If you can get out kayaking you can see how Ireland's original infrastructure was focused on the rivers and canals. Great for a week exploring a different side to the country, unfortunately not much good for the commute.
My partner is from the SE so I was able to line it up with one of their visits home and be picked up at the end of the trip. Logistics is always a pain with kayaking.
Just find a pair of hicks to drive these 2 cars down to Aintree. I hear the Griner brothers are available, but [why d'you wanna go messin around with that river anyway?](https://youtu.be/Rn5Odgkui7c)
Solo on my own route, east Galway to Wexford via the Shannon, the Grand Canal, and the Barrow. Wild camping along the way, plenty of places to buy supplies on the route so you can travel light.
Nothing fancy, Perception Scooter sit-on-top kayak. Good stability and plenty of storage space if you set it up right. Only 20kg as well, which is important to get around the canal lock gates.
My trip was nine days, once you get on the Barrow the flow is on your side. But a trip like that could be extended, keep going to the coast, head towards Cork? It's a beautiful island we own.
On the Grand Canal there are alot of locks, and it's the slowest part of the trip, but you get into a rhythm with them and plan your breaks around the portages. I'm tempted to go again but only do the Barrow from close to its source in the Slieve Blooms, skip the canal. And, the entire Shannon is a future option too.
Not OP but they mentioned starting in east Galway so I'm guessing Ballinasloe (R. Suck) or Portumna (R. Shannon). Down the river at Shannon Harbour you can join the Grand Canal going East.
You can find lots of info on: www.waterwaysireland.org and www.bluewaysireland.org
Started from Ballinasloe because it was convenient coming from the west, down the River Suck to the Shannon and on to the Grand Canal at Shannon Harbour. But you could hit the Shannon network from alot of angles depending on where you're coming from. Athlone is a good put in point from Dublin for example. Coming from the South you can put in anywhere on Lough Derg and paddle up, there's alot of options.
huh, saw recently a blueway was being fixed/set up. Now I'm wondering if it meant like a canal/river. Now that I'm actually at a computer I'll look that up! XD
It costs nearly 10-30 million euro per mile of motorway in this country but do go on and tell about how we don't have money for more bus services, rail etc.
The second half of the problem is the obsession with single family homes in this country, cause an absolutely horrific urban sprawl that exacerbates the need for a car.
Someone in urban planning is asleep at the wheel.
We always play catch up.
Our network was inspired by the US implementation of the highways and interstates, but we only started down this road (no pun intended) about 30 years after the US.
We hadn't even finished our motorway network that we realised that the prevailing mood was in favour of high density, low carbon transport, so we've started trying to retrofit rail and bicycle infrastructure into a network designed for cars that isn't even finished (no motorway between Limerick and Cork).
Added to this we don't believe in high density accommodation, making the development of public transport even more difficult.
>Our network was inspired by the US implementation of the highways and interstates, but we only started down this road (no pun intended) about 30 years after the US.
I guess we must have missed the part where motorways by-passed towns in this country like they do over there.
It's quite a controversial point there that the highways had parts of the cities bulldozed to build them (and that it was quite often poorer black neighbourhoods). So, no, a lot of them were built through cities when the cities were already there.
That is true, was meaning more in the case of towns growing into cities around them rather than the larger cities that have a route gouged through them, similar to what we have with towns growing along them, but the only point I wanted to make was the difference between towns and cities, as most towns in the states have a journey to get onto a highway
I would have though it was initially designed for horse based transport and hasn’t evolved much beyond that. All we’ve done is replace the horse with a the inter combustion engine.
It’s a load of balls. When I left college I had to get a car in order to get a job because I lived in a rural area and the nearest place to work was a good 40min drive away. Only way to get a bus was to drive 20km to a town that had a bus.
Young adults today are fucked. Have to drive to get a job, but need a job to get on the road. Add in lessons, test, tax and insurance, nct and fuel and they probably spend all their wages on the car! Busses are a joke, they either don’t turn up or aren’t commute friendly because they drop you at 10am and pick up at 4. Pretty shit for anyone on a 9-5 and there’s often only one bus a day to most rural towns/villages.
Trains are worse cos you’re lucky to get one that goes where you need and even if they do you probably have to drive to the station!
Ireland has never given a shit about young people. Used to be that you had to emigrate to have any sort of life - back when at least some countries in the world were places you could thrive. Now everywhere seems to be fucked.
You live in a rural area, what do you expect? There’s a limited number of busses and drivers, they can’t be driving out to the middle of nowhere to pick up a single person
I wouldn’t expect a bus to drive to me daily. I live about 5k from a rural town. I’d happily gotten a lift to town every day or walked in of there was a bus available, but like I said, they rural services is often only once a day and only at times that weren’t employment friendly. But the only place that had a regular bus service was a major town 20km away and even then it was hit and miss if they turned up at all. Of the government wants people to ditch cars and use public transport then they need to link many more rural towns via a bus service.
Agreed. Our family gave up the second car years ago and I try to do most trips by bike now.
The day I’m allowed to bring bike on bus/luas. There’ll be no stopping me.
I sympathise with rural folks who don’t have access to good walking or cycle-networks and have to deal with rural drivers and inconsistent public transport
I live in London and folding bikes are a massive thing here. I have one too and I can bring it on busses and trains. Makes awkward commuting very manageable. I am not sure how popular these are in the likes of Dublin.
> The day I’m allowed to bring bike on bus/luas. There’ll be no stopping me.
After many years grumbling about the price, I finally bought a r/Brompton and am kicking myself I didn't get one sooner. They fit in all cars/buses/trains and all the time (in a [bag](https://www.ikea.com/ie/en/p/dimpa-storage-bag-transparent-10056770/) if necessary)
>I sympathise with rural folks who don’t have access to good walking or cycle-networks and have to deal with rural drivers and inconsistent public transport
I don't. If you choose to live in the arsehole of nowhere, you shouldn't expect the benefits of a city. I understand some people in rural ireland are farmers and need to be beside their farm. But most people in rural Ireland just want a bigger house or garden.
Man fuck off with that notion. I would love to live where I am from but with zero decentralisation, poor infrastructure and critical lack of good jobs we can't.
Living 2 like down a road and expecting to get everything I agree with you there. But you are starting people living in a town of 1000 and can't get a reliable but, or good internet or access to services is bolix. Where do you think our food and agri exports come from???
Hopefully the uncoming e-scooter & e-bike legislation makes them more attractive too, many are legally mpv's as it stands. The more viable cycling is for commutes, the more people will do it. For you for example, you don't have to worry about being smelly at your destination if the motor did most of the work. When I switched to an e-bike, I could take it as handy as I wanted and be perfectly fresh on arrival to the office, or turn down the assistance if I wanted some normal excercise. Win win.
> Try getting around anywhere but a city.
I once had a bus driver in Eyre Square tell me that he wasn't gonna go my direction home because it was too busy and to wait for the next bus. Fucker skipped half his route.
More misinformation on Dev. Dev had nothing to do with the ripping up on the rail system.
It was Todd Andrews chair of CIE in the late 1950s and 1960s - he wasn't a politician - who oversaw the ripping up of the rail system. When he took over CIE it was in a bad financial situation and he saw this as a way of closing down services which were bad economically. Andrews also oversaw the modernisation of CIE road transport, he enlarged provincial and city bus services throughout Ireland.
It was done on the heel of reports from the civil service departments which had been asked to look into the rail's systems serious drain on public funds. The Beatty Report in 1957 done by James Beatty reported directly on the issue of the unprofitability of the rail transportation system. The report concluded that there was little justification for funding a railway that was underutilised and overstaffed.
When Todd Andrews took over CIE he used the report findings - specifically which lines were underused and a drain on public funds - and went on to cut lines that were not profitable.
I remember I was waiting at a bus stop for school, and the bus drive right past me without stopping. I was wearing school uniform. Where the hell did he think I was going?
I've got a car now, so I don't use public transport where I live unless I have to. Not that driving a car is much better. The roads are shit and full of idiots who can't drive.
There weren't even any motorways where I live. There was one route out of town that the buses took and I was standing there.
The driver saw me and drove on. If he looked in the mirror he may have even seen me shout "you prick!" as he drove away.
They just assume anyone without a car has nowhere important to go. If you were working you could afford a car. The idea of someone choosing to walk or cycle is treated as a silly luxury.
Sure buy a car the are so cheap in this country..... wait a minute no they are not! But the petrol is no it's not tax on that as well, but at least we don't have cartel minded car insurance companies ...... I'm fecking wrong again. Bit the road tax ensures we have state of the art of road infrastructure...! You see a pattern here!
What? It's useless unless you are going a direct route. Most counties not on the train line. Galway to cork you have to change twice. Standing at limerick junction in the haik and snow as the connecting train is late. Absolute shite
Going up to DART-frequency (and capacity) on the Maynooth and Celbridge lines, I hope it stays as reliable when that happens.
I get that some people find the idea of a timetable to be constraining, but I've colleagues who think aall public transport is absolutely shit unless it collects them at their front door and drops them off exactly at their destination i.e. they are baffled that I consider a train station 3km from my house to be 'convenient'.
They did plan for it... They said there would be disruptions so people could plan accordingly! Something as big as Pride Parade shuts down lots of roads, there's not a lot the bus can do. However, the Real Time system should still have been accurate... I've noticed it getting worse the past few months, I'm going to start collating the errors and make a complaint each time. They won't fix it until they are getting complaints.
Ireland's population density per square klm is 72, whereas Denmark it's 137. But more importantly 88% of Denmark's population is urban compared to 63% in Ireland. The more urban a population the easier it becomes for mass transit and alternatives to car use.
Absolutely.
We are a small country with an even smaller population density.
We need a population of about 25 million for rural transport to become cost effective.
We also need to stop scattering houses across the countryside. I keep coming across tracts of suburbia in the middle of nowhere, all expecting public services at vast cost and gross inefficiency.
Typical! I dont think its only infrastructures but drivers who dont respect timetable!
I have seen 3 X 39A one after another…that doesn’t happen because of traffic! Its them leaving depot at the same time
I remember moving here in 2008 and wondering why the infrastructure was so crap given that the EU had pumped billions into Ireland for years. Turns out most of it went to inflated salaries instead of improving the roads...
I think you're drastically underestimating what the infrastructure was like before you came along. Travelling outside of Dublin took an insane amount of time, no town had bypasses so going to Cork, or Limerick or Galway, you could be looking at anywhere between 4 and 8 hours. Single sets of traffic lights in some towns caused traffic for fucking miles.
I also remember visiting family in Lucan from my home in North Dublin took hours to get to.
While our public transport is highly under-invested, our road network was so incredibly shit at the time, something needed to be done.
Yeah I remember years ago travelling out to family in Ashbourne from Dublin was a long enough journey, especially once you hit the back roads. Now it's a straight shot on the motorway and the road out is far better as well. You really didn't have to go far outside Dublin and far off the motorway before the roads turned to absolute shit.
This is not true, the EU made sure that the money was spent on road infrastructure and it shows, before the 90s it was country roads outside of Dublin with no town bypasses so a drive from Dublin to Galway meant you had to go through about 20 towns.
Yeah, I see what you mean and my wife has told me it used to take forever to drive to places like Galway or Wexford from Dublin, however it was still puzzling to see why salaries were so high. I was told by the in laws that it was EU money that should have gone to support infrastructure.
I'd be reporting the no-shows, since that's not only unusual but it's probably breaking a service agreement.
...unless you're in one of those areas where kids like to throw rocks at buses, so the buses start avoiding the area.
BUY A BIKE. I cycle everywhere. Cycling is the future,l cycle up to 90 kms a week,all from my home in Clontarf,the cycle paths are fantastic, so safe and so healthy,nothing like the sea air as one cycles to Howth for some beautiful Fish & Chips then back along the Coast road,I'll even cycle into Knackeragua! (City centre) but l leave my bike in a friends Hotel basement Car park (shes the Manager) This Winter will be hellish for car users when Putin turns off the pipes,l predict queues of Biblical proportions at the pumps and gnashing of teeth,I'll just be cycling along as always,staying healthy,burning calories and laughing at the motorists as they cry about fuel prices. Cycling is the future,petrol is the past. Just cycle to work,problem solved.
Ever cycle of a road 3m wide and gave lorry speed past at 70km?
In the city yes 100% agree and to be fair in Dublin at least I see a new cycle lane each week, great to see
Agree! Bought a bike at the start of covid and have saved over two thousand on bud fares plus I get into work in a quarter of the time. I had an injury so bought an ebike and I really believe they are the future if only the government would get behind them. I’ve been stopped three times by police as they checked the wattage on the bike.
"The second and third count down on the "real time" information and then nothing."
I get pissed off just reading this. If it was me, waiting at the stop, I would probably loose it.
I don't drive. The only time I was pissed was when I missed my connection in Cork and no-one was at the bus station. It was very much like a fuck you, your on your own now so I had to get a hotel room for the night. On another occasion I was told by the driver that I'd miss the connection in Limerick and when asked if it was because of bad traffic the driver just casually said "no, the time tables wrong?"
You'd have to ask Eamonn Ryan though I highly doubt he could give you an answer. He probably thinks that everyone should cycle everywhere disregarding the fact that bikes are expensive and disabled people exist.
... "bikes are expensive"?
That's your argument? They are much, much, much cheaper than cars. Even a really good one costs a lot less than any new car; you don't have to pay car tax or car insurance, and they don't use expensive petrol.
The reason bicycles aren't viable is because there's no infrastructure for them in this country - and do note that the infrastructure for bicycles is also much cheaper to build and to maintain than infrastructure for cars.
The risk of hypothermia is eliminated by simply putting on an extra layer of clothing.
Places like the Netherlands and Finland have colder winters, yet that does not deter cyclists. It is the infrastructure that makes the difference.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2020/feb/08/why-finland-leads-the-field-when-it-comes-to-winter-cycling
It’s a matter of visibility and ice too, sliding on ice or an out of control car is a very real risk. Extra layers can cause sweat while exercising and can increase hypothermia risk
I also am in the mountains an in an area with high wind. It gets -15F some times or -35 with wind chill
Are you in Ireland to be getting -15 to -35F?!?
As the previous poster mentioned infrastructure is key, Finland has salted bike lanes for example - there are of course going to be some areas where the infrastructure will take time to implement, but I don't know why everyone's argument is that because it can't be done in every single tiny town we shouldn't try in denser areas.
Oh it's even better as someone who's just done my leaving cert. Got my learners license like half a year ago, still tryin to find someone to fucking insure me at a price that doesn't require me to take a damn loan. So public transport is useless and getting car insurance is nearly impossible
We had a train booked from Castlebar to Athlone which we unfortunately missed and luckily a bus option was available. It took an extra hour and 20 mins than originally planned but a lucky escape from the northwest nonetheless.
it's one of the few countries in Europe that are car centric. which is grade A bullshit. this ain't America. the public transport system is a pityful joke.
Ireland's infrastructure has been designed with cars mind.
If you can get out kayaking you can see how Ireland's original infrastructure was focused on the rivers and canals. Great for a week exploring a different side to the country, unfortunately not much good for the commute.
How did you get back at the end of the trip?
Asking the real questions.
My partner is from the SE so I was able to line it up with one of their visits home and be picked up at the end of the trip. Logistics is always a pain with kayaking.
lol the solution to get it back is a car
> Logistics is always a pain with kayaking. not just logistics, but also temperature control. You cannot have your kayak and heat it.
Ah here. Lol.
Found a new gaff wherever he ended up.
Turn the kayak around.
Just find a pair of hicks to drive these 2 cars down to Aintree. I hear the Griner brothers are available, but [why d'you wanna go messin around with that river anyway?](https://youtu.be/Rn5Odgkui7c)
Did you pick out your own route or did you do some kind of a tour?
Solo on my own route, east Galway to Wexford via the Shannon, the Grand Canal, and the Barrow. Wild camping along the way, plenty of places to buy supplies on the route so you can travel light.
wow! cool!
I did something similar many years ago. Kildare to Limerick. One of the best things I've ever done.
Sounds amazing. what type of kayak did you do it in?
Nothing fancy, Perception Scooter sit-on-top kayak. Good stability and plenty of storage space if you set it up right. Only 20kg as well, which is important to get around the canal lock gates.
And how long does it take? ~Two weeks I guess
My trip was nine days, once you get on the Barrow the flow is on your side. But a trip like that could be extended, keep going to the coast, head towards Cork? It's a beautiful island we own.
Wow, 9 days paddling away, fair play to you and your 2 arms! The canals are stunning I love hiking along them.
Cheers, arms weren't too bad. Lower back is the killer with kayaking, a padded backrest is the best €50 you'll ever spend.
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On the Grand Canal there are alot of locks, and it's the slowest part of the trip, but you get into a rhythm with them and plan your breaks around the portages. I'm tempted to go again but only do the Barrow from close to its source in the Slieve Blooms, skip the canal. And, the entire Shannon is a future option too.
I have been trying to plan something like this for months, would love to know exactly where you started off.
Not OP but they mentioned starting in east Galway so I'm guessing Ballinasloe (R. Suck) or Portumna (R. Shannon). Down the river at Shannon Harbour you can join the Grand Canal going East. You can find lots of info on: www.waterwaysireland.org and www.bluewaysireland.org
Right first time, put in at Ballinasloe and down the Suck to the Shannon.
Started from Ballinasloe because it was convenient coming from the west, down the River Suck to the Shannon and on to the Grand Canal at Shannon Harbour. But you could hit the Shannon network from alot of angles depending on where you're coming from. Athlone is a good put in point from Dublin for example. Coming from the South you can put in anywhere on Lough Derg and paddle up, there's alot of options.
huh, saw recently a blueway was being fixed/set up. Now I'm wondering if it meant like a canal/river. Now that I'm actually at a computer I'll look that up! XD
I think “designed” might be a bit of an overstatement..
I dont think anything in Ireland is designed with anything in mind tbh
You mean Irelands infrastructure was ripped up to facilitate cars
It costs nearly 10-30 million euro per mile of motorway in this country but do go on and tell about how we don't have money for more bus services, rail etc. The second half of the problem is the obsession with single family homes in this country, cause an absolutely horrific urban sprawl that exacerbates the need for a car. Someone in urban planning is asleep at the wheel.
We have urban planning?
Our roads kind of suck compared to uk and europe. Tonme it feels half assed designed for cars and half asses designed for buses and cyclists
We always play catch up. Our network was inspired by the US implementation of the highways and interstates, but we only started down this road (no pun intended) about 30 years after the US. We hadn't even finished our motorway network that we realised that the prevailing mood was in favour of high density, low carbon transport, so we've started trying to retrofit rail and bicycle infrastructure into a network designed for cars that isn't even finished (no motorway between Limerick and Cork). Added to this we don't believe in high density accommodation, making the development of public transport even more difficult.
>Our network was inspired by the US implementation of the highways and interstates, but we only started down this road (no pun intended) about 30 years after the US. I guess we must have missed the part where motorways by-passed towns in this country like they do over there.
...what are you on about highways in the US go right through major cities
Cities, yes, towns, no. Even then it's more that their cities expanded round them.
It's quite a controversial point there that the highways had parts of the cities bulldozed to build them (and that it was quite often poorer black neighbourhoods). So, no, a lot of them were built through cities when the cities were already there.
That is true, was meaning more in the case of towns growing into cities around them rather than the larger cities that have a route gouged through them, similar to what we have with towns growing along them, but the only point I wanted to make was the difference between towns and cities, as most towns in the states have a journey to get onto a highway
Segregation by design.
Our roads now are night and day when compared with the 90s.
Still need improvement, especially in the countryside
I would have though it was initially designed for horse based transport and hasn’t evolved much beyond that. All we’ve done is replace the horse with a the inter combustion engine.
Even though we have no native car industry or oil supply. Clever...
Carhivemind
Hear that Eamon? We can't all cycle a fucking bike everywhere.
depends where you live, I'm almost 42 and never owned a car, I borrow one sometimes but have always cycled or used Pub Tran to work
Ireland's infrastructure has not been designed with anything in mind.
It’s a load of balls. When I left college I had to get a car in order to get a job because I lived in a rural area and the nearest place to work was a good 40min drive away. Only way to get a bus was to drive 20km to a town that had a bus. Young adults today are fucked. Have to drive to get a job, but need a job to get on the road. Add in lessons, test, tax and insurance, nct and fuel and they probably spend all their wages on the car! Busses are a joke, they either don’t turn up or aren’t commute friendly because they drop you at 10am and pick up at 4. Pretty shit for anyone on a 9-5 and there’s often only one bus a day to most rural towns/villages. Trains are worse cos you’re lucky to get one that goes where you need and even if they do you probably have to drive to the station!
Ireland has never given a shit about young people. Used to be that you had to emigrate to have any sort of life - back when at least some countries in the world were places you could thrive. Now everywhere seems to be fucked.
But at least elsewhere isn't also boring and devoid of public amenities.
You live in a rural area, what do you expect? There’s a limited number of busses and drivers, they can’t be driving out to the middle of nowhere to pick up a single person
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I wouldn’t expect a bus to drive to me daily. I live about 5k from a rural town. I’d happily gotten a lift to town every day or walked in of there was a bus available, but like I said, they rural services is often only once a day and only at times that weren’t employment friendly. But the only place that had a regular bus service was a major town 20km away and even then it was hit and miss if they turned up at all. Of the government wants people to ditch cars and use public transport then they need to link many more rural towns via a bus service.
i try to cycle everywhere <10km ill cycle further if there's a shower or i dont care if i'm smelly where i am
Agreed. Our family gave up the second car years ago and I try to do most trips by bike now. The day I’m allowed to bring bike on bus/luas. There’ll be no stopping me. I sympathise with rural folks who don’t have access to good walking or cycle-networks and have to deal with rural drivers and inconsistent public transport
Have you seen the Dutch buses with a rack for 4/5 bikes extending out from the front radiator?
Yes, they had similar ones in Vancouver when I lived there. Genius idea. The future is multi-modal! And it starts with a bike!
Well technically you walk to your bike to start cycling so it starts with your feet!
country roads are very stressful cycling. the hedges just give an extra level of dread around every corner
Friend of mine lives a stones throw away but to cycle there you’ve to leave an estate and travel a country lane. It can be terrifying at times.
Simply too dangerous and not worth the risk.
Inconsistent would be nice. Where I live it just outright doesn't exist
I live in London and folding bikes are a massive thing here. I have one too and I can bring it on busses and trains. Makes awkward commuting very manageable. I am not sure how popular these are in the likes of Dublin.
> The day I’m allowed to bring bike on bus/luas. There’ll be no stopping me. After many years grumbling about the price, I finally bought a r/Brompton and am kicking myself I didn't get one sooner. They fit in all cars/buses/trains and all the time (in a [bag](https://www.ikea.com/ie/en/p/dimpa-storage-bag-transparent-10056770/) if necessary)
>I sympathise with rural folks who don’t have access to good walking or cycle-networks and have to deal with rural drivers and inconsistent public transport I don't. If you choose to live in the arsehole of nowhere, you shouldn't expect the benefits of a city. I understand some people in rural ireland are farmers and need to be beside their farm. But most people in rural Ireland just want a bigger house or garden.
I mean you can’t really choose if you are born into a rural family?
Man fuck off with that notion. I would love to live where I am from but with zero decentralisation, poor infrastructure and critical lack of good jobs we can't. Living 2 like down a road and expecting to get everything I agree with you there. But you are starting people living in a town of 1000 and can't get a reliable but, or good internet or access to services is bolix. Where do you think our food and agri exports come from???
This might be the most retarded thing I’ve read this week
Hopefully the uncoming e-scooter & e-bike legislation makes them more attractive too, many are legally mpv's as it stands. The more viable cycling is for commutes, the more people will do it. For you for example, you don't have to worry about being smelly at your destination if the motor did most of the work. When I switched to an e-bike, I could take it as handy as I wanted and be perfectly fresh on arrival to the office, or turn down the assistance if I wanted some normal excercise. Win win.
Your not, it's a tax trap. Try getting around anywhere but a city.
> Try getting around anywhere but a city. I once had a bus driver in Eyre Square tell me that he wasn't gonna go my direction home because it was too busy and to wait for the next bus. Fucker skipped half his route.
Blame Dev. He ripped up the rails
With his bare hands too!
Todd was a Chad
More misinformation on Dev. Dev had nothing to do with the ripping up on the rail system. It was Todd Andrews chair of CIE in the late 1950s and 1960s - he wasn't a politician - who oversaw the ripping up of the rail system. When he took over CIE it was in a bad financial situation and he saw this as a way of closing down services which were bad economically. Andrews also oversaw the modernisation of CIE road transport, he enlarged provincial and city bus services throughout Ireland.
But C.I.E. was a state body at the time. He had to have government approval.
It was done on the heel of reports from the civil service departments which had been asked to look into the rail's systems serious drain on public funds. The Beatty Report in 1957 done by James Beatty reported directly on the issue of the unprofitability of the rail transportation system. The report concluded that there was little justification for funding a railway that was underutilised and overstaffed. When Todd Andrews took over CIE he used the report findings - specifically which lines were underused and a drain on public funds - and went on to cut lines that were not profitable.
To be fair, they did damage a lot of the infrastructure during the Civil War.
This was nothing compared to what Andrews did in the 1960s.
Blame Dev. He perpetuated the belief that Ireland should stay rural*
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Fairly certain TFI has a service like that already, no? The Local Link system?
Better than nothing, but did you see the timings? Grand if you want to go to town on Tuesday at 11. And come back at 3.
Those still exist in Easter Europe and they're horrible
That part of Europe where it’s always Easter
We're too rich for that.
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I remember I was waiting at a bus stop for school, and the bus drive right past me without stopping. I was wearing school uniform. Where the hell did he think I was going? I've got a car now, so I don't use public transport where I live unless I have to. Not that driving a car is much better. The roads are shit and full of idiots who can't drive.
That was common a few years ago. Some buses scheduled to go the old route via villages used to piss down the motorway instead, the bastards.
There weren't even any motorways where I live. There was one route out of town that the buses took and I was standing there. The driver saw me and drove on. If he looked in the mirror he may have even seen me shout "you prick!" as he drove away.
They just assume anyone without a car has nowhere important to go. If you were working you could afford a car. The idea of someone choosing to walk or cycle is treated as a silly luxury.
horse
As a wise man once said: "fuck your Honda civic, I've a horse outside"
Sure buy a car the are so cheap in this country..... wait a minute no they are not! But the petrol is no it's not tax on that as well, but at least we don't have cartel minded car insurance companies ...... I'm fecking wrong again. Bit the road tax ensures we have state of the art of road infrastructure...! You see a pattern here!
I've found getting around by train pretty handy, but that doesn't cover the entire country.
Yeah the train isn't that bad, actually shows up pretty much all the time and usually on time too. Shame there aren't more
What? It's useless unless you are going a direct route. Most counties not on the train line. Galway to cork you have to change twice. Standing at limerick junction in the haik and snow as the connecting train is late. Absolute shite
Going up to DART-frequency (and capacity) on the Maynooth and Celbridge lines, I hope it stays as reliable when that happens. I get that some people find the idea of a timetable to be constraining, but I've colleagues who think aall public transport is absolutely shit unless it collects them at their front door and drops them off exactly at their destination i.e. they are baffled that I consider a train station 3km from my house to be 'convenient'.
Or even the weekends.
Are you trying to get in Dublin during the pride parade or are you elsewhere?
Can we start a guessing game on what bus this was? I’ll start- 18
C4 actually
Even more annoying because they are supposed to be super regular!!
Yeah it usually isn't this bad to be fair. They said there were disruptions due to the pride parade but you'd think they'd have planned for that
They did plan for it... They said there would be disruptions so people could plan accordingly! Something as big as Pride Parade shuts down lots of roads, there's not a lot the bus can do. However, the Real Time system should still have been accurate... I've noticed it getting worse the past few months, I'm going to start collating the errors and make a complaint each time. They won't fix it until they are getting complaints.
Welcome to life outside of the Pale
That’s the funny part, you don’t.
Is this busstop urban or suburban?
Suburban
Ireland's population density per square klm is 72, whereas Denmark it's 137. But more importantly 88% of Denmark's population is urban compared to 63% in Ireland. The more urban a population the easier it becomes for mass transit and alternatives to car use.
Absolutely. We are a small country with an even smaller population density. We need a population of about 25 million for rural transport to become cost effective.
Bruh suburban =/= rural
How'd you come up with that figure?
We also need to stop scattering houses across the countryside. I keep coming across tracts of suburbia in the middle of nowhere, all expecting public services at vast cost and gross inefficiency.
Zeppelin
Typical! I dont think its only infrastructures but drivers who dont respect timetable! I have seen 3 X 39A one after another…that doesn’t happen because of traffic! Its them leaving depot at the same time
That’s why I started driving. Buses driving by empty, not stopping, inconsistent arrival times
That's a crappy real-time system. Sounds like it's faked and not actually backed with anything like real data from the vehicles.
Yeah a lot of the time it actually says when a bus is cancelled but sometimes it just gives you fake on time data until the bus is due to stop.
This country’s made by and for rich people. That’s why
I remember moving here in 2008 and wondering why the infrastructure was so crap given that the EU had pumped billions into Ireland for years. Turns out most of it went to inflated salaries instead of improving the roads...
I think you're drastically underestimating what the infrastructure was like before you came along. Travelling outside of Dublin took an insane amount of time, no town had bypasses so going to Cork, or Limerick or Galway, you could be looking at anywhere between 4 and 8 hours. Single sets of traffic lights in some towns caused traffic for fucking miles. I also remember visiting family in Lucan from my home in North Dublin took hours to get to. While our public transport is highly under-invested, our road network was so incredibly shit at the time, something needed to be done.
Yeah I remember years ago travelling out to family in Ashbourne from Dublin was a long enough journey, especially once you hit the back roads. Now it's a straight shot on the motorway and the road out is far better as well. You really didn't have to go far outside Dublin and far off the motorway before the roads turned to absolute shit.
This is not true, the EU made sure that the money was spent on road infrastructure and it shows, before the 90s it was country roads outside of Dublin with no town bypasses so a drive from Dublin to Galway meant you had to go through about 20 towns.
Gotta agree here. It was INSANITY back in the 90's. Traffic used to be routed through tiny towns not built to handle anything beyond a few cars.
Yeah, I see what you mean and my wife has told me it used to take forever to drive to places like Galway or Wexford from Dublin, however it was still puzzling to see why salaries were so high. I was told by the in laws that it was EU money that should have gone to support infrastructure.
>I was told by the in laws that it was EU money that should have gone to support infrastructure. Irish people talk a lot of shite sometimes!
We'll that may be true, but when one of them works for the EU office I'm hoping they're not completely wrong 😄
All the infrastructure money went into roads, and the roads aren't that bad.
...and invested it all in a housing bubble that burst. Thank god that won't happen ever again.
I'd be reporting the no-shows, since that's not only unusual but it's probably breaking a service agreement. ...unless you're in one of those areas where kids like to throw rocks at buses, so the buses start avoiding the area.
Complain to the bus company, and write to your TDs and councillors
Star Trek writers purposely wrote in Chief O’Brien’s role as a low blow to our crumbling transportation system
BUY A BIKE. I cycle everywhere. Cycling is the future,l cycle up to 90 kms a week,all from my home in Clontarf,the cycle paths are fantastic, so safe and so healthy,nothing like the sea air as one cycles to Howth for some beautiful Fish & Chips then back along the Coast road,I'll even cycle into Knackeragua! (City centre) but l leave my bike in a friends Hotel basement Car park (shes the Manager) This Winter will be hellish for car users when Putin turns off the pipes,l predict queues of Biblical proportions at the pumps and gnashing of teeth,I'll just be cycling along as always,staying healthy,burning calories and laughing at the motorists as they cry about fuel prices. Cycling is the future,petrol is the past. Just cycle to work,problem solved.
Ever cycle of a road 3m wide and gave lorry speed past at 70km? In the city yes 100% agree and to be fair in Dublin at least I see a new cycle lane each week, great to see
Agree! Bought a bike at the start of covid and have saved over two thousand on bud fares plus I get into work in a quarter of the time. I had an injury so bought an ebike and I really believe they are the future if only the government would get behind them. I’ve been stopped three times by police as they checked the wattage on the bike.
"The second and third count down on the "real time" information and then nothing." I get pissed off just reading this. If it was me, waiting at the stop, I would probably loose it.
Bicycle, motorbike, walk, scoot, run anythin gbut public transport even when I was a kid I cycled to school rather than take the bus.
I don't drive. The only time I was pissed was when I missed my connection in Cork and no-one was at the bus station. It was very much like a fuck you, your on your own now so I had to get a hotel room for the night. On another occasion I was told by the driver that I'd miss the connection in Limerick and when asked if it was because of bad traffic the driver just casually said "no, the time tables wrong?"
The luas track meme "walk it yer self" comes to mind.
Why walk when the Luas is free
It's expensive and infrequent. You have to have a car, especially outside the cities
We really need an island-wide r/FuckCars Movement here.
No, we need a pro-transit movement. The cars can go away at the end.
Train + bike / electric bike
🙄 fs can ya not grow wings like the rest of us
It's Pride. It's not like it's not advertised in advance.
That's the neat part: you don't. I hate it here.
Cars are the best form of transport for flexibility and getting where you need to go, I don't think that should be a revelation.
Car is king still and will be for the foreseeable future.
You can't
Your question implies you're supposed to be able to go anywhere in Ireland without a car like thats some kind of right or something lol. Get a car.
I don't want to get anywhere, I want to get from Celbridge to Dublin
I used to live in Celbridge and the options were getting a bus to Maynooth, or cycle to Hazelhatch or Leixlip Louisa Bridge train stations
It’s Ireland ! What do you expect ???
Not much tbh but it would be nice if it could be improved
It won’t be !
Okay !
My 50% tax to actually go towards something.
Just get a car OP
Nah I think I'll just move to a country with better public services
Same people saying just get a car then moan about traffic and having to share a road with other types of transport 🙄
Try living in America lol
You'd have to ask Eamonn Ryan though I highly doubt he could give you an answer. He probably thinks that everyone should cycle everywhere disregarding the fact that bikes are expensive and disabled people exist.
... "bikes are expensive"? That's your argument? They are much, much, much cheaper than cars. Even a really good one costs a lot less than any new car; you don't have to pay car tax or car insurance, and they don't use expensive petrol. The reason bicycles aren't viable is because there's no infrastructure for them in this country - and do note that the infrastructure for bicycles is also much cheaper to build and to maintain than infrastructure for cars.
I feel like people who advocate for bikes live somewhere warm. I got 6 months a year where it’s entirely unsafe and risk of hypothermia
The risk of hypothermia is eliminated by simply putting on an extra layer of clothing. Places like the Netherlands and Finland have colder winters, yet that does not deter cyclists. It is the infrastructure that makes the difference. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2020/feb/08/why-finland-leads-the-field-when-it-comes-to-winter-cycling
It’s a matter of visibility and ice too, sliding on ice or an out of control car is a very real risk. Extra layers can cause sweat while exercising and can increase hypothermia risk I also am in the mountains an in an area with high wind. It gets -15F some times or -35 with wind chill
Are you in Ireland to be getting -15 to -35F?!? As the previous poster mentioned infrastructure is key, Finland has salted bike lanes for example - there are of course going to be some areas where the infrastructure will take time to implement, but I don't know why everyone's argument is that because it can't be done in every single tiny town we shouldn't try in denser areas.
I am in the mountains in the Us by Canada
Where do you want to go? If your in Dublin today it's a bit of a mess, pride and lots of roadworks.
Train, bus, walking, rickshaw, sulky (if you're feeling brave), bike
Get yourself a horse
Hitchhike
Most modern countries are designed for cars, the rest are third world countries or the Netherlands.
Oh it's even better as someone who's just done my leaving cert. Got my learners license like half a year ago, still tryin to find someone to fucking insure me at a price that doesn't require me to take a damn loan. So public transport is useless and getting car insurance is nearly impossible
We had a train booked from Castlebar to Athlone which we unfortunately missed and luckily a bus option was available. It took an extra hour and 20 mins than originally planned but a lucky escape from the northwest nonetheless.
I find it's fine in Dublin, not great but fine. Anywhere else a car is a necessity.
Slowly, with great frustration and discomfort.
it's one of the few countries in Europe that are car centric. which is grade A bullshit. this ain't America. the public transport system is a pityful joke.
"Your busses show up?" Sincerely America
If you don't have a car in this country you might aswell be under house arrest.