Varadkar pulls plug on Metro West

James Howard · 27-09-2011, 07:11

Why do they always feel the need to solve problems in Ireland by ignoring them? Rather than deal with problems like drivers not opening all the doors, or buses going out in bunches because the drivers like to chat at the terminus, they just set up another entire organisation to run a few bus routes. I suppose it gives the government a nice well-paid CEO job and a few board positions to hand out to their cronies.

The result of this will be further fragmentation of the Dublin transport network. No wonder it takes more development effort and processing power than Facebook to produce and integrated ticketing system for Dublin.

The dedicated busway idea makes a lot of sense - certainly a lot more than Metro North ever did. There is nothing wrong with buses as a transport solution aside from the Irish obsession with the "buses are for losers" meme. So maybe you can fool them by tarting a bus up to make it look like a tram. What ever happened to the 39 express route? I used to take the 39 in from the NCR about 15 years ago and they had the ability to force traffic light changes back then. That service worked really well - it was pretty frequent and was fast than a bicycle which is saying something for public transport in Dublin.

There is no point in pouring billions into attempting to solve the transport problems for just one area for once and for all. It makes a lot more sense to find a lower-cost method that has a more widespread application even if it is only a stopgap. If you take the original inflated 6 billion Metro North estimate at face value, you could pretty much buy the entire town for Swords for that now. Now the figure was exaggerated, but probably not by more than double and that is an absurd amount of money to be spending on delivering transport to an area.

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27-09-2011, 07:11	#9
James Howard Really Really Regluar Poster Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Sligo Line Posts: 1,115	Why do they always feel the need to solve problems in Ireland by ignoring them? Rather than deal with problems like drivers not opening all the doors, or buses going out in bunches because the drivers like to chat at the terminus, they just set up another entire organisation to run a few bus routes. I suppose it gives the government a nice well-paid CEO job and a few board positions to hand out to their cronies. The result of this will be further fragmentation of the Dublin transport network. No wonder it takes more development effort and processing power than Facebook to produce and integrated ticketing system for Dublin. The dedicated busway idea makes a lot of sense - certainly a lot more than Metro North ever did. There is nothing wrong with buses as a transport solution aside from the Irish obsession with the "buses are for losers" meme. So maybe you can fool them by tarting a bus up to make it look like a tram. What ever happened to the 39 express route? I used to take the 39 in from the NCR about 15 years ago and they had the ability to force traffic light changes back then. That service worked really well - it was pretty frequent and was fast than a bicycle which is saying something for public transport in Dublin. There is no point in pouring billions into attempting to solve the transport problems for just one area for once and for all. It makes a lot more sense to find a lower-cost method that has a more widespread application even if it is only a stopgap. If you take the original inflated 6 billion Metro North estimate at face value, you could pretty much buy the entire town for Swords for that now. Now the figure was exaggerated, but probably not by more than double and that is an absurd amount of money to be spending on delivering transport to an area.