Dublin ranks 3rd in terms of the amount of time spent in cars due to congestion

OldMrBrennan83 wrote: »

It's wherever your attitude is with some of those smug little replies
I can guarantee if everyone used a pushbike to get to work then they all would not be able to shower, nor would there be the potential to build enough showers to accommodate them all.

Why on earth would everyone cycle to work? Take a deep breath please.

OldMrBrennan83 wrote: »

That's the endgame for the hive isn't it? Force us all out of cars and onto bikes?

No need for the paranoia. There are other ways of getting around than car or bike. Don't worry about it.

OldMrBrennan83 wrote: »

Of course I worry about it as I want to be in a car.

Enjoy your soul-destroying congestion so.

OldMrBrennan83 wrote: »

I do. If you read back that's exactly how this started.

That’s quite a strange hobby but alright so

OldMrBrennan83 wrote: »

Of course I worry about it as I want to be in a car. Though leave it at that if you can't manage anything other than smug.

Can you explain something to me.

Do you want to be in a car or do you want to sit in your car and for a 30 minute journey to take 2 hours in a car because you enjoy sitting in congestion.

Reading your posts it suggests the latter. I think everyone else would feel that this si not ideal.

I would love for people who want to drive to be able to drive in a decent time without massive congestion. In my opinion the easiest way to do this is to make other options more attractive so that other options are more viable and it removes people from the roads.

Personally I rely on public transport. I start work at 8 because congestion on the roads is bad and my boss is understanding. It's 10km from home to work. Running or cycling would be a viable option if I had shower facilities but we don't have them.

Qrt wrote: »

Enjoy your soul-destroying congestion so.

It's not just the soul that he's destroying. It is his own body too, and the health of many others.

OldMrBrennan83 wrote: »

What if a company has 500 employees that start at 8am? I presume the end goal for you lot is to have them all cycling to work in one big pack, so how do you shower 500 people at once?

Just put one shower cubicle on every parking space in the car park, and everything will work out fine, right? No-one gives a second thought to provision of vast amounts of employee parking, but a suggestion of a few showers is suddenly just too much?

OldMrBrennan83 wrote: »

That's the endgame for the hive isn't it? Force us all out of cars and onto bikes?

Dang, the secret is out. We're screwed now.


Anyway, at least you haven't worked out about the compulsory wearing of lycra at all times too, let's keep schtum about that one.


Someone with more strategic vision might have managed to work out that the more people that can be encouraged to cycle, the more space there will be on the road for the remaining motorists.

OldMrBrennan83 wrote: »

Or just different to you.

Thinking your way is the only way is a sad trait developing in people these days.

Nope, preferring to spend a 2 hour journey in one form of transport, especially the most harmful, most expensive kind, compared to a 30 minute journey in any other form is pretty deranged, if the diiference was 45 minutes in a car compared to 30 by public transport/cycling/walking etc it wouldnt be so deranged but you said 2 hours. Thats a 4 hour commute compared to 1! You dont need to be in any hive mind to think thats no quality of life.

OldMrBrennan83 wrote: »

Why brought harmful into it? That's not my concern.

Maybe it should be your concern?

Eric Cartman wrote: »

leaving out all the carbon craic , 30 minutes on public transport vs 2 hours in the car, except.... you forgot the 15 mins walking to the bus, the 15 mins walking off the bus to your office, plus potentially 30-40 minutes arsing about because the bus timed gets you to your office early.

now lets say youre one of the lucky ones who spent mental money on a gaf 2 mins from a luas, and your office is luckily 5 mins walk from said luas and you have little waiting time before work, ill take an extra 30 mins in the car to not walk 5 mins in the rain any day, ill take an extra 30 mins in the car not to be hassled for 2 euro or watch a junkie shoot up, ill take an extra 30 minutes in the car to not have to deal with hoards of soaked people in soaked jackets in the winter constantly brushing off you and soaking you.

sitting in your own car, with your own music, your coffee or whatever and somewhere to put it, a more comfortable seat, safety from junkies and foul smelling people , complete dryness and almost full door to door service every time, the ability to smoke if so inclined and the ability to choose your departure time to get you to the office when you actually need to be there are all worth the longer time it takes.

you talk about mental health, being packed into a train like a sardine , constantly being impacted by the weather and catching every cough / cold / bug going round arent good for you either.

You'd take 30 minutes in a car to avoid a 5 minute walk? Again, a completely deranged viewpoint. How much rain do you think we get here btw? It really isnt much tbh, Amsterdam gets more. Your junkie/wet jacket brushing fears are just as wildly exaggerated.

Anyway we're talking about 4 hours vs 1 hour commuting every day, if you want to move the goal posts around Im sure you'll find a way to make a point though.

SeanW wrote: »

He's not far off. I've had the misfortune to commute in Dublin for the past 6 years, all of it by necessity on public transport. Though my commute was often as little as 5 miles, it's always been an hour minimum each way, sometimes 2 hours each way, because everything is grinding to a halt in the peak hours. And a lot of that in my experience has to do with the Trinity/D'Olier St/Westmoreland St. mess where private cars are prohibited. If you have to take a bus around that junction, it alone will ad half an hour each way each day to your commute.

In that time, the housing crisis has gone from bad to worse and near as I can figure, every mass transport line, DART, both Luas lines, Maynooth line, are at or near capacity. Even the heavy rail seems to have got slower and more congested over the years, as there are more trains on each line, seems a lot of things run much slower than they should.

Sometimes in morning I have to change trains in Connolly, the DART comes in and it's a feckin' sardine can, no way I'm getting onto that so I have to wait for the next train.

It's getting to the point where you could have a shorter commute if you moved to Metro Manila. Where, by the way, they're actually building a Metro.

Until something radical is done to improve public transport in Dublin, people like E.C. will continue, logically, to have their commute in comfort even if it takes a little longer. And by "radical" I mean Bus Connects, Metro Link, Dart Underground and additional quad tracking at the very minimum.

Yes Im not claiming people dont need their cars, hats moving the goalposts, Im replying to someone who claims 4 hours a day commuting is preferable when a 1 hour option exists, you're not even moving the goalposts there actually, you also seem to think 4 hours traveling vs 1 hour is acceptable, you mention taking 2 hours to go 5 miles on your own commute, thats 30 minutes on a bike.

OldMrBrennan83 wrote: »

You keep saying (in between calling everyone deranged that doesn't agree with you) 4 hours vs 1 hour. Of course 4 hours is worse than 1 when you just keep talking in time. But for me it's 4 hours IN A CAR vs 1 hour NOT. That's still no contest for me.

That's before you even get to the other factors of PT timings that were mentioned above and you ignored.

Oh sorry, are you feeling insulted after all your hive mind and personal hygiene comments since you came blundering into the thread? We'll leave it there so, enjoy your 4 hours a day in your car and all associated mental/physical/financial costs.

What about retail only opening from 10am day to Friday ?

OldMrBrennan83 wrote: »

There are no mental costs and you should be ashamed of yourself throwing terms like that around, you've already been told there aren't any and been told by others that travelling on public transport could be worse in that respect.

People like you cheapen it for those with real MH issues.

I think you're fashionably taking offense where none was intended. Long commutes are normally pretty stressful for people, but evidently not for you.

To draw a line under your situation I think you're in a unique position where you're time rich and can afford to spend four hours in a car instead of an hour on public transport or on a bike per day. You obviously don't have kids to run and collect from school or créches, do the homework, dinners to cook for a family, school lunches to make, sports, training to attend to, kids training/scouts/societies etc... It's only fair for you to recognise that the majority of people are not that time rich therefore those extra three hours a day would be incredibly valuable and simply could not be wasted sitting in traffic for an extra 15 hours a week.

Surely you have the ability to step outside your own world and see that?

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

So none of that congestion stuff applies to the same degree in Dublin?


https://www.thejournal.ie/dublin-traffic-report-4491153-Feb2019/



Really?

Not to the same extent as London, which has a number of factors that do not apply anywhere in Ireland. There's a very good reason why the article drew a distinction between its London specific figure of £8,000 and the UK nationwide figure which was less than a quarter of that. And remember, those were life-of-the-car figures assuming the car stays on the road for 14 years. They prove the exact opposite of what you are claiming - even the London figure directly contradicts any assertion that motorist don't pay enough tax.

1) Worse air quality. As of now, Air Quality Indicator sensors on London Marylebone Road show an AQI of 56. http://aqicn.org/city/london/
Reliable figures for Ireland are not so widely available, but sensors in Rathmines and Bray most recently detected AQIs in the 30s, both readings falling well within a limit of 50 which is the limit for good air quality.
2) Greater population density. The Greater London Area has more people than Ireland as a whole. Not only does that mean more people breathing in the lower quality air, but when there are lots of tall buildings around it tends to block winds from getting to the ground to blow bad air away.
3) Greater population means that (everything else being equal) a smaller proportion of people driving causes more air pollution than a larger proportion of a smaller population elsewhere. E.g. if there are 1 million people in Dublin, and 25% of those drive once per day, that's 250,000 car journeys. But Greater London has more than 8 million people, if 25% of those people drove once per day, that 2+ million car journeys in London.

That's not to say that the situation in Dublin cannot get worse, but one county that has 8.8 million people is not comparable to a country with 5 million people spread out over 26 counties. That comparison is specious at best, disingenuous at worst.

Yet, even if we accept that the London figure is correct (I have no reason ATM to doubt it) and accepted your baseless comparison of it to anywhere in Ireland, that amounts to about €10,000 lifetime public health costs per car. VRT alone would probably cover that, and VAT, fuel duties, "Motor" Tax, tax on insurance policies, VAT on repairs and maintenance etc, all of that would still be gravy.

But certainly Dublin could get worse if the need to improve its public transport options is not understood by the powers that be. Right now the biggest cost of the infrastructure deficit in Dublin is the loss of people's time, and the public transport we have doesn't seriously ameliorate that.

Strangely enough, formal research shows the opposite of your hypothesis - in the real world, people who commute by car have worse mental health than those who walk or cycle or sue public transport;


https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/2014/09/15/car-commute

It may have a lot to do with the person - someone might be chilled out during their drive, listening to their music or whatever, whereas someone else might be stressed out of their heads, watching the clock, furious at the stop-start nature of their journey. It probably depends on both the person and how stressful the traffic.

If you're on a flat route theres no real reason to sweat, you'll sweat if you push yourself but casual pedaling is no different to walking really, just way faster.

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Some very selective calculations there, Sean - comparing the total cost paid against SOLELY the healthcare costs - where's the full cost-benefit analysis? Where's the account showing the costs of the healthcare due to healthcare AND the roads infrastructure AND the regulatory infrastructure AND the enforcement infrastructure AND the vast amounts of public space given over to motorists AND the costs of healthcare relating to obesity, hypertension, diabetes, cancer etc etc.


I agree with your final point though - the impacts will depend on the person, just like any other health issue. Smoking causes cancer, but not EVERY smoker gets cancer.

First of all, Spoiler alert - I'm using your figures! You posted the £8,000 figure which is why I addressed it.

Secondly, you now want to to add all this other stuff. Where to start >_< first motorists pay for a lot of that stuff, speeding fines, NCT fees, (your "regulatory structure), motorists who have jobs pay income tax (in addition to a rake of motoring specific taxes) and so are entitled to public services like roads. The whole point of paying tax is for things you have to buy as a group, like police, fire services, ambulances and - wait for it - roads! And before you say "well I pay taxes too, why should I pay for your roads" remember you get stuff in the shops delivered by truck, and it's generally accepted that not everyone pays for exactly the things they use - for example I have no children but my tax pays for schools, subsidised childcare and so on.

You also have to factor in the societal benefits of motoring. That is, the average cost to run a car in Ireland is around €10,671 euro per motorist per year. That is loan repayments, fuel, insurance, maintenance, NCT fees, VAT, VRT, "Motor" Tax, fuel duty etc. etc. etc. Since it is generally assumed that people will not pay something unless what they are getting at least equals in value the money that they are spending, we must assume that the value to each motorist exceeds €11,000 by a very large margin. And since all people are part of society, the collective individual benefits are also societal benefits. Assuming there are 1,000,000 motorists in Ireland, that means that people in society gain at least €10,761,000,000 in collective benefits from motoring. If we assume that someone will only spend money if the quality of life benefits they receive exceed the cost they spend by a factor of 2, then the figure for collective benefits to society from motoring is €21,522,000,000. Now add to that figure all the tax that motorists pay that is "gravy" for the government that they get to spend on other things. That is also social benefits, in addition to my estimate of €21.5bn in direct collective individual benefits and most likely amounts to many additional billions.

Deduct from that what you will.

Finally, I re-iterate my point that you cannot blame someone for driving somewhere even like Dublin because public transport is too bad, and crapping on motorists WILL NOT fix that problem. Only serious investment in public transport will fix it.

Most of us that by misfortune have to use Irish (especially Dublin) public transport have some horror stories. Slow ass commutes, sardine-can overcrowding on DARTs etc. By far the worst experiences I've had was when I had to commute from Lucan to the South City Centre. Won't bore all here with the details but the commute of less than 10 miles used to take more than 2 hours each way, and that was with a direct bus (some variant of the 25), bus lane all the way, and a bus gate at College Green.

What stuck out at me the most was that fully 1 hour of this (30 minutes each way) was lost trying to clear the whole College Green/Westmoreland/D'Olier St. mess - from which private motorists are banned. This is the state of public transport services in Ireland. Slow, infrequent, often indirect, often overcrowded and/or uncomfortable, and that's if you're lucky enough that it even exists in the first place.

The point is worth re-iterating. 30 minutes to clear one junction alone. A junction private motorists cannot use, and so cannot contribute to its problems.

You have to fix this before you can bash motorists for choosing to drive. From the perspective of Dublin, that can only be done if (at minimum) Metro Link is built, BusConnects is done and Dart Undergound is in place. At minimum.

SeanW wrote: »

First of all, Spoiler alert - I'm using your figures! You posted the £8,000 figure which is why I addressed it.

Secondly, you now want to to add all this other stuff. Where to start >_< first motorists pay for a lot of that stuff, speeding fines, NCT fees, (your "regulatory structure), motorists who have jobs pay income tax (in addition to a rake of motoring specific taxes) and so are entitled to public services like roads. The whole point of paying tax is for things you have to buy as a group, like police, fire services, ambulances and - wait for it - roads! And before you say "well I pay taxes too, why should I pay for your roads" remember you get stuff in the shops delivered by truck, and it's generally accepted that not everyone pays for exactly the things they use - for example I have no children but my tax pays for schools, subsidised childcare and so on.

You also have to factor in the societal benefits of motoring. That is, the average cost to run a car in Ireland is around €10,671 euro per motorist per year. That is loan repayments, fuel, insurance, maintenance, NCT fees, VAT, VRT, "Motor" Tax, fuel duty etc. etc. etc. Since it is generally assumed that people will not pay something unless what they are getting at least equals in value the money that they are spending, we must assume that the value to each motorist exceeds €11,000 by a very large margin. And since all people are part of society, the collective individual benefits are also societal benefits. Assuming there are 1,000,000 motorists in Ireland, that means that people in society gain at least €10,761,000,000 in collective benefits from motoring. If we assume that someone will only spend money if the quality of life benefits they receive exceed the cost they spend by a factor of 2, then the figure for collective benefits to society from motoring is €21,522,000,000. Now add to that figure all the tax that motorists pay that is "gravy" for the government that they get to spend on other things. That is also social benefits, in addition to my estimate of €21.5bn in direct collective individual benefits and most likely amounts to many additional billions.

Deduct from that what you will.

All fascinating stuff, but none of which answers my question about the full costs of motoring imposed on society by motorists.

And no, by 'regulatory', I wasn't talking about NCT, I was talking about the vast amounts of Garda and Court resources, and the entirety of the RSA that goes on trying to get motorists to stop killing themselves and others - another huge cost to the state, that motorists don't pay for. The speeding fine contracts are not self-financing, that's another cost of €10m per annum that motorists impose on society. And the other aspects that I listed in my earlier post.

When are freeloading motorists going to stop scrounging off the rest of society?

SeanW wrote: »

Finally, I re-iterate my point that you cannot blame someone for driving somewhere even like Dublin because public transport is too bad, and crapping on motorists WILL NOT fix that problem. Only serious investment in public transport will fix it.

Most of us that by misfortune have to use Irish (especially Dublin) public transport have some horror stories. Slow ass commutes, sardine-can overcrowding on DARTs etc. By far the worst experiences I've had was when I had to commute from Lucan to the South City Centre. Won't bore all here with the details but the commute of less than 10 miles used to take more than 2 hours each way, and that was with a direct bus (some variant of the 25), bus lane all the way, and a bus gate at College Green.

What stuck out at me the most was that fully 1 hour of this (30 minutes each way) was lost trying to clear the whole College Green/Westmoreland/D'Olier St. mess - from which private motorists are banned. This is the state of public transport services in Ireland. Slow, infrequent, often indirect, often overcrowded and/or uncomfortable, and that's if you're lucky enough that it even exists in the first place.

The point is worth re-iterating. 30 minutes to clear one junction alone. A junction private motorists cannot use, and so cannot contribute to its problems.

You have to fix this before you can bash motorists for choosing to drive. From the perspective of Dublin, that can only be done if (at minimum) Metro Link is built, BusConnects is done and Dart Undergound is in place. At minimum.

Read back over the thread. People are choosing to remain in their cars and not using public transport because they get to choose their own music, and they can't bear to sit beside other people.

And then they moan about traffic delays?

SeanW wrote: »

Bull. The worst single junction in Dublin City is likely to be College Green - I know from personal experience it adds half an hour each way to a peak time commute on the bus. Motorists cannot use that junction, ergo they cannot be blamed for that problem. You cannot blame motorists for the lack of decent public transport.

Yes, we do. At minimum. I've been dealing with this crap for over 5 years now as a PT user in Dublin City. Dublin public transport - at its flat out, balls to the wall best - is slow, overcrowded and crap. Until that is fixed, people who drive in the city are the symptoms, not the underlying malady.

You're failing to see the wood for the trees. The problem with College Green isn't College Green. The problem is O'Connell Bridge, and Dame St and Nassau St - and all the private cars that block up all of those routes that result in buses and trams being held up on College Green.

SeanW wrote: »

The NCT is part of the "regulatory infrastructure" motorists pay for that. Driver license issuing? There are fees for that. Speeding fines pay at least part of the cost of the speed vans and drivers who break laws more seriously often have to pay for court costs and larger fines.

Which was just a rambling, incoherent list of "AND"s that - among other things, listed healthcare 3 times!

I don't have exact figures but I suspect that the cost of these "externalities" does not exceed the societal benefits which I roughly estimate as being a minimum of €25bn.

Yes, motorists do pay for the NCT and for their driving licence. They don't pay the cost of the speeding vans. The State is on the hook for the remaining €10million each year just because motorists won't stick to the speed limit. That's a couple of primary care centres going unfunded because of speeding motorists. You don't get credit for 'paying part of the cost' - you get to take the responsibility for the €10m in state funding that you drag away from productive purposes to stop motorists from killing themselves and each other. And that's before you even think about the cost of the Garda Traffic Unit, with their nice new diesel polluting jeeps - just imagine if that money could be used for something productive?


And yes, it was a fairly rambling list, off the top of of my head, and it probably missed out a whole pile of other costs that I hadn't thought about.


Your €25 bn benefit is mythical. You confuse value with cost. And even it does create value, it is value for the individuals, not for society that is covering the cost.


So no, the comment on freeloading, scrounging motorists is far from a joke.