The government are currently investigating increased parking, congestion charges and speed limit reductions in order to help the country meet its climate goals. Looks like a split in the coalition is emerging over the proposals, which are likely to be deeply unpopular. Do you see anything of the proposed that could be considered politically palatable?
I do understand and I am generally in favor.
It's a future c02 tax per litre which I think could put a very high disproportionate cost on rural commuters.
I never knew we had to differentiate between rural and countryside. New one to me.
The point of the thread is to move away from the car to public transport and you just gave an excellent example of why the car is the wrong transport method, you didn't realise it I will admit. But thousands of people driving alone in cars into a work hub is always a bad idea, yes for the environment but also for the mental health of the people sitting in cars all day long
to be fair there wont be congestion charges any time soon and if there were they say it would be in tandem with improvements in public transport. no greens after next election anyway so this discussion is kind of pointless.
The problem is we're not designing this. It's how things are. We can't simply move everyone to a commuter town or cities, as much as that might seem like a straightforward solution.
You don't have to differentiate between rural and countryside, but it's a very different experience if you live a few minutes, maybe even cycling distance, from a commuter town with good public transport, than if you live as remotely as an awful lot of Irish commuters do.
Did your ma let you away with 'the other boy did it' excuses? We're among the worst in Europe, screwing up our own air quality and the same for the entire planet.
There’s a bang of jealousy off this post tbh.
Why are you so resentful against people who have a one off house in the country or as you call it a McMansion?
For a start, we can stop building McMansions up the boreen beside Mammeh and incentivise use of existing buildings in towns and villages, the towns and village that are dying a slow death because we encourage car-bound lifestyles where people go from their McMansion out the road to the out-of-town retail park and don't spend any time or money in the town or village.
You and your wife not having to use a polluting car every time you leave the house, every work trip, every school trip, every shopping trip, every pub trip will make a significant difference to air quality and carbon emissions.
That's why residential parking passes and more paid parking areas will be required.
Would you like me to explain the emissions issue again?
Ah yes, the old per Capita nonsense, the last refuge of the clueless. Ireland consistently has good quality air across the island. Probably an advantage of been in the Atlantic with no land masses in front of us.
sometimes the air in Donegal is worse than New Delhi
So rural Ireland dwellers are at fault for irelands emissions? Wow.
So more financial penalties for locals to deal with on top of everything else. You see, it's the lack of joined up thinking that always ruins these plans. Our current PT system in Dublin can't handle the demand already. They don't have enough drivers for a start. I'm lucky enough to be able to walk or cycle to work or bringing the kids to school. Last Thurs morning I was 25 minutes waiting for a bus in Torrential rain as they were all jammed and non were stopping. I could have driven to work in the city centre and parked there but decided to use PT instead. Next time I'll drive because I need to be in work at a time that suits me, not whenever the next bus that isn't jammed decides to potter along.
I prefer not driving as it's stressful and I'd much rather walk or cycle but sometimes an alternative is required and PT is just not reliable enough.
Reading that and it seems to be a bit of an outlier with the air quality being generally good quality.
Try telling that to the families of the 1300 people who die prematurely each year due to poor air quality.
I'm in agreement with you on the McMansions, I think it varies by planning authority how it's implemented, but these should not be allowed now unless on a working farm etc.
The problem is a lot of these towns, villages and existing one off houses, aren't connected to pt services which would allow people get to work in the cities where the jobs are. Plenty of people, like myself, would be a 20 min drive from a town connected to service running at the right times to get to work.
Those smaller towns and villages might support more local shops and service, which could reduce non-work trips, but these won't provide enough employment. People will still have to go to the cities to work.
Throw the hands up in the air attitude is not really the answer
No you don't have to differentiate between rural and countryside because they are the same. A lot of people have lived remotely because they have decided to love remotely, like myself. You can't complain about it then.
The best method to get people from remote/rural/countryside to a central city based hub is not in cars but in public transport.
Just because we dont have in place now doesn't mean we shouldn't try and put in place. We have spent billions on roads, now spend the same on public transport.
No it isn't. As shown plenty of bus routes, also we have a train system, a poor one but we have one. We also have a lot of private buses running etc.
The easy answer is the car. But that is the easy answer in the countryside/rural/city etc etc
It's an estimated figure and from what I can see is basically pulled out of their arse. That's not to say we shouldn't look to improve things. The big green push to diesel cars a few years back was a disaster for people living in cities with the exhaust fumes being way worse for people than petrol cars.
Who said to move everyone. I have said to move towards public transport. That can be done easily via bus hubs. Like they gave done in some instance with commuter trains.
Or we can throw hands up in air.
We also need to stop people ruining the countryside building those big ungodly horrible houses that in a few years time will have to be knocked down because people can't heat them. I am on A2W groups and every second post is about a person with a 4,000sqft+ house and complaining because of the heating bill.
It's not a throw the hands up in the air attitude at all.
I believe the answer for people who live remotely is a combination of electrification and wfh.
Great to improve pt for larger towns where feasible, but it would be hugely wasteful to try and bring it more remote areas.
That money could be more effectively spent on reducing carbon output elsewhere.
Here's a quick update on our 'very small number of road accidents'.
I guess our 18-24 year olds are just disposable.
I'm in agreement with you on the one off houses entirely.
I just can't see bus hubs being efficient enough to be cost effective.
How do you allow for people starting and finishing at different times? Maybe working nights or evening shifts? What about those that wouldn't work in the nearest city but three towns over?
It would cost a fortune to run that frequency of services in rural areas.
You can cherry pick statistics all you want, the overall trend is clear: Ireland has an objectively good road safety record in BOTH relative AND absolute terms. The data behind that conclusion is irrefutable. The vast, vast, majority of Ireland's 2.8 million motorists are not driving around murdering people as you seem to claim. The number of people driving in this country who will ever be involved in, let alone the cause of, a serious or fatal incident, is tiny.
As to part about Donegal having worse air quality than New Delhi ... I'm confused, is Donegal a permanently gridlocked traffic hellscape with cars idling everywhere all the time?
how do you think they do it in every other country in the World when they use public transport?
That link is the age percentage of the total road deaths. It says nothing about how safe our roads are. We have among the lowest roads deaths per million population in Europe, 31 per million. That we have a higher amount of young people dying on our roads should be contributed to the state of our test and training system, and the condition of roads in general.
This is indeed true, the idea behind the carbon tax was that people would use less fuel if the price went up and therefore the emissions would come down...
I can see their thinking but it clearly didn't work if our transport emissions are higher now than they were pre-carbon tax
New idea is a congestion charge which has been proven to work in London for example
Electrification is going to do what?
taking 1 million combustion cars and replacing with 1 million electric cars will cost billions to the public in general and also to the grid and the end result will be everyone standing with billions less in pockets and complaining about no public transport
So let's blame absolutely everything except driver behaviour, got it.
Apart from having the second highest road deaths per capita for 18-24 year olds, of course.
It's a standard methodology used across Europe by professional researchers, but sure, let's listen to what the boards lads say instead, right?
Diesel was indeed pretty bad, particularly the behaviour of the car companies, like VW who frigged their engine management software to behave differently when on a test bed (no one steering) and when on the road.
