[MrX]

I've heard there was some comment made that too much money was being spent on non-Dublin projects in response to some comment made by George Hook about the fact that Cork's tunnel basically works quite well.

I really can't see how anyone in their right mind could even begin to argue that there's too much money being spent outside Dublin. The national transport infrastructure is still 20 to 50 years behind our nearest E.U. neighbours. Our cities outside of Dublin mostly have public transport that ranges from pathetic to non-existant.

As for the success of Cork's road projects, much of that had to do with a strict adherence to the various Cork transport and land use plans. The original Cork Land Usage and Transport Scheme (unfortunately named CLUTS) and 2020 Vision etc.

I would agree that Dublin does need more spent to improve its transport problems, but I don't think that it's being caused by too much money being spent outside the pale. We just need to generally up the capitol spend in the capital and make sure that the projects are actually value for money and not just pay the entire kitty out to South Dublin landowners as new projects are built. M50 south was a total disgrace.

Dublin's planning is at a stage that is almost beyond help. Public transport is being considered as an afterthought and as a reaction to congestion. If we don't get a change in mindset in Dublin and serious thought put into transport planning, the city might as well give up.

To use some management jargon, it's time to get proactive!

As for the talk of introduction of more competition - I would say that the primary problem isn't lack of competition it's the fact that the transport market's been monopolised by an unimaginative, bureaucratic, unreactive, underfunded, and grossly incompetant national transport company. The major issue is tackling CIE's complete inability to actually do the job it was constituted to do. If that means introducing more private operators, fair enough. However, I don't think we need to go down the road of competition purely for the sake of following a neoliberal agenda. It's largely been a disaster in the UK and some of the most effective public transport systems in the world operate as publically funded monopolies.

It's all very well to talk about competition but just look at the ticket prices in the greater london area since the introduction of private operators. They're really pushing them to levels that are making public transport very unattractive.

Sorry if the post is a bit of a rant. But, I really do think that we need to move the media beyond simplistic arguments about transport. The level of debate is, quite frankly, at an almost fox news low.