Comments on: Why Ireland’s Minister for Transport Needs a Copy of the Transition Handbook

By: joe

joe — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 19:31:39 +0000

I went and looked into this a bit more,and it looks like they (dublin bus)are cutting out buses on routes which are severely underused.
Friends i spoke to in dublin said that there are loads of empty buses driving round all day,empty bus lanes alongside gridlocked traffic,and dublin bus are losing ten million euro a year.Of course,if all the people in all the cars in said gridlocked traffic could be persuaded to use the bus instead,neither problem should exist!
One of the problems here in ireland(And we have a few….)is that the car is still symbolic of our new found ‘wealth’,and it will take a lot of persuasion to get people to give them up.And that brings me back to my previous post,outside of a few major towns and cities,the public transport infrastructure to even allow people to give up the car is not in place,and is still a very long way off

By: Maria Gomez

Maria Gomez — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 14:54:59 +0000

Don´t know how you´re doing up there in Ireland but these people in Cuba are living in complete MISERY, the so called exemplary health system is a scam, they do teach good med school, making sure students master the techniques of 40 years ago, and then when they go to the hospitals they cannot perform because there are no supplies, due to lack of money. Aaaand if you wanted to be a doctor but the State considers you´ll be better profited from as a farmer, you´ll be nowhere near a stetoscope. People are just resources allocated where 1 person with total control decides.
Inhabitants over there love their land and their cultures as anyone does, but they have been desperate to get out those abnormal limitations ever since they were violently imposed on them.
I don´t think that country should be a model to follow anyhow.

By: Mark O'Sullivan

Mark O'Sullivan — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:02:50 +0000

At least our minister for energy, Eammon Ryan, is peak-oil aware and participated in the Fuelling the Future conference in Kinsale back in ’05.

He’s been able to implement a few tweaks since getting in, like removing planning restrictions on bio-digesters and windmills but being the junior party in government has made the Greens something bordering on the green figleaf for the political wing of the building industry, Fianna Fáil.

By: Eoin O'Callaghan

Eoin O'Callaghan — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:01:25 +0000

I too live in Cork in Ireland and I am a frequent user of the public transport system. Only a few minutes ago I read an article in my local paper of how by mid-2009 Bus Eireann in Cork intend to have GPS systems on their buses so commuters can be informed by text message as to the exact location of the bus they are waiting for! How much does this system cost and why the hell are they spending the money on it if they are cutting back on the actual service? “ONE MESSAGE RECIEVED – THE BUS U R WAITING 4 DOES NOT EXIST.” I’ve just about given up watching the news because the antics of the Irish Government have become so absurd that, while I never had much faith in them to begin with, I now feel that we have no leadership at all in this country – ZERO! I very much agree with Rob’s argument in the Transition Handbook of how we should make transition initiatives electable for our politicians as this is the scale at which action needs to happen, but I really feel this vision or even the ability to understand the fundamental issues is quite beyond them. I’m sure many people in the UK must be feeling the same, given the recent decision by their government to give the go-ahead for the expansion of Heathrow.

By: Banjojim

Banjojim — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:38:53 +0000

Add to buses: post offices, local shops, green space, allotments (London 2012) local healthcare, maternity services etc. Its maddening to see good local infrastructre dissapearing only a couple of years before it will become essential to local resilliance and in some cases survival. A new Beeching railway episode, if you like. What are we doing instead? Buidling Terminal 3. Although I doubt it will ever be started, thankfully.

By: David Eggleton

David Eggleton — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:25:00 +0000

One one hand, Joe seems right about it being “time to increase spending on a proper public transport infrastructure.” On the other hand, the right time for that, tragically, may have been a decade, or several decades, ago.

For choosing among investments now, I think it’s best to first focus on and “lock in” what is most certain and reliable (c&r) for the long run, then add what’s slightly less c&r, then add what’s slightly less c&r, again and again, until nothing that can be added looks c&r.

So for localized transport: our feet on the ground, our feet on wheels, our feet on pedals, our hands on poles, paddles and oars, our hands on lines attached to sails, our hands on reins……

By: joe

joe — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:05:29 +0000

It’s such a short-sighted idea to take any buses off the roads.
Here in cork,they’ve just re-introduced double-decker buses
on some routes,and even now,at peak times,you’ll be lucky to get
on.I’ve often sat on the bus home,and it passes five or six stops,with loads more people waiting to get on,and the bus being full just passes by.Nows the time to increase spending on a proper public transport infrastructure,more buses,not less.Instead all i see are moaning reports on how badly the motor trade is doing.