New bus gates on Bachelors Walk and Aston Quay

Waterford Whispers hit the nail on the head again with this one! :-D

AFTER years of consultations, objections, compromises and the
overwhelming support of city residents, the next phase of Dublin’s Bus
Connects scheme is on its way.

That was until Ireland’s most successful politician of the 21st
century, Emer ‘Post Passport’ Higgins, spoke out in her official
capacity as junior minister for increasing smog and congestion.

With clear vision, just imagine the transformative effect the Fine
Gael TD can have on Irish transport using just 1% of the energy that was
required to rename Passport Express. Here, WWN unveils Higgins’ vision
for the first time:

Immediately rename Dublin Bus ‘Bus Dublin’.

To avoid a repeat of the rollout of the Luas which as we all know
crushed jobs and destroyed businesses, it will be illegal to travel into
the city centre without a pledge to spend a minimum of €100.

Hold off on making improvements to public transport until public transport improves.

A ‘proper jobs’ dedicated lane. Any Fine Gael voters in a hurry will use dedicated lanes, made of up repurposed bus lanes.

In the absence of solutions, offer people the chance to moan about cyclists.

Ignore all the encouraging tweets you’re getting from people who also
say that the ’15 minute city’ is a LGBT5G conspiracy by WHO, WEF and
the UN to control you.

Whatever you do as a public representative don’t actually submit any
proposals during the consultation process. Instead, wait until it is all
decided on to start speaking up.

If any new suggestion would hurt the profits of people who own car
parks in the city centre by a sum greater than one euro, then it’s an
automatic no.

Develop a leap card, that when you tap on, automatically deletes
previous election campaign videos in which a political candidate says
they will demand better public transport for their constituents.

The local government model is a shambles. We have a decision that was voted on and is part of a plan that was put out to public consultation but then car parks can have a word with an unelected man who can just over turn that decision. Presumably any person in such a role can also be bought quite easily without electoral reprocussion. It smells a lot like corruption.

Not only is this person unelected, he also has little Internet footprint, the public don't know anything about him other than he was also CEO of the other Dublin Council seemingly job surfing with the same role in each. And he has some paywalled interviews about tackling climate change which might be positive.

His email is richard.shakespeare@dublincity.ie and chiefexecutive@dublincity.ie - make your feelings heard (politely).

IMO this is round 2 of FG policy to get votes. Round 1 being Regina Doherty bash at cycle lanes. Suspect FG have come up with a strategy to tap into righter of centre opinions to gain votes to get biggest party prize at next elections and the perks that go with it.

Expected there will be round 3, 4 etc. Bottom of barrel politics with fg cllr expect to tow the party line. T

The thousands of people who were bothered and actually gave half a shite enough to participate in the public consultation voted overwhelmingly in favour of the plans. Then the car parks raise a stink when it looks like their pockets are going to be hit, a moronic junior minister in search of hysteria votes sticks her oar in and suddenly auld Shakey is pulling the rug out from the original plans and kowtowing to them at the expense of the hundreds of thousands of bus commuters, cyclists and pedestrians who actually particpate in life in the city centre, not just treat it like a rat run in the bubble of their Tuscon's and Qashqai's.

What's Richard Shakespeare's general history? I see that he's a qualified landscape horticulturalist and engineer but has he built any reputation to date as pro or anti public transport/cycling/pedestrian infrastructure? Might give an indication of which way he'd tend to lean in these situations.