What are your essential Irish Infrastructure projects, in order of need?

Chuchote

Not to mention that virtually no kids ride a bike to school & kids are becoming obese...

4068ac1elhodqr

Chuchote wrote: »

Not to mention that virtually no kids ride a bike to school & kids are becoming obese...

Health & Exercise are slightly separate topics which could be remedied fairly quickly with a partial-ban and massive tax on what has become the new smoking i.e. sugar.

Sugar (in all it's additive forms) is set to make Ireland the EU's fatties of fatness within a decade or so. Lets tax all these new lardy doughnut shops to the max. Schools likely also suffer from 'excuse notes' to PE, unless severely impaired, run some laps around those playing fields twice a week at least.

Sam Russell

Audrina Screeching Sluggishness wrote: »

Health & Exercise are slightly separate topics which could be remedied fairly quickly with a partial-ban and massive tax on what has become the new smoking i.e. sugar.

Sugar (in all it's additive forms) is set to make Ireland the EU's fatties of fatness within a decade or so. Lets tax all these new lardy doughnut shops to the max. Schools likely also suffer from 'excuse notes' to PE, unless severely impaired, run some laps around those playing fields twice a week at least.

I think all kids should be weighed and measured for height, waist, etc. on the first day at school every year (anonymize if necessary) and the data collated by the Dept of Education or Health. How can policy be formed unless there is proper data collection.

Kids are getting bigger, both in height and weight. They are better fed and are healthier (by not getting childhood diseases like measles and chickenpox) and not missing school for ill health.

Part of the reason kids do not cycle is because it is dangerous because of high number of cars - and the high speed of those cars.

LeinsterDub

Chuchote wrote: »

Not to mention that virtually no kids ride a bike to school & kids are becoming obese...

Exercise plays only a small part in weight. Diet is far more important.

babi-hrse

A second outer ring road like the m50 to alliviate congestion and to serve as a backup
When a woman was in a fatal collision with a truck at the Palmerstown junction last year the whole city ground to a grinding halt

Broadband infrastructure to to be rolled out in areas where there is none. Poor broadband cannot be counted as broadband

Chuchote

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Exercise plays only a small part in weight. Diet is far more important.

That's why there's all the hugely fat cyclists and runners out there?

Exercise plays a big part; when you exercise you tend to eat differently.

babi-hrse wrote: »

A second outer ring road like the m50 to alliviate congestion and to serve as a backup
When a woman was in a fatal collision with a truck at the Palmerstown junction last year the whole city ground to a grinding halt

Broadband infrastructure to to be rolled out in areas where there is none. Poor broadband cannot be counted as broadband

+1m for the risible broadband.

A second outer ring would make congestion worse - more roads leads to more cars. Getting people onto bikes for short journeys would have a far better effect - and would clear the roads so that public transport could run efficiently.

sdanseo

Chuchote wrote: »

A second outer ring would make congestion worse - more roads leads to more cars. Getting people onto bikes for short journeys would have a far better effect - and would clear the roads so that public transport could run efficiently.

Must agree, the M50 in and of itself is a fantastic road.

Poor and complex junction design, combined with a spectacular lack of driver awareness are what cause the problems. Those problems could be largely addressed by some education, re-arranging merges which has already begun, and adding the VMS / VSL system much like is done on the M25.

SeanW

Chuchote wrote: »

A second outer ring would make congestion worse - more roads leads to more cars. Getting people onto bikes for short journeys would have a far better effect - and would clear the roads so that public transport could run efficiently.

No, it wouldn't. Building roads does not necessarily lead to more congestion, rather, failing to invest in the appropriate means of transport for a given problem causes congestion.

This can mean failing to build roads, in the case of towns that need a bypass (think Loughrea, Longford, Athlone and so on) all of which were historically badly congested because there was so much long distance traffic going through them.

Congestion can also be caused by failing to invest in public transport where it would be appropriate. Rail Users Ireland (formerly Platform 11) have promoted the Dart Underground since 2003 when it was called the "Interconnector". Had it been built, it would have been a key backbone in the fast, heavy rail system of Dublin similar to Crossrail in London and the key Stammstrecke type lines in cities in Germany. Yet it and the Dublin Metro have languished on the drawing boards for almost a generation of dithering and borderline contempt from worthless politicians. In the last 10 years the only major public transport investment in Dublin has been the Luas link-up. This is what is wrong in Dublin.

Dublin also needs a regional bypass eventually since the M50 has become a commuter-way and regional Main Street, the M50 was supposed to be Dublin's bypass but at peak times it cannot function like this because of peak hour congestion. Additionally, an outer bypass would shorten long distance journeys not involving Dublin, e.g. Mullingar-Drogheda, Kildare-Navan and suchlike trips on an outer bypass would be more direct. Finally the M50 does not connect motorways so its not a part of the Motorway network, the M2, M3, M4 and M7 motorways all end before they reach the M50, and the dual carriageway sections of these are commuter-ways in and of themselves.

However, the outer bypass can wait till after the Dart Underground and Metro have at least begun construction as it is less urgent.

Zebra3

The best way to deal with M50 congestion is to build decent PT to compete with it.

I won't hold my breath though....

marno21

SeanW wrote: »

No, it wouldn't. Building roads does not necessarily lead to more congestion, rather, failing to invest in the appropriate means of transport for a given problem causes congestion.

This can mean failing to build roads, in the case of towns that need a bypass (think Loughrea, Longford, Athlone and so on) all of which were historically badly congested because there was so much long distance traffic going through them.

Congestion can also be caused by failing to invest in public transport where it would be appropriate. Rail Users Ireland (formerly Platform 11) have promoted the Dart Underground since 2003 when it was called the "Interconnector". Had it been built, it would have been a key backbone in the fast, heavy rail system of Dublin similar to Crossrail in London and the key Stammstrecke type lines in cities in Germany. Yet it and the Dublin Metro have languished on the drawing boards for almost a generation of dithering and borderline contempt from worthless politicians. In the last 10 years the only major public transport investment in Dublin has been the Luas link-up. This is what is wrong in Dublin.

Dublin also needs a regional bypass eventually since the M50 has become a commuter-way and regional Main Street, the M50 was supposed to be Dublin's bypass but at peak times it cannot function like this because of peak hour congestion. Additionally, an outer bypass would shorten long distance journeys not involving Dublin, e.g. Mullingar-Drogheda, Kildare-Navan and suchlike trips on an outer bypass would be more direct. Finally the M50 does not connect motorways so its not a part of the Motorway network, the M2, M3, M4 and M7 motorways all end before they reach the M50, and the dual carriageway sections of these are commuter-ways in and of themselves.

However, the outer bypass can wait till after the Dart Underground and Metro have at least begun construction as it is less urgent.

1. Building an Outer Orbital in the current Dublin setup would encourage more sprawl. Build DART Underground, Metro North South and West, quality bus corridors and then re-examine our road needs.
2. Mullingar-Drogheda, Kildare-Navan can be served by roads such as the N52 and Kildare-Navan the M3/M50/M7. We don't need a 2bn motorway to handle the relatively small amount of journeys made here.
3. It would be cheaper to upgrade the N2, N3, N4, N7 and N11 and remove the commuter traffic.

This isn't Manila. The only issue on the M50 at present is the large amount of commuter traffic forced to use the M50 because there isn't a VIABLE(!!!) alternative. A 3 hour bus journey is not a VIABLE alternative, nor for most people is a crammed train/crammed Luas. Build the above PT and then see what the roads are like. People don't commute on the N7/M50 etc because it's gas craic and their favourite part of the day, they do it because they have no other choice. Accomodation issues in Dublin are a key part here too but that's a debate for anotehr forum.

Chuchote

Just bar any cars making short journeys, and transfer as many deliveries as possible to cargo bikes within the city, bingo, the traffic jam problem's solved.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a city without the constant growl of motor traffic and with clean air without that metallic, gritty taste that we're so used to we aren't even conscious of? A city where kids could ride bikes to school? A city with benches where people could sit and chat, with free public toilets.

And with a National Health service that worked, like France.

D.L.R.

Chuchote wrote: »

Just bar any cars making short journeys

Right, looking forward to hearing the draft legislation for that. I'm sure all the little old ladies driving to the supermarket will love it :rolleyes:

4068ac1elhodqr

Bikes this and bikes that... even the water-proofed, skin-proofed, bone-proofed lads with 200kg of kawasaki 1000's with 100bhp would be reluctant to take them out this Summer Sunday morning. When the tail end of Gert arrives from the Atlantic and dumps enough sideways rain to fill all the potholes on the back of 60kmph winds.

Try hauling around your week's shopping on push-cycle, on a cold dark damp November evening.

bk

Audrina Screeching Sluggishness wrote: »

Bikes this and bikes that... even the water-proofed, skin-proofed, bone-proofed lads with 200kg of kawasaki 1000's with 100bhp would be reluctant to take them out this Summer Sunday morning. When the tail end of Gert arrives from the Atlantic and dumps enough sideways rain to fill all the potholes on the back of 60kmph winds.

Try hauling around your week's shopping on push-cycle, on a cold dark damp November evening.

In Amsterdam 40% of people cycle to work every day. They get more rain then we do. Plus snow!

4068ac1elhodqr

bk wrote: »

In Amsterdam 40% of people cycle to work every day. They get more rain then we do. Plus snow!

Maybe the 38% who regularly (but not always) cycle in that city also enjoy warmer, drier summers in the land of supreme flatness. Winter may be cooler but with less humidity and with weaker Atlantic storm winds.

They benefit also from generations and decades of planning, including '73 ME oil crisis. Planning here is too far behind to catch up with the worlds most cycle friendly city. e.g. In the North it's so far backwards that you actually legally need a motorbike license to operate any power assisted bicycle.

With the advent of smaller 'electric' cars/bikes replacing combustion that should be the real focus over the next decade, but bikes certainly cannot replace cars, they're simply an (occasional) option.

Further down the line, pneumatic pod transport on monorails is the ultimate solution, small footprints, green, quite, low energy and phonemically fast.

bk

Audrina Screeching Sluggishness wrote: »

Maybe the 38% who regularly (but not always) cycle in that city also enjoy warmer, drier summers in the land of supreme flatness. Winter may be cooler but with less humidity and with weaker Atlantic storm winds.

I can assure you knowing some people from Amsterdam and being a frequent visitor that most people cycle year round in all weather conditions.

What really drove home to me how different their attitude to cycling there is one night when I stumbled out of a night club at 3am to see literally of hundreds of guys in suits cycling home with their girlfriends in nice "date" dresses hanging off the back of the bikes!

They cycle literally all the time, in all occasions and weather.

And again they even cycle in snow.

The truth is Irish people are just lazy. We really are a very lazy people compared to other Europeans and we like to make excuses for our laziness.

And that is now being reflected by the fact that we are now becoming one of the fattest countries in the world! Not good at all.

Audrina Screeching Sluggishness wrote: »

They benefit also from generations and decades of planning, including '73 ME oil crisis. Planning here is too far behind to catch up with the worlds most cycle friendly city. e.g. In the North it's so far backwards that you actually legally need a motorbike license to operate any power assisted bicycle.

Actually completely the opposite.

In the 70's they were bulldozing motorways right through the center of Amsterdam and it was leading to large numbers of deaths due to road accidents. Their was a mass popular protests. Hundreds of thousands of people marched in protest on the roads in outrage. The politicians were totally taken aback.

As a result their was a complete u-turn on government policy. All major road projects were cancelled and they even dismantled some of the motorways that were already built and started building cycling infrastructure instead.

Audrina Screeching Sluggishness wrote: »

With the advent of smaller 'electric' cars/bikes replacing combustion that should be the real focus over the next decade, but bikes certainly cannot replace cars, they're simply an (occasional) option.

EV's are fantastic, I'm a big fan of them. But they simply aren't a solution to the lack of space on our core city center streets. Their simply isn't enough space for even 10% of Dublin's population to drive a car, either ICE or EV into the city. The space just doesn't exist.

The only solution is more efficient modes of transport. Public Transport, DART/Metro/Buses, cycling (yes including electric assistance) and walking.

Audrina Screeching Sluggishness wrote: »

Further down the line, pneumatic pod transport on monorails is the ultimate solution, small footprints, green, quite, low energy and phonemically fast.

You mean like monorails from the Simpsons :P

I'd say the future is small, self driving EV vehicles that you rent on demand. Doesn't require new infrastructure.

But neither of them will replace mass transit into the core city center.

flaneur

I'm putting several items in the same priority level here.

1. Dublin Luas-underground sections for hybrid tram/metro similar to Brussels.
1. Add more Luas lines - West Dublin: Blanchardstown area, South Dublin: Rathfarnham area, North Dublin: Drumcondra, DCU, Airport, Cork: Ballincollig.

2. Broadband: Public investment to get FTTH rolled out asap. We are lagging behind in both rural and urban areas. Not another copper based hack-on technology like VDSL.

3. Cork: Improved public transport generally using whatever combination of busses and trams is necessary. City is starting to choke at rush hour.

4. M20 Cork-Limerick

5. Galway ring road.

...

Also as a separate issue : Social and affordable housing ASAP. That's by far the highest priority that we should be looking at and I would consider it infrastructure as without it we are not going to be able to grow the economy.

SeanW

Chuchote wrote: »

Just bar any cars making short journeys

On what planet does this make sense?

and transfer as many deliveries as possible to cargo bikes within the city, bingo, the traffic jam problem's solved.

You do realise it is a little bit more complicated that that, right? Not long ago, I spent a few days in Amsterdam, the cycling capital of the world. While there were a lot of cyclists, I assure it was not as simple as "well everyone's on a bike so we don't need anything else". The city has a full system of trams, 3 or 4 metro lines plus a new line under construction. They also have lots of roads and cars in the city, especially outside the old city area, in many cases a full set of segregated cycle paths planned along side multi-lane roads and streets, especially in suburban and business park areas.

The reason for this is two fold:

1. Not everyone cycles.
2. Even for those who do, cycling is not always appropriate, if they have to carry lots of stuff or travel long distances.

Your simplistic solution might work in a dystopian Stalinist hellhole in an alternate universe, but Dublin needs something a solution a little more nuanced.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a city without the constant growl of motor traffic and with clean air without that metallic, gritty taste that we're so used to we aren't even conscious of?

Here's the thing. Some people like to refer to the external costs of motoring. The tragedy of the commons and all of that stuff. What these "analyses" exclude however is the societal benefits of motoring, and these are extreme. More so, a baseline minimum of these societal benefits can be determined objectively.

Every time you pay for something in a voluntary transaction, you are making a market statement that the acquisition of whatever it is you buy is worth at least, if not more to you than the money that you forgo to make the purchase. E.g. if you buy a newspaper for €1 or €2 or whatever, or you spend some money on drinks on a night out, you state that it is worth more to you to have this than to keep that money.

According to the Automobile Association, the average cost to run a car in 2016 was €10,671.37. That means that the owners are getting personal value, in terms of their commute, leisure, family and social lives, on average equaling or more likely exceeding €10,671.37 per year. Since all people (including motorists) are members of society, the benefits they encounter which are least the above on average, are also benefits to society. Taking a back-of-the-envelope guess to think there may be 1,000,000 motorists, then the direct social benefits of motoring are at least, and more likely exceed, €10,671,370,000. And that's just to the lifestyle benefits of the owners/families. This excludes all the taxes that motorists pay, billions more, which fund things like ... cycle lanes and schools and municipal parks and so on.

Doing some guesswork, adding the personal benefits to members of society and the takes they pay, motoring contributes somewhere in the region of €20bn/year to society. And that estimate may be low if I am underestimating the amount or taxes paid or the margin beyond which members of society experience lifestyle benefits exceeding the €10,671 average annual cost.

So, yes, in a totalitarian hellhole, you could probably drive some motorists off the road, but you would be depriving the government of billions of euro in tax revenue and destroying many billions more in terms of the loss of lifestyle benefits to members of society.

A city where kids could ride bikes to school?

If you are concerned with cars being used for the school run, there is a very simple solution to that - have an American style education system whereby a given school serves ANY child in a given district. Most American schoolchildren go to school by bus - because it's very easy to plan a school bus system around a properly planned school system.

Chuchote

SeanW wrote: »

On what planet does this make sense?
[/LIST]

On Planet Ireland, where half of all car journeys are under 5km. This is lunacy.

Driving cars is also lunacy - each car costs each family over €10,000 a year. And that doesn't even take into account the billions spent on subsidising motoring - paying for city roads to be built and constantly mended; subsidising the building of cars, having massive signage and lighting at a level that would be unnecessary without all these cars. The roads would be far cheaper to maintain without the huge numbers of cars, and they wouldn't be clogged up by people storing their private property all along the edges.

And it doesn't take into account the health costs of the pollution and of the lack of exercise. Cars are not good for us.

Having single people being dragged around by a couple of tons of metal is not a sensible use of resources.

If you are concerned with cars being used for the school run, there is a very simple solution to that - have an American style education system whereby a given school serves ANY child in a given district. Most American schoolchildren go to school by bus - because it's very easy to plan a school bus system around a properly planned school system.

Absolutely. This is effectively already the case in rural Ireland, where a school bus system is in operation, except for children who live close to the schools (and yet many parents still drive their children to school, with cars hanging around the gates spewing out pollution.)

Mind you, if we used local schools in the way Americans do, and if the roads were free, the kids wouldn't even need buses, they could ride their bikes to school.

As flaneur says, social and affordable housing is the first and most important priority. Apart from the fact that anyone looking at Ireland would say we're real bastards to have families homeless on the streets when we have thousands of empty homes and sites, it's also very expensive to use interim solutions like hotel rooms rather than building good housing as the Corporation and councils used to do. It makes us look a bit dim.

patrickbrophy18

Okay, I've seen arguments from both sides of the fence in the last two pages. Some of them are somewhat naive while others are valid. To begin with, as a motorist myself, I understand that there are occasions where the car is needed. For example, I do 40 mile round trips to Citywest from Dalkey (Monday to Friday) which brings the total to some 200 miles weekly and that's not including weekend trips and detours to run errands. So, it's probably somewhere between 230 and 250 miles per week. As a result, the freedom and flexibility this affords me is hugely beneficial. There is also a better work-life balance which I have from not taking the DART and Luas as the journey by car is 30 minutes each-way versus 2 hours by public transport.

On the other hand, I see a lot of car trips which are 5 kilometers (3 miles) or less that could be done by bike. Then again, it all depends on the mindset of the person carrying out this journey. So, in an ideal world, most people in this bracket would switch to the bicycle for these commutes. However, with some of the posts on this and similar threads, you'd swear that they wanted to make it mandatory for commuters to cycle if the journey is 5 kilometers or less. The only problem with this is that it is a clear violation of a persons civil liberties. Having said that, the measures outlined in documents such as the Design Manual for Urban Roads and Streets (DMURS) and the National Cycle Manual are ways of discouraging car journeys without crossing this very fine line for sure.

The recommendations within the DMURS are far from perfect and are often one-sided. There are even points in it where it takes a turn for the emotional and where it reads like the ravings of someone who is high-maintenance. Nevertheless, when it is discussing measures for neighborhood centers and their lack of permeability to distributor roads and other residential areas, I completely agree with it. Much of the cross-section examples that it gives are road layouts which could work in principle. A lot of them feature QBCs with grass-verge or tree-line separated cycle ways.

Unfortunately, many of the urban and suburban roads in Dublin are riddled with design flaws or limitations. For example, the arterial routes radiating outward from the "squareabout" in Dalkey are near impossible to improve for all road users because they have been encroached by private land with some houses literally on top of the road. The only way to rectify this would be to carry out a bunch of Compulsory Purchase Orders.

Back to the main topic. The M50 is rampant with people who either break speed limits, cross hatched road markings or are using their phones. A good start for this would be to have all of the gantries fitted with variable speed-limit signs and speed cameras. The hatch markings themselves could have sensors built in where a person who occupies it for less then say 10 seconds is crossing it illegally where an adjacent camera would take a snapshot. Phone usage is a different story as there are a tonne of variables to account for when making a case against it. Is it still legal to use hands-free kits?

Sam Russell

If it is necessary to curb car journeys then could it be possible to make the public transport cheaper. If there are fewer cars cause jams, then the buses would be quicker, so more frequent and quicker journey times which would in turn make them more attractive.

Now an experiment was tried with tolls for HGV lorries on the motorways. I never heard any results from that particular trial, does anyone have any info on it? The port tunnel appears to work with HGVs and buses/coaches not paying tolls. If the toll experiment had the desired effect, maybe introducing a reduced fare on buses for, say, a month, and see how many people park their cars and use the bus.

Until we have MN, DU, and the Maynooth line electrified, we will have jams.

Stephen15

Sam Russell wrote: »

Until we have MN, DU, and the Maynooth line electrified, we will have jams.

Even in places like Paris where there is an excellent public transport with metro stations every 500m traffic congestion is still a big issue probably even worse than Dublin.

Chuchote

Stephen15 wrote: »

Even in places like Paris where there is an excellent public transport with metro stations every 500m traffic congestion is still a big issue probably even worse than Dublin.

So Parisians tell me, but on a day when their whining was a constant high buzz in the air above Paris I stood on the Arc de Triomphe filming the traffic below and the asterix of streets around - the busiest in Paris - weren't gridlocked in the least; traffic was flowing perfectly well.

If you're going to Paris, incidentally, sign up for Velib' - they're getting new, somewhat lighter and friskier bikes.

I'm not particularly looking for a socialist paradise where drivers will be rushed to the bike stands with their arm held up their back; the market will do it. Already it's well over €10,000 a year to run a car on average (according to the AA); it's kind of crazy not to hop on a bike to run down to the corner shop or go to the pictures or whizz into town to meet a few buddies.

And the cost of public transport in Dublin - though not intercity - is shocking. In Paris you can buy a carnet of 10 tickets for €15, and each ticket will cover a journey across the city. In general the ticket is transferable to a new journey within 90 minutes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticket_%22t%2B%22 Don't sign up for the Carte Navigo (Découverte for non-Parisians) because it's a crap system - rather than loading it up and having the money there for use, like the Leap, you load it up for a calendar week and then the money loaded in is gone.

Dublin's main transport problem is too many cars. If the buses had a clear run, with continuous bus corridors; and a lot of journeys were done on bikes, then we'd have a much nicer and more liveable city.

And then there's the housing. But until we have a Christian government that works on the principle that the love of money is the root of all evil…

dok_golf

Aware bypass

D.L.R.

Chuchote wrote: »

So Parisians tell me, but on a day when their whining was a constant high buzz in the air above Paris I stood on the Arc de Triomphe filming the traffic below and the asterix of streets around - the busiest in Paris - weren't gridlocked in the least; traffic was flowing perfectly well.

If you're going to Paris, incidentally, sign up for Velib' - they're getting new, somewhat lighter and friskier bikes.

I'm not particularly looking for a socialist paradise where drivers will be rushed to the bike stands with their arm held up their back; the market will do it. Already it's well over €10,000 a year to run a car on average (according to the AA); it's kind of crazy not to hop on a bike to run down to the corner shop or go to the pictures or whizz into town to meet a few buddies.

And the cost of public transport in Dublin - though not intercity - is shocking. In Paris you can buy a carnet of 10 tickets for €15, and each ticket will cover a journey across the city. In general the ticket is transferable to a new journey within 90 minutes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticket_%22t%2B%22 Don't sign up for the Carte Navigo (Découverte for non-Parisians) because it's a crap system - rather than loading it up and having the money there for use, like the Leap, you load it up for a calendar week and then the money loaded in is gone.

Dublin's main transport problem is too many cars. If the buses had a clear run, with continuous bus corridors; and a lot of journeys were done on bikes, then we'd have a much nicer and more liveable city.

And then there's the housing. But until we have a Christian government that works on the principle that the love of money is the root of all evil…

Lets keep religion firmly OUT of the transport forum please.

Chuchote

D.L.R. wrote: »

Lets keep religion firmly OUT of the transport forum please.

Heh, my joke obviously didn't transmit well!

D.L.R.

Chuchote wrote: »

Heh, my joke obviously didn't transmit well!

Yeah it totally didn't.

SeanW

Chuchote wrote: »

SeanW wrote: »

On what planet does this make sense?

[/LIST]

On Planet Ireland, where half of all car journeys are under 5km. This is lunacy.

Driving cars is also lunacy - each car costs each family over €10,000 a year. And that doesn't even take into account the billions spent on subsidising motoring - paying for city roads to be built and constantly mended; subsidising the building of cars, having massive signage and lighting at a level that would be unnecessary without all these cars. The roads would be far cheaper to maintain without the huge numbers of cars, and they wouldn't be clogged up by people storing their private property all along the edges.

And it doesn't take into account the health costs of the pollution and of the lack of exercise. Cars are not good for us.

Having single people being dragged around by a couple of tons of metal is not a sensible use of resources.

Part of the problem is that you are largely applying subjective reasoning to things that are measurable objectively.

For example. Say you and your friend both break your most used tea mugs at the same time and decide to go to a homeware shop to shop for a new one. You have a strictly utilitarian view and see a creamy-off-white coloured mug for €3, which you buy. Your friend on the other hand sees a mug with the logo of his favourite sports team or a design from a TV show, and costs €20, which he buys. What should a mug for drinking tea from cost? The answer is that people will pay for utility. In the above example, €3 buys you something to drink out of, so that's all it's worth. There is no utility in spending the extra €17 for a logo. But for your friend, he may take the view that he's going to be drinking from this thing for several years, so the extra cost associated with having improved aesthetics is worth at minimum €17 extra. The transaction provides him with this utility. Subjectively, you may say your friend is a spendthrift, while your friend may consider you to be overly cost-conscious. Objectively, it can be stated IN BOTH CASES that as these were voluntary transactions, the acquisition of the appropriate item provided utility to the new owner equal to or greater than the money used to buy them (since people tend not to voluntarily spend money on things they consider "too expensive" or "not worth it").

The same is true of cars. People spend over €10,000 per year on their ability to travel, not because they are nuts, but because of the utility afforded by the car. They objectively gain value in their lives of at least, if not more than, the amount of money they voluntarily spend. If they did not, they would not pay the 10 grand. This can be measured objectively.

Secondly, motoring is not subsidised. Motorists pay billions per year in taxes, fuel duty, "motor" tax, VRT, VAT, taxes on insurance, carbon taxes and so on. Many roads are also tolled. Motorists also pay non-motoring related taxes, such as Income Tax and non-motor-related VAT, for which - surprise surprise - they expect the government to provide them with services in return ... things like roads.

Indeed, roads are one of the few truly legitimate reasons to have government. If you didn't have to pay tax you could probably afford to send your children to private school, have your own health insurance etc. Most people also prefer to live in private housing if they can. You need the government only to provide you with things that must be provided to people as a group, like military defense, emergency services and ... roads.

Chuchote

SeanW wrote: »

People spend over €10,000 per year on their ability to travel, not because they are nuts, but because of the utility afforded by the car.

I have no objection to people spending their money however they want, this is not what I am saying at all. It's your planet, after all…

What I'm saying is that driving a car in Ireland currently costs an average of €10,600, according to the AA. But this is distorted by massive government subsidies in many countries that support the motoring industry - Australia and Germany, for instance, support their carmakers to the tune of $2,000 per car made. These subsidies for a technology that is destroying the planet will inevitably end soon, and the price of buying a car will soar.

For instance, in the US, Michigan, home to General Motors, Ford and the US unit of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, has given $7.8 billion since 1984 to these "Detroit Three" and to Mazda Motor Corp when it was still allied with Ford. $2.3 billion in state and local incentives given to GM in 2009 for its Orion Township plant north of Detroit. Nevada has provided $1.3 billion to Tesla Inc for its battery factory outside Reno and $335 million to Faraday Future for a since-canceled plant north of Las Vegas. Mississippi and Tennessee have provided $1.6 billion and $1.3 billion, respectively, in subsidies to Toyota Motor Corp, Nissan Motor Co and VW. Nissan has solicited $1.8 billion in subsidies from both Mississippi and Tennessee. Toyota has pulled $836 million from Mississippi, Texas and Kentucky, while Honda Motor Co won $389 million from Alabama and Indiana.

Chuchote

Deedsie wrote: »

I'd actually say reforming our planning process would be the most effective way to improve our infrastructure. It is way too cheap and easy to delay a worthy project because of some nonsensical reason.

All planning decisions should also have to be defended in public, as if in court. (Incidentally, it's not cheap to object to a planning application; I would also guess that 99% of objections fail.)