"Green" policies are destroying this country

The updated Limerick Transport Strategy has just been released, lots of excellent stuff in it

The Cork one was released a few months ago. Looking through the Limerick one gives a good idea of how the Galway transport strategy might be rejigged.

The full document is available at

Summary

The core measures are

• Improved frequency of public transport services to regeneration areas;
• The provision of safe and secure cycling facilities;
• The provision of pedestrian linkages to surrounding areas;
• Public realm improvements;
• Reducing the need to own a car and car dominance
• and Managing the movement of Heavy Goods Vehicles

Current mode share breaks down as follows with the planned shares listed also

• Public transport - 4% grow to 13%
• Walking - 23% grow to 33%
• Cycling - 3% grow to 10-15%
• Car - 70% reduce to 41%

The mode share %'s for PT and cars are not called out the same way so its hard to say what the post implementation % is aimed to be e.g. for bus it states "156% increase in AM peak bus passengers between 2016 & 2040". There are also totals for each of the above called out in various sections which conflict so the %'s are a bit of a mess to be honest but the overall picture is clear regardless of which source in the doc you pick, cars are getting squeezed out and sustainable modes are getting prioritised.

Walking

• Priority at junctions
• Increased permeability
• Improved accessibility measures in line with universal access standards
• Multiple audits of areas over the lifetime of the strategy to identify further opportunities for improvement

Cycling

• Bike lane network consisting of primary, secondary and feeder lanes with quality & safety level decreasing the further you move off primary
• Expanded bike share scheme
• Priority at traffic signals
• Increase in parking provision
• Inter-urban and greenway networks completed

Public Transport

Bus

• 4 P&R locations proposed(Ennis rd, M20 raheen, N24 Ballysimon & M7 Mackey)
• Bus connects
• Roll out priority measures at multiple junctions
• Higher frequency
• More routes

Rail

• Dual tracking between colbert & limerick junction
• upgrade Ballycar line
• Improve commuter rail
• New stations at Moyross and Ballysimon
• Increase frequency
• Upgrade existing stations

Cars

In terms of demand management for cars, theres a lot planned

• New developments, removal of parking requirements for near city and significantly reduced requirements for parking provision in suburbs
• Maximum parking provision will be applied in future
• Undeveloped residential on well served routes must be high density with low parking provision
• car-free area within 800m of Limerick city center
• A steady reduction in on-street parking until it is no longer provided (with a few exceptions e.g. blue badge spaces)
• Increase parking costs
• Increase costs of parking permits
• Alternatives to car ownership e.g. bike share, car clubs, bike storage, PT provision, P&R's
• Traffic signal optimization towards walking, cycling & PT and lower priority for main car lanes
• If the above does not lead to a significant modal shift congestion charges will be brought in to further discourage the use of cars in the city

One of the main drivers behind the measures planned is the strategy is now required to meet the national emissions reduction target of 50% emissions by 2030. The document as it stands states it can achieve a 35% reduction. It lists 3 options to achieve the last 15%

• Increase fuel prices to discourage the use of petrol/diesel
  • Ruled out as not feasible as it is controlled at a national level
• Increase the amount of emission free vehicles (cars & LGV & HGV) to include battery and hydrogen
  • Possible to do by working with the likes of delivery stakeholders and setting up hubs for last mile low emission delivery modes
  • Not likely to achieve the desired reduction though
• Implement a congestion charge/low emission zone/tolls
  • A feasible option which can significantly reduce the volume of emissions
  • Not for implementation, yet, but not ruled out for later application

More Pretty Pictures

There's loads I haven't covered and its about 150 pages long so feel free to waste a morning going through it yourselves

yeah, its pretty obvious how much Germany is paying for its over-reliance on cheap gas from a dictator. Next year they are going to land hard I think. They have a lot more pain to go through until they move their economy to more sustainable energy but they'll get there and they have updated their plans several times since the invasion to bring in planned dates a lot earlier. For example, the recently announced gas deal with Qatar in for 15 years, versus a similar deal by China was for 27 years so it looks like Germany has an end date in mind for even the cleanest fossil fuel. Time will tell

Wind is continuing to take over from fossil fuels on our grid at a growing rate

Speaking of greedy oil and gas

Profits at the world’s biggest oil companies have soared to nearly £150bn so far this year as Russia’s war on Ukraine pushed up energy prices, according to estimates from analysts.

Britain’s Shell and France’s TotalEnergies on Thursday reported profits for the first nine months of 2022 of $59bn (£51bn). US rivals Chevron and ExxonMobil are expected to report year-to-date earnings approaching $70bn on Friday, while 2022 profits at Britain’s BP could break the $20bn mark on Tuesday.

The cumulative takings for the seven biggest private sector oil drillers during the first nine months of 2022 could hit $173bn (£150bn), according to analyst forecasts collated by S&P Global Market Intelligence and reported earnings.

When Leo takes over the reins shortly, there's a few things he could do straight away to prioritise climate change actions

1. Leaders must lead - Varadkar can show direct leadership by personally chairing the Climate Action Delivery Board, becoming an expert in climate change and its solutions
2. Make the climate emergency real - be blunt about how serious the situation is
3. Lead by example - Government must first show how it is decarbonising its own operations
4. Equip State bodies and the Civil Service - Government must ensure these organisations are fully aligned with climate action and have the necessary leadership, resources, mandate and accountability.
5. Use emergency powers to slash fossil fuel power generation - put carbon budgets on the same emergency footing to modernise the grid and accelerate renewables deployment
6. Walk the walk on sustainable mobility - Government should require that all (not just new and upgraded) urban streets be compatible with the best-practice design standard this decade, becoming car-free before long. It should immediately make towns and cities car-free on Sundays to show people what a pleasant urban realm can look like, and sign the contract for Metrolink with urgency to give the 175,000 Dubliners within walking distance a sustainable and modern transport option. And obviously, new SUVs should be taxed out of existence.
7. Restore Ireland’s depleted nature with new national parks - Ireland’s native ecosystem, temperate rainforest, has nearly completely vanished. That most people don’t know this fact is a mark of how nature-depleted this country is. New national parks to restore rainforest can be a multigenerational project, like building a cathedral.
8. Align enterprise strategy with climate policy - IDA and Enterprise Ireland should be tasked with assisting existing industries to decarbonise quickly, with growing only clean industries, and identifying economic opportunities in the low-carbon transition

So when companies (including oil and gas) bid on renewables they are vultures out to make a profit, and when they make billions of profit on oil and gas they are poor unfortunate price takers and its not their fault.

Your logic is funny

Am I reading that right, that you are saying when average temperatures went up an average of 0.5 to 0.8 degree (approx based on the graph for the last 3,000 years), it was a good thing?

Would that still hold true at 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3 degrees of an increase?