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

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

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.

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

I never said I did!

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

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.

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.

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.

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 😏🥱

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.

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!

Can you really not get a bus?

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...