replaced by the need to take two buses and excessively large detours.

It was idealism gone mad frankly.

The final plan includes the two key principles of the concept, namely:

• Key corridors being served by Spine routes with integrated timetables along the spines
• A large increase in orbital and local routes to facilitate new journeys and potentially reduce cross-city centre transit

But it also put in place radial routes where needed to maintain connectivity, and recognised the importance of community bus services serving housing estates (which could run at a reduced frequency) and linking them with hospitals and relevant public services.

The changes certainly were not based on misguided nonsense, but rather balancing the needs of existing passengers, and also attracting new ones by providing a large number of new routes.

I see Eamon Ryan on his way into his party conference in a Lansdowne Road phonebox, shyting out of him about lunatic fantasy solutions for the haulage and logistics sector.

Little or none of what is being considered at the moment seems to address the realistic needs of society. They'll sleepwalk the Shinners into power at this rate due to the sheer incredulousness of the electorate.

The soon eamon Walter mitty ryan & Co. are out the better.

Not everyone lives in an urban area, hence why its called the 5 cities report, not the rural areas report.

I do for instance. No WFH at my workplace following the cyberattack.

Driving to the work carpark takes 35 minutes and a 15 minute walk to the office.

Public transport I would have to drive 10 minutes to (live in the country), train then takes wait time (5 mins) plus 25 minutes, then a bus which takes a further 25 minutes, plus wait time.

Thats about 70 minutes overall assuming everything runs properly which it NEVER does here. Bring in the necessity of staying late often enough, and poor public transport in the evenings and there is no way it is feasible to do anything other than drive.

There are no cycle lanes at leaving where I live, and nor will there be without a €100 million road/cycleway/pedestrian project that simply is not going to happen anytime soon.

But thats the trouble. Going in, it adds 20 minutes to my trip. Coming home, could be anywhere from 20 - 30 minutes, depending on timing. Thats a full hour out of my day and when I work 8 - 6 anyway, every minute counts and I have elderly parents to look after in the evening so driving will still be the preferable option, by a long way. Especially when I COULD WFH, but IT won't allow it.

I can't cycle following an accident years ago, and would you really want to cycle along here? As part of your 30km cycle to work? - https://goo.gl/maps/WLXf2qfMuTmgMjqD6

Proper/better alternatives need to be put in place before, or at the same time, as any of this. I understand everyone will have their own excuse, but they really need to make improvements to public transport. In the case of Cork for instance, have much, much, MUCH better links from Kent station to the rest of town. And build the Cork Luas like, now. Not in 20 or 30 years. Fast track the planning, get it opened in 5 years, or at least an ambitious timescale.

Most of the particulates from diesels come from trucks and buses. Cars tend to be Euro 6 compliant and have catalytic converters as standard.Petrol cars still emit toxic particles. Congestion zone charges favour the rich, as has been amply proved in London, as they couldnt care less about congestion charges.Ordinary punters are stung by congestion charges, as they are simply another tax. Anyone who lives in rural towns or outside cities are utterly dependent on their cars and cannot afford EVs and the charging system is pathetic.

It's a relic from the days when cars were narrow enough to safely park on roads. And there weren't as many of them, so it wasn't an issue. It needs to be 100% banned though, especially on main routes into towns and villages. If you're lucky enough to live in an area well-served by public transport, but don't have a driveway, then it should be your own responsibility to find somewhere to privately store your property.

There are figures for particulate emissions for EVs - much lower even on the bits they have due to rheostatic/regenerative braking and no conventional clutch - so I would fully expect them to be taxed on that

Polluting businesses already have significant restrictions placed on them.

I have to use the M50 and M7 every day so it affects me directly. Traffic pushed out of the city ends up on the M50. Im not against things like pedestrianisation or selective closing of roads but the current approach is city-centric and fails to address rural/out of city needs. The two must go hand in hand or they will not work. Cities are not stand alone.

Jesus is this the level of debate we've stooped to? Yes we should definitely try to stop emission reduction on the back of this banger of a realisation

With the loss of all this motor derived tax there'll be no other option than to tax the sh1t out of the bicycle, as sleepy salad box ryan is only a suck it and see merchant when it come to squandering peoples money.

But how am I supposed to get an anvil from the centre of the city to Donegal?

Something something bicycles.

I don't think you understand what I wrote.

It's all well and good for you to say "I know what a 15 minute city is" or quote from Wikipedia or the wonderful people who have successfully introduced the concept in many places worldwide. I am saying that nobody at any level of Irish government has defined it. Whatsoever.

Is it that 80% of the population will be within 15 minutes of school, post office, church, bank, playing field? What are the institutions that "matter" in the Irish context? Undefined. What percentage, what institutions? What is the metric? It is undefined. It is vague.

With regards the Netherlands etc, the end result is eminently realistic, I'm just not sure that the local authorities command enough resources to achieve it. A broader societal shift will be required, which is beyond LA ability, regardless of their good intentions. In that respect it's not within their gift to achieve. Central government, sure, but not LA. It is not achievable for them. And there is no timeframe mentioned.

That's why I think you might also be incorrect when you say "this wasn't the objective of this document". 15 minute cities is obviously a very desirable thing, but it's a lit like saying the solution to poverty is "to get rich". They've declared the end-state of "15 minute cities" as their top task, with lots of actual, real tasks like increased parking charges etc listed as lower priorities.

Cart before horse, etc.

I think concrete specific tasks should have been higher up the priorities list, with 15 minute cities as the desired end-state.

EDIT: I see that their little clock symbol means "by 2025" lol. Good luck with that! Where I live (in the city) there is no primary healthcare provider, bank, public sports facility, within 15 minutes walk or cycle. And I am not in a disadvantaged area. Even getting my small corner of the city compliant by 2025 will need a lot of fudges.