Dublin and Public Transport

[Green]

The main problem in the greater dublin area seems to be the lack of land use & transport planning. A report was produced for Min/Transport Martin Cullen in Nov '06 regarding the establishment of a Dublin Transport Authority. It recommended that local authorities could refuse developments where no adequate transport existed. This recommendation was not accepted by Min Cullen as he cited that it would intefere with "democratic accountability" in other words elected offcials would not take instructions from unelected officials. The legilsation to set up the DTA will be published before christmas. It will be interesting to see what it says on this point esp with the Greens now in Government.

 

[dontaskme]

In Germany, higher population densities and very strict zoning laws makes it easier for them to organise decent public transport. Not that it doesn't have its problems. There's also a discussion there about privitising Deutsche Bahn, and one of the big arguements is whether the rail network should be included in the privatisation. Hopefully it won't be.

DB traindrivers are on strike in Germany today and tomorrow so it doesn't always run smoothly.

I used to live in Bray and I had to get a bus to work when I had a football injury. The bus depo was just down the road and the busstop was the second on the route and was just outside the house. Buses were scheduled for every 20 minutes but sometimes I would be getting ready to leave the house and I would see the bus going past two or three minutes early so I would have to wait 20+ minutes for the next.

If I was there on time the bus would be likely to be 10 minutes late, so they might as well not have had a timetable.

I wrote letters to Dublin Bus about it but there was never any improvement.