Car share scheme

padraig glas

I think this carpark levy is a fantastic idea. There are people who need a car for work to go out on business, but it makes no sense for every idiot to bring their car into work to do this. Far more sensible is waht happens in every other European city where commercial companies provide carshare scheme which provide cars for short term rent say one hour - half a day. Businesses use this service during the day and city apartment dwellers at night. in germany and switzerland this reduces the need for 15 carsfor every car provided by carshare company. It is hard to get these schemes going unless there is positive incentives like the carpark levy. Everybody benefits from the reduced carparking as the huge area taken up the car parking can be used to create decent public spaces green areas etc.This tax is actually the one visionary part of the budget and should be extended to residential car spaces attached to houses. In fact one was recently set up in cork. This is the way we need to go in the future.

L1011

Provide me with public transport that takes less than 4 times the drive for my daily commute, and I'll give up my car. A 30 minute each-way drive is in no way unsustainable distance wise, but the two hours it takes on public transport is.

Otherwise, cut the Green Party nonsense, please. We do not have viable public transport in this country for the vast majority of private car journeys, simple as.

Also, these car share companies never have enough vehicles for peak demand times - bank holidays, etc - without keeping so many vehicles on the road so as to make them financially unviable.

padraig glas

dont get the bit about bank holidays, if you need a car for a bankholiday weekend you rent one through the normal car hire companies. The software for these carshare schemes is quiet sophisticated so cars are ramped up as needs be. Of course they dont work to optimum levels yet because there is not the take up, which brings us back precisly as to why we need to penalise car spaces.
As for the carbon emissions, the construction of an urban carspace produces the equivalent of up to 15 years of car emissions because of the concrete . The space required in cities to provide for car spaces and access roads is astronomical. One study suggests that in a car dependant city like dublin up to seven carspaces are required per car. This is aproximatly 150sqm not counting the roads. Contrast that with average living space per person in Ireland 30sqm and you will see where I am going.
I am really fed up with this argument alos that as there is no public transport I am not giving up my car. The reason there is no public transport is because Irish people have never demanded it. I am convinced that rather the only way to get them to give the car is to truly crucify them. Then they would not make ridiculous decisions about where they live. Anybody who chooses to live where there is no public transport is rather shortsighted. The only reason developer built commuter houses in inaccessible place is because people choose to buy them. Yes people might have had to choose a small house in order to remain close to public trasport (which does exist)or within cycling distance. Instead people chose to have the front and back garden in a 4 bed in carlow. I cannot have a lot of sympathy. There was also the option to rent until the ridiculous and unsustainable hosuing bubble ended.

L1011

Where are they 'ramped up' from? Do they have acres of cars sitting unused at other times of the year? Remember that most of the environmental impact of a car is in its construction. As goes being expected to hire one from another source - if you are a member of a car share scheme as an alternative to owning your own car, it is a perfectly justifiable expectation for them to be able to provide you a car; considering one you own would be there for you no matter what time of year it is.

My house is not in an "inaccessible place" - Maynooth, which has two high frequency bus routes and a train line. Neither is my workplace - Tallaght, with many bus routes and a tram line.

However, due to the atrocious transport system this city has there is no direct, or close to direct link between them - both only have links to the city centre. We have no radial transport, unlike virtually every other city in the western world. As a result it takes about two hours at peak - and longer off-peak due to longer wait times - to travel between them via the city centre.

The construction of my parking space in work required throwing some asphalt down on the roof of the basement, in what is required to be 'open space' around the building by planning laws. My office building was built on a brownfield site; in an area which has been 'developed' since it was Tallaght Aerodrome in the 1910s.

If Gormley can explain to me why a suburb developed from the 1960s (Maynooth) has absolutely no transport links to a not particularly distant suburb also developed from the 1960s (Tallaght); and why a parking space which caused no extra land take should be taxed I'd be very interested to hear reasonings on both.

As goes taxing car spaces at peoples residences - I'd suspect that not even the Green Party would ever be that insane. Particularly as I've never met a GP member that doesn't actually have a car.

And if this ridiculous plan goes through for areas which cannot be classed as cities and where 2 hour journeys are classed as 'viable alternatives', I'll just give up my parking space and use one in the vast quantities of empty factories around my office block. A For Sale sign just went up on one across the road, it'll be empty by Christmas and I can't see it being sold this side of the recession....

peasant

discussion spilt off from the budget thread, new thread created

-Chris-

padraig glas wrote: »

I am convinced that rather the only way to get them to give the car is to truly crucify them. Then they would not make ridiculous decisions about where they live.

I think this is an absolutely ridiculous statement and I'm offended by the fact that you feel you or anyone has the right to "crucify" me for choosing a car rather than public transport.

Motoring is expensive, it's a luxury. We all pay taxes on taxes for that privilege. There are some cases where I'd happily take public transport and some where the suggestion is absurd. Generic crucifixion is pointless.

padraig glas wrote: »

Anybody who chooses to live where there is no public transport is rather shortsighted.

It would certainly concern me if I was buying in a place where there was limited public transport. I'd have to weigh the work/life balance of long commuting times against other factors such as the cost of the property and the quality of life of having a larger property in a less dense development.

padraig glas wrote: »

The only reason developer built commuter houses in inaccessible place is because people choose to buy them.

The reason any particular developer built where they built was because:
a) they already owned the land, bought up in cheaper times
b) they got planning permission from a planning authority that thought it was a good idea to have 300 houses in an estate off a backroad with no existing or planned public transport support network


I completely agree with the intention of reducing the amount of commuter traffic, but you've got to target the "casual" commuters rather than the people doing it through necessity, or you've got to decentralise so that everyone's not all heading the same direction at the same time (but we know how that went, don't we...).

bikki

padraig glas wrote: »

I think this carpark levy is a fantastic idea. There are people who need a car for work to go out on business, but it makes no sense for every idiot to bring their car into work to do this. Far more sensible is waht happens in every other European city where commercial companies provide carshare scheme which provide cars for short term rent say one hour - half a day. Businesses use this service during the day and city apartment dwellers at night. in germany and switzerland this reduces the need for 15 carsfor every car provided by carshare company. It is hard to get these schemes going unless there is positive incentives like the carpark levy. Everybody benefits from the reduced carparking as the huge area taken up the car parking can be used to create decent public spaces green areas etc.This tax is actually the one visionary part of the budget and should be extended to residential car spaces attached to houses. In fact one was recently set up in cork. This is the way we need to go in the future.

You my good sir are talking out of your arse.

-Chris-

padraig glas wrote: »

I think this carpark levy is a fantastic idea. There are people who need a car for work to go out on business, but it makes no sense for every idiot ...
...This is the way we need to go in the future.

I think this scheme will work fine for a high density population (major city with apartments & businesses in a high-rise format). You're living near work (walking or train distance) so you don't need to own a car. You just rent when you need to go on a route not served by public transport.
I've seen this work in San Francisco too with the Zip car scheme.

I don't see how it'll work for a sprawling, unplanned metropolis like Dublin/Cork or for any of the extra-urban populations.
I'd also be surprised if any of the extra-urban populations in Switzerland or Germany participate in the car-rental scheme you're referring to.

HJL

Good point OP, I think i will sell my car tomorrow and just hop on the Luas that stops outside my front door in rural Donegal and drops me up the road to Letterkenny.

You are talking poo poo.

smash

If i got public transport it would take me over 2 hours to get to work, walking isn't an option, cycling would take me about an hour and a bit but driving takes me 15mins because I live just beside a slip road to the M50. I shouldn't be crucified for making my day a bit easier, cut the Green part bullsh1t - this is almost as bad as the letter someone sent into the editor of the Metro about 2 weeks ago suggesting that the whole of Dublin West should be 100% cycle lanes inc the M50 because traffic congestion was too bad over there... wtf?

padraig glas

I may be talking out my arse but unfortunaltly for you every urban and transport planner in Europe is in full agreement with me. If you would like to check out the EU trasport policy I am afraid you are in for a bit of shock. Essentialy the car as a mass form of transport os over. Unfortunaly we are rather backward and insular here and because we only speak english only see the American , British and Uk examples all car based suburban sprawl. Our form of spatial planning owes more to US forms of dispersed sprawl. My viewpoint has nothing to do with being a green supporter.
Unfortunatly basing urban planning on the car has made it impossible for Dublin to have a proper transport system . Whether you like that or not we have no choice but to reverse this and that reversal will be painful for you. This means making cities denser but more attractive. This means less cars more quality family apartments, better public spaces, more green spaces, safer streets where kids can play not car spaces. Tax is simply one way of driving this.
Yes we can blame our planners policticians for the mess we are in now, however we elected the polictician in our own images. The planners only implemented what the politicians thought you wanted. Unfortunatly if the politicians are getting it right for once then the silly backward car drivers who bought into that lifestyle will have to pay and pay. What do you expect to happen when peak oil really hits. It really is for your own good in the end.

bikki

In full agreement with you? I think you'll find your in full agreement with them.

And lets not forget these are people who given half a chance would ban cars all together and have us cycling everywhere.

smash

padraig glas wrote: »

Tax is simply one way of driving this.

Are you suggesting yet another car tax hike... for the whole country to suffer, just to get a few cars out of Dublin?

Here's a solution - if you don't like driving in Dublin, then just don't do it and let other people do what they want!

L1011

Every transport planner agrees with you? Do they now?

Prove that, please.

I pay probably a few thousand a year in tax on my motoring (annualising VRT over 4 years). I didn't vote for any of the current government, although I did obviously vote. They can fix the almighty mess of public transport with the tax they already have from me rather than taxing me more and not providing any solutions. Pay now, have at some unspecified date in the distant future isn't going to cut it.

Anyway, even with T21 fully done, its still going to require two transport modes (bus then Metro West) for me to get to work, and I suspect this might still take three times as long as driving - better than the 4 it currently takes. Our future transport planning is still muck.

Also, sanctimonious lecturing ("It really is for your own good") is exactly why the GP have a reputation for being useless meddlers.

peasant

padraig glas wrote: »

Unfortunatly basing urban planning on the car ...
The planners only implemented what the politicians thought you wanted.

What a load of ....

Planning? What planning?

In this country there was never anything planned "to the car" or to what we all wanted. It was "planned" to brown envelopes and greed.

In fact there never was a plan of any kind.

This is why there has to be an alternative first, before you start banning the car and not the other way round.

-Chris-

padraig glas wrote: »

Yes we can blame our planners policticians for the mess we are in now, however we elected the polictician in our own images. The planners only implemented what the politicians thought you wanted. Unfortunatly if the politicians are getting it right for once then the silly backward car drivers who bought into that lifestyle will have to pay and pay. What do you expect to happen when peak oil really hits. It really is for your own good in the end.

But do you not see the chicken-and-egg of your argument?

People wouldn't need cars if they lived in high-quality, high-density schemes within a city. Then you punitively tax the people who choose to use cars unnecessarily.

If you're going to tax people off the roads, you need somewhere for them to go!


Edit: Peasant beat me to it

padraig glas

HJL wrote: »

Good point OP, I think i will sell my car tomorrow and just hop on the Luas that stops outside my front door in rural Donegal and drops me up the road to Letterkenny.

You are talking poo poo.

Well an Letterkenny is surely an excellent example of what I am talking about which is really bad car dependent planning. Letterkenny is an example of how we have planned, a mindless ugly sprawl where the car is the only option. Again are we not better to encourage people to desert badly planned communities like this for well planned towns and cities.

Tipsy Mac

Unfortunatly the €200 levy is to be payed by the employer so it will have little or no impact whatsoever on traffic particularly those of civil servants who drafted the legislation in the first place and avoided any levy themselves as the government is their employer.

Del2005

padraig glas wrote: »

dont get the bit about bank holidays, if you need a car for a bankholiday weekend you rent one through the normal car hire companies. The software for these carshare schemes is quiet sophisticated so cars are ramped up as needs be. Of course they dont work to optimum levels yet because there is not the take up, which brings us back precisly as to why we need to penalise car spaces.
As for the carbon emissions, the construction of an urban carspace produces the equivalent of up to 15 years of car emissions because of the concrete . The space required in cities to provide for car spaces and access roads is astronomical. One study suggests that in a car dependant city like dublin up to seven carspaces are required per car. This is aproximatly 150sqm not counting the roads. Contrast that with average living space per person in Ireland 30sqm and you will see where I am going.
I am really fed up with this argument alos that as there is no public transport I am not giving up my car. The reason there is no public transport is because Irish people have never demanded it. I am convinced that rather the only way to get them to give the car is to truly crucify them. Then they would not make ridiculous decisions about where they live. Anybody who chooses to live where there is no public transport is rather shortsighted. The only reason developer built commuter houses in inaccessible place is because people choose to buy them. Yes people might have had to choose a small house in order to remain close to public trasport (which does exist)or within cycling distance. Instead people chose to have the front and back garden in a 4 bed in carlow. I cannot have a lot of sympathy. There was also the option to rent until the ridiculous and unsustainable hosuing bubble ended.

Have you seen our public transport at rush hour? It's jam packed with people. How are all the car drivers that you are going to tax off the road get onto these buses/trains/trams. It's a miracle no one has been crushed to death on some of our great public transport.

The reason why people live in areas with no public transport is due to corruption in our planning system. If the government and local councils had properly laid out development plans and not brown envelope plans they could have forced builders to build housing estates with enough density to make public transport viable but they didn't. The builders told the government where and how they wanted to build.

I'd personally love to be able to get to work on public transport, can go to work hungover and not worry about getting done for DUI:D, but as MYOB said all transport in Dublin goes into and out of the city. I have nearly the opposite journey to him/her and can't get to work as the buses don't run when I work.

I was reading an article about them car share schemes and they are now so popular that they are running out of cars and people are leaving. You can't ramp up cars for these as they have sophisticated electronics to prevent theft and abuse by renters, so where are they supposed to be stored.

smash

OP do you work for the planning office or something, you talking about how "we've" planned it wrong... yet none of us here have planned the road or city structures, the people in county councils and government did it without asking the public what they really wanted!

peasant

padraig glas wrote: »

Again are we not better to encourage people to desert badly planned communities like this for well planned towns and cities.

Sure we would ...in la-la-land.

Who, prey tell, would re-imburse us for the 300 or 400 thousand that we had to spend on a shoebox in a far flung estate so that we can now buy this bijou appartment next to the LUAS?

Hmm?

And what would happen to all those badly planned towns that we are supposed to abandon? I don't think there is an export market for tumbleweeds.

Are you sure you didn't hit your head the last time you hugged a tree?

L1011

Del2005 wrote: »

Have you seen our public transport at rush hour? It's jam packed with people. How are all the car drivers that you are going to tax off the road get onto these buses/trains/trams. It's a miracle no one has been crushed to death on some of our great public transport.

I'd nearly wiped my 6 months on the Calcutta Express from my memory, should have mentioned this.

There is zero spare capacity at morning and evening peak on most public transport routes as it is. Meaning that anyone taxed off the roads isn't going to be able to use the sparse public transport network we have...

There have been near-misses with people fainting on Calcutta Express trips on warm days already.

Bandara

OP did you sign up here just to post this rubbish?

Very strange way to start off posting on a motoring forum

padraig glas

AudiChris wrote: »

But do you not see the chicken-and-egg of your argument?

People wouldn't need cars if they lived in high-quality, high-density schemes within a city. Then you punitively tax the people who choose to use cars unnecessarily.

If you're going to tax people off the roads, you need somewhere for them to go!


I do but I am fed up of the circular argument. Nearly all the new apartments built in 2007 (new spacial requirments required good quality dual aspects)are empty. We are better off creating the circumstances where people will buy these apartments where you do not even need public tranpsort and thereby encourage developers to continue building in the many city centre sites still available. If we can create the push factor where it is more cost effective to live in smaller but better located residence we begin to solve the transport problem any way.
I fully agree with teh arguments about tranport routes not been circular , and what is required is a low capital cost solution that provide regular and alternative routes around and through the city. This does not need to be metro. Why not set a target to improve tranport in six months. We could learn a lot from south america, india. Do all buses need to be new double deckers. What happened to the city imps

L1011

peasant wrote: »

Are you sure you didn't hit your head the last time you hugged a tree?

Evil, but so so excellent

Bandara

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=W61Q-EZ8R7M

L1011

padraig glas wrote: »

Do all buses need to be new double deckers. What happened to the city imps

They fell apart and were far below the required capacity.

Anyway, Dublin Bus have put a tender request up for new single-decker buses. But if you intend to get any real number of people out of cars, double deckers are required - and far, far more of them.

Del2005

padraig glas wrote: »

Well an Letterkenny is surely an excellent example of what I am talking about which is really bad car dependent planning. Letterkenny is an example of how we have planned, a mindless ugly sprawl where the car is the only option. Again are we not better to encourage people to desert badly planned communities like this for well planned towns and cities.

You want to encourage people to leave badly planned towns where they have mortgages on houses to move to new towns All that building would be WAY worst then all the cars we have running 24/7. And how would people pay for this? If we are to abandon badly planned towns, I don't think we have any goodly planned ones, then people would be destitute as their old house would be worthless and they'd have to buy somewhere else.

There is a large amount of high density apartments being built around the square in Tallaght for people to use the Luas. The problem is the Luas is currently running at full capacity at rush hour so how are all these extra thousands supposed to get onto an already full tram?

bikki

Why the hell would i want to live in a tower block in the city center? They tried this with Ballymun and look what happened there.

I love my car and i love driving. But to be honest i hope your plans work, so atleast then there wont be any tree hugging gob****s blocking the roads with there eco driving speed limits out here in the commuter belt.

-Chris-

TELECOMMUTING.

OP, would the improvement of our broadband network and the implementation and financial incentivisation of a telecommuting scheme not take commuters off the roads at rush hour and acheive your objectives without creating vast wastelands and ghost-towns outside our urban hubs?

JimmyCrackCorn!

Does this levy apply to civil service car spaces? Of which there are a large proportion in Dublin City. Not that it matters as we are paying for it anyway.