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  • Free Public Transport is Public Good Deliverable for Dublin (2019)

    In contrast to other major European cities, Dublin has few rail- or tram- lines. Instead, public transport users mainly rely on an extensive but complicated bus network. This is, however, slow and unreliable, owing to Dublin’s appalling traffic congestion. Moreover, for several key destinations outside the centre, notably Dublin Airport, buses are the only available public transport option.

    Dublin’s traffic congestion suffocates key transport corridors: from Stillorgan to St Stephen’s Green; Blanchardstown to Stoneybatter; Terenure to the Liberties; and Coolock to the Docklands. These arteries are so gummed up that drivers last year spent, on average, two-hundred and fifty hours in traffic – making Dublin the third worst city in the world for time spent sitting in traffic.[i]

    The effect of spending the equivalent of more than ten full days in a car each year, can only have negative health, psychological and social impacts, leading to isolation, stress, anger and weight gain. And how do many drivers compensate for time lost in traffic? By using smart phones to ‘connect’ – illegally of course – with the world outside.

    Regrettably, however, the authorities seem unwilling to contemplate a gradual retreat of the motor car from the centre. In contrast, across Europe, bicycle (and scooter) rental schemes, allowing residents to beat the traffic, have multiplied. Networks of cycle paths are mushrooming: for example Paris’s cycle lane infrastructure will, by 2020 have been expanded by 50% in the space of just five years.[ii] Elsewhere, city councils are lowering speed limits, introducing car bans and car-free days, pedestrianising streets and replacing car with bike parks.

    The ‘slow’ Dublin city centre, in tandem with the legacy of inept and corrupt planning for the suburbs, along with high car insurance and ancillary costs, present Dublin with severe challenges in terms of retaining both Irish and International business.

    Indeed, a 2018 study by the Dublin Chamber of Commerce found 73% of companies were finding traffic was having an increasingly negative impact on their businesses.[iii] In addition, heavy car reliance pollutes, causing both smog detrimental to human health, especially from diesel engines, as well as CO2 emissions generating climate chaos.

    One obvious way of addressing these problems would be to develop more extensive, comfortable and efficient public transport for Dublin; especially as without implementation of a pragmatic, but innovative, public transport infrastructure, any hope of expanding business and employment in the capital should be set aside.

    Dublin’s public transport network can be improved by diminishing distances between stops. Denser public transport can be delivered to the city (and the rest of the country too) swiftly, and without incurring vast additional infrastructure and capital costs. Importantly, adverse environmental and social impacts – such as we are witnessing with the BusConnects ‘mega-project’ – can easily have be avoided by liaising with community groups and other interested parties.

    The important question to address is how Dublin’s public transport network will alleviate traffic congestion. And after half a dozen incomplete Bus Network improvement plans (anyone remember the ‘Quality Bus Corridors Network’ and the ‘Swiftway BRT’ plans?) pompously rolled out over the last fifteen years  – all of them expensive and requiring costly compulsory purchase orders – it is high time to think outside the box.

    A Public Good

    The problem is that all previous bus network improvement plans – with BusConnects only the latest – accept the accommodation of other types of road users as axiomatic, including, of course, motorists. This, unavoidably, demands road-widening: usually requiring land acquisitions to establish minimal widths of twenty metres, i.e. a two-metre-wide footpath, a two-metre-wide cycle track, a three-metre-wide bus lane and a three-metre-wide traffic lane, on both sides of the road.

    If brought to fruition, twenty-metre-wide BusConnects corridors will, unavoidably, split neighbourhoods apart. Pedestrians will be channelled into designated ‘safe’ crossing points with communities separated by concrete corridors – what transport planners refer to as ‘pipelines’.

    But what if there were less cars on the streets? Would this really reduce the need for additional space and infrastructure, and diminish impacts?

    This brings us to the idea of recognising the use of public transport as a Public Good which should become free for passengers, thereby encouraging people out of their cars. Yes free – why not?

    Access to public transport might become viewed as a fundamental human right, akin to the provision of healthcare and education. Indeed, in more than a hundred cities in the world it is possible to ride on a tram, metro or bus for free – and without having to evade an inspector!

    From the buses of Porto Real in Portugal, to the Miami Metro in Florida, and from Noyon in France and Chengdu in China, free public transport is a successful urban mobility option for mitigating both the environmental and sociological impacts of transport. The latest place to embrace the concept is Luxembourg  – it will soon be the first country with all public transport free.[iv]

    There are a number of powerful arguments for making public transport free – or at least below the cost of operation and maintenance – provided either by government directly or through the private sector.

    For starters, private cars impose numerous costs on society that drivers do not pay for. Every time we start our diesel, petrol, hybrid engines – or even electric, as long as fossil fuels power stations – we generate air pollution, and clog up roads for other users. These costs are measurable in environmental damage, health care costs, and wasted time, which non-motorists pay for indirectly, through taxation.

    Economists and planners have long advocated that motorists should pay these costs directly, allowing people to make rational choices. Well-designed congestion pricing schemes, such as those found in Singapore, London, Stockholm and Milan, ensure that private vehicle drivers pay more if they choose a congested road – just as Dublin’s Port Tunnel has different rates depending on the time of day.

    A variation on a congestion pricing scheme for Dublin would be an additional levy on fossil fuels, which could be dedicated to relieving air pollution thereby raising respiratory health.

    In the absence of a congestion pricing plan for Dublin, however, and powerful opposition to it, subsidising public transport, which gets people to drive less than they might otherwise, is an feasible alternative – albeit, the combination of both measures would be optimal.

    Everyone benefits when people can travel around more safely and freely

    Making public transport freely available for all should create greater labour flexibility, with companies potentially choosing from a larger pool of employees, as well as accessing more suppliers who might not be deterred by high transport costs. Moreover, people would be more inclined to take more impromptu, and safer, outings for shopping, leisure or social purposes. It might save many rural pubs.

    Naturally, removing the financial cost of public transport to users would not make it ‘free’, as someone would have to foot the bill. It can be demonstrated, however, that using taxation revenue to pay for public transport would make everyone wealthier, in the wider sense of the word.

    Permitting ‘car sprawl’, i.e. unrestricted growth in car sales and road infrastructure with scant regard for urban planning, makes no economic sense, as profits generated by millions of generally single-occupant vehicles come with significant costs. The waste of resources, and other social costs are ‘conveyed’ from the calculation of these profits, and passed on to the taxpayer, future generations, and sometimes other countries.

    Implementation Challenges

    The concept of free public transport poses several implementation challenges. Amongst the arguments potentially adduced against it are as follows:

    1. It would require more public transport units to accommodate increased demand, which harms the environment, just as cars do.

    Indeed, if everyone used public transport, more, polluting buses would be required. In addition, upgrading our public transport infrastructure is energy-intensive, drawing largely on coal and other fossil fuels. But it would take many cars off the road and reduce the overall impact in the short term, while bus manufacturers could be incentivised to produce cleaner, more comfortable, and ‘smarter’ vehicles.

    1. With our level of public debt we cannot afford to spend money on frivolous projects like this.

    In fact public transport is the opposite of debt: when carefully and strategically planned it brings tangible rewards, and more importantly reduces carbon emissions; especially important with the Irish state facing hundreds of millions in fines for failure to reduce emissions that are the third highest in the EU.[v]

    1. Car sales would drop significantly.

    Indeed they would if public transport was free for everyone to get to work. Families would no longer feel the need for two or more cars. This would likely hurt the (non-indigenous) car industry, but manufacturing resources could be redeployed into making buses, or even bicycles.

    1. Some of our public transport is terrible – this would just increase the pressure.

    Regrettably, much of Dublin’s transport network is currently over-crowded and unreliable, and this is precisely why government investment is required to accommodate demand and increase capacity.

    1. Public transport service providers cannot be expected to provide a reliable service without a financial incentive.

    This argument rests on the assumption that when we pay nothing, and heaps of people are using the service, we cannot expect top-notch customer service. The ultimate client, however, in this case is the state and a simple clause in each public transport services contract could require all services to achieve a minimum standard of quality, based on the users expectations.

    1. Many people dislike public transport and would never use it.

    There are of course people who will stick to their cars whenever possible, but they would at least start bearing the real cost of using them.

    Combating Climate Chaos

    Introducing free public transport would reduce the number of cars on the road. A moderately loaded bus can carry approximately eighty passengers during a typical commuting hour. Compared to the typical car occupancy of a maximum average of two passengers at peak hour, it is a straightforward calculation that a single bus would remove up to forty cars from the road.

    A strategically designed and free bus-based city public transport system with, say, a fleet of five hundred buses could thus potentially take twenty-thousand cars off the road; almost half the number of cars currently dominating Dublin city’s centre.

    In all likelihood many of us would choose not to own a private car – perhaps renting where the need arose – thereby reducing the volume on the road. Repeated across dozens of cities in a country and thousands worldwide, free public transport could be a game changer in terms of transport emissions.

    Any government’s job is to provide services for the people. Free public transport is an example of a great service available to all. Taxation is already devoted to healthcare, education and road maintenance, so why not make provision for a service conferring such wide-ranging benefits? Moreover, it should go without saying that any government should  be taking care of the environment we pass on to our children.

    By making free public transport an aspect of the social contract, the government would be compelled to bring about improvements as required. With more users – especially vocal ones – deficiencies would be exposed. Reducing the number of cars on the road would also yield space for footpath and cycle track improvements.

    If public transport were offered for free more people would surely avail of it. Indeed, more of us would already be using public transport if it did not cost so much; ridiculously, driving into town is often ‘cheaper’ once you own a car and paid insurance.

    Enhanced Wellbeing

    A study conducted by the city of Copenhagen linked regular public transport use to a lower mortality rate, a happier disposition, and greater labour productivity. Public transport users take up to three times the amount of exercise per day compared to drivers, simply from walking between stops and their destinations.[vi]

    Public transport also brings financial benefits to communities: not only directly by providing jobs in the industry itself, but also by creating a key component to a healthy business ecosystem, and by increasing mobility options for both commuters and customers.

    It can assist in shaping a more active society, where people accept and respect each other, interact more, learning how to live together – the core elements of a healthy polity – all for free!

    Such an idea may seem revolutionary for a car-dominated city such as Dublin, but actually it’s more like a reversion to how it operated in the past. The city existed for at least a millennium before the motor car arrived on the scene. Its city centre was built around pedestrian traffic, which had to be forcefully adjusted as car ownership expanded. Cars never made sense in Dublin, but they found a way in and have become part of the urban tissue. Now that must change.

    Will we ever have free public transport in Ireland? Not anytime soon I fear. It would take considerable campaigning for this to occur. But we must do something to alleviate the insane traffic congestion in our city, and awaken to the responsibility of addressing the climate chaos afflicting the planet.

    [i] Fergal O’Brien, Dublin third worst city for time spent sitting in traffic – survey, RTÉ, February `13th, 2019, https://www.rte.ie/news/dublin/2019/0213/1029375-dublin-traffic-survey/.

    [ii] Sarah Barth, ‘Paris’s 5 year cycling revolution: Twice the cycle lanes and three times the cyclists by 2020’, road.cc – peddled-powered, April 4th, 2015, https://road.cc/content/news/147613-pariss-5-year-cycling-revolution-twice-cycle-lanes-and-three-times-cyclists-2020.

    [iii] Untitled, ‘Traffic congestion hitting Dublin companies – Dublin Chamber’, RTÉ, 15th of March, 2018, https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2018/0316/948010-dublin-chamber-traffic/.

    [iv] Daniel Boffey, ‘Luxembourg to become first country to make all public transport free’, The Guardian, December 5th, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/05/luxembourg-to-become-first-country-to-make-all-public-transport-free.

    [v] Kevin O’Sullivan, ‘Ireland has third highest emissions of greenhouse gas in EU’, Irish Times, 26th of August, 2019, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/ireland-has-third-highest-emissions-of-greenhouse-gas-in-eu-1.3998041.

    [vi] Sarah Boseley, ‘How do you build a healthy city? Copenhagen reveals its secrets’ February 11th, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/11/how-build-healthy-city-copenhagen-reveals-its-secrets-happiness

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  • ‘A slap in the face to bus users’ – Dublin Commuter Coalition responds to proposal to allow EVs in bus lanes

    In a press release, the ‘Dublin Commuter Coalition’ has described proposals for electric vehicles to be permitted to use bus lanes[i] as a ‘slap in the face to bus users.’ This demonstrates, they claim: ‘a stunning lack of respect for overstretched users of sustainable transport.’

    The civil society organisation reject:

    [I]n the strongest possible terms, any suggestion that bus lanes be opened to electric vehicles. The Coalition, who elected their inaugural executive committee on Saturday October 26th, said that this proposal is a slap in the face to bus users who already give up their time and freedom of mobility by travelling in a sustainable way to no thanks or, as is evident from this proposal, even a modicum of respect.

    The chairperson of the Coalition Kevin Carter said:

    ‘It is bizarre, it is astonishing and it is stunningly arrogant that this government would even suggest implementing a scheme that so specifically and brazenly harms bus users. Bus users are never rewarded for choosing to travel in a sustainable way, they are only ever subject to overcrowding, constant fare increases and poor enforcement of existing traffic laws.

    Flagrant abuse of bus lanes is a constant issue for bus users and now this government is proposing further degrading the attractiveness of this mode by making bus users sit in even more traffic that they had no hand in causing.’

    The organisation points to bus users making up 30% of Dublin city commuters in 2018,[ii] the largest single category of transport users. By choosing to take the bus they claim ‘these users have done the city a massive favour by taking cars off the road and making congestion in the city less of a problem.’

    The proposals they say: ‘shows a profound ignorance or disrespect of the very central tenets of any sound sustainable mobility policy.’

    They also point to how the Minister for Transport holds the right to drive in a bus lane as a government minister, and warn that then Ireland will continue to overshoot emissions targets if he fails to prioritise electric vehicles over walking, cycling and public transport, and Dubliners will continue to live in one of the most congested cities in the world.

    These latest moves also suggest, as Ruadhan Mac Eoin previously argued that, if realised, Bus Connects will make permanent space for the motor car.

    Cassandra Voices previously published an article by Contemplar arguing that public transport is a public good that can be cost-effectively delivered in Dublin.

    For further information please contact: Dublin Commuter Coalition:

    Feljin Jose Public Relations Officer: info@dublincommuters.ie; 0871236795

    Kevin Carter Chairperson 0851751487

    [i] Hugh O’Connor, ‘Government to examine plans allowing electric cars to use bus lanes’, Irish Independent, November 1st, 2019, https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/government-to-examine-plans-allowing-electric-cars-to-use-bus-lanes-38642359.html

    [ii] National Transport Agency ‘Canal Cordon Report 2018 Report on trends in mode share of vehicles and people crossing the Canal Cordon 2006-2018.’ Dublin City Council, April, 2019.

  • Dubliners Deserve Better Than Bus Connects

    Under normal circumstances, developing a bus network should confer great benefits on a city: it is cheap, quick to implement, and causes little disruption. Yet, remarkably, the BusConnects plan manages to achieve precisely the opposite effects.

    Furthermore, ever since BusConnects has been on the agenda, it has diverted public attention away from other improvements that should be ongoing. Delivering more buses with clean, non-diesel engines would be a tangible improvement that could happen without controversy, as would priority traffic lights. Instead we seem to be forging ahead with a costly megaproject, which threatens the city’s character, and ultimately may not even come about.

    Dublin has an unenviable history in terms of delivering public transport megaprojects. DART Underground is an obvious example, while the Airport Metro has been in gestation since 1966: to date the only element is a station recently built beside the Mater Hospital.

    I have repeatedly sought details as to cost of that station, by way of Access on the Information on the Environment Requests to the National Transport Authority, yet these have gone unanswered, after being initially acknowledged.

    Where megaprojects have been touted in the past, this has tended to divert progress that could more easily be made in other areas. For instance, there was little interest in getting the Phoenix Park tunnel brought into passenger use while the DART Underground project was being advanced.

    Failed megaprojects can also be incredibly costly: reports indicate that €200 million was spent on the last effort to build the Airport Metro.[i]

    The real issue is that, if realised, BusConnects will make permanent space for private motor cars. This would be achieved at the cost of the city’s built heritage and green infrastructure – including thousands of road side and privately owned trees. As such, this element appears to contravene both the Dublin City Development Plan[ii] and the EU Habitats Directive[iii].

    Thus, Objective GIO27 commits: ‘To protect trees, hedgerows or groups of trees which function as wildlife corridors or ‘stepping stones’ in accordance with Article 10 of the EU Habitats Directive.’

    While Policy SC15 seeks: ‘To recognise and promote green infrastructure and landscape as an integral part of the form and structure of the city, including streets and public spaces.’

    And Policy SC12 aims: ‘To ensure that development within or affecting Dublin’s villages protects their character.’

    It is noted that at a public meeting earlier this year in the Clayton Hotel off Leeson Street, on behalf of the National Transport Agency (NTA), Hugh Creegan, stated that plans have not yet been prepared for replacement of trees.

    Given the massive scope of the scheme, it seems essential to provide plans for what will occur after the initial destructive phase – otherwise, the plan is missing key elements, and is premature.

    Road-widening schemes for Dublin during the 1970s and 1980s were not a solution to our transport ills then – and do not provide one now.

    Areas along the inner tangent such as Summerhill, Bridgefoot Street, and Christchurch, are still scarred by those developments. Other areas, including both canals, were also under extreme danger – yet fortunately, the megaproject of road-widening was never realised.

    This brings us to the real question: why is a road-widening project being foisted on Dubliners, when they clearly prefer rail and tram transport to bus? Luas and DART provide end-to-end services and enhance neighbourhoods (and property values) along the routes. This is certainly not the case with road-widening schemes, which contribute noise and air pollution.

    BusConnects envisages 1,400+ compulsory purchase orders (CPOs), including the removal of many private gardens, bringing traffic closer to people’s front doors. Costs are far from clear. There is a major discrepancy between values suggested by the NTA ranging between €30,000 to €60,000 per CPO, and the potential diminution in the value of certain properties along the routes. A figure suggested for some properties has been as high as €500,000,[iv] a difference by a factor of ten.

    The assumption that bus represents better value for money does not hold true when assessed over a thirty-year time span: trams last longer and carry more people, as well as requiring fewer drivers. Moreover, road surfaces generally demand more frequent maintenance than rail tracks.

    According to an ArcGIS assessment I undertook, over 100,000 Dublin residents could have access to the Irish Rail network, if stations were opened at logical sites along the route, such as Ballyfermot, Cabra, Dublin Zoo, Croke Park, East Wall. and Dublin Ferry Port. As with the Phoenix Park tunnel being brought into use, there is no serious impediment to extending the city’s existing rail network – except for a lack of will, combined with an apparent preference for meretricious megaprojects.

    Moreover, BusConnects also effectively gets in the way of decent cycling infrastructure being developed. Although the adverts proclaim that over two hundred kilometres of cycleways are to be built as part of BusConnects, in reality that scheme has priority over the extensive cycleway plans announced five years ago by the NTA.[v] Hence cycle provision is once again put on the back burner.

    This Bus Connects plan does not represent value for money, and would destroy wildlife, diminish the built environment. It should be set aside. Dubliners deserve better than Bus Connects. The NTA are expected to make planning applications so as to develop the BusConnects scheme during 2020.

    Do you think this piece is valuable? If so, you might consider providing us with financial support via Patreon, or simply pay us a small sum directly using PayPal: admin@cassandravoices.com. Thanks for supporting independent journalism. Subscribe for free to our monthly newsletter here. 

    This piece has been composed from a submission filed with the National Transport Authority (NTA) by Ruadhán MacEoin BSc. MSc., who is a planner and urban designer. For his Master’s Degree in Richview UCD (2017), he assessed recent delivery of public transport in Dublin, and produced a thesis entitled ‘Democratic Accountability or a Speculator’s Blank Cheque: What Lessons Have Been Learned from Dublin’s Experience of Transport 21?’. In the past, MacEoin wrote for numerous publications on planning matters, including The Sunday Times, The Irish Times, and Plan Magazine. He lives and works in Dublin.

     

    [i] Hugh O’Connell, ‘Government denies €200m spent on Metro North is ‘money down the drain’’, thejournal.ie, November 11th, 2011. https://www.thejournal.ie/government-denies-e200m-spent-on-metro-north-is-money-down-the-drain-276605-Nov2011/

    [ii] ‘Dublin City Development Plan 2016-22’ http://www.dublincity.ie/main-menu-services-planning-city-development-plan/dublin-city-development-plan-2016-2022

    [iii] ‘Council Directive 92/43/EEC on the Conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora’ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A31992L0043

    [iv] Tim O’Brien, ‘South Dublin homes affected by BusConnects could get €500,000 each, resident claims’, Irish Times, March 4th, 2019. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/south-dublin-homes-affected-by-busconnects-could-get-500-000-each-resident-claims-1.3812877

    [v] Rónán Duffy, ‘These maps show the planned 2,840km of cycle routes for the greater Dublin area’, thejournal.ie, April 11th, 2014, https://www.thejournal.ie/dublin-cycling-plan-1410242-Apr2014/

  • A User’s Guide to ‘Sail-Rail’ with Bicycle and Opportunities on the Dublin-London Route

    Sail-Rail passage between Dublin and London currently takes about eight hours – but could be slashed to under four. The emergence of what the Swede’s call ‘flight shame’ in this era of Climate Change, may motivate many to look for alternatives on what is Europe’s busiest air corridor. 

    I – Outset

    An era of climate challenge requires changes in all sectors. Among those calculated, air travel is reckoned to have one of the fastest-rising greenhouse gas emissions’ profiles – with each passenger trip disproportionately contributing to man-made climate change.[i] Accordingly, where an alternative mode is viable, it seems reasonable to consider, and indeed try this out.

    For inhabitants of Ireland, it is noteworthy that the Dublin-London air corridor is the ninth busiest in the world, and the busiest in Europe, accounting for 15,000 flights per annum.[ii] According to ‘the Man in Seat 61’ website, a trip by plane from London to Dublin produces 174.8 kilograms of CO2 emissions per passenger.[iii]

    This is not an exact science, nonetheless, with numerous passengers conveyed by Boeing 737s, which typically carry one-hundred-and-eighty passengers, a reasonable guesstimate is that this results in almost half-a-billion kilograms of CO2 emissions per annum. In contrast, as also noted by the Man in Seat 61, choosing to travel sail-rail rather than by air between the two cities brings a 71% reduction in emissions, or 46.8 kilograms of CO2 per passenger.

    In a recent flight of fancy, I decided to take a trip to London with bicycle by boat and train. This journey involved a planned detour via Oxford, but these observations apply also to the direct London trip.

    II – Preparation

    Departure times are available on the British Rail website, along with those of the ferry operators. Both Irish Ferries and Stena Line sail from Dublin ferry port to Holyhead. Irish Ferries has two early morning crossings: the first, a slightly faster ferry leaves at 7.30am – having previously departed at 8.30am – while the second, slower ferry, leaves at 8.05am. The Stena Line ferry leaves at 8.10am, and is even slower. Passengers must check-in a half-hour before departure.

    The journey time for the one-hundred-and-twenty-kilometre crossing is typically three-and-a-half hours – with the fastest currently operating taking two hours. Previously there was a faster ferry, which only took one hour forty minutes,[iv] travelling between Holyhead and Dun Laoghaire, where it met Dublin’s DART rail service. Alas this is no longer operating.

    As with air travel, it is prudent to check ahead regarding weather conditions as ferry crossings can be affected, particularly the fast crossing, which may be cancelled in rough conditions; although it is extremely rare for the slower crossings to be held ashore.

    Trains departing and arriving in Holyhead do not necessarily align with the arrivals and departures of ferries. However, the ferry departing Dublin at 7.30am docks at Holyhead and connects with a service train to London – requiring a change at Chester involving a twenty-minute layover (12.15pm to 12.35pm) – with scheduled downtown arrival at 2.38pm.

    A number of differences are apparent with the experience of travelling by sail-rail, rather than by plane, on this route. An obvious drawback is the time involved; a minimum of almost eight hours – as opposed to approximately four for the equivalent by air. The journey is, nonetheless, generally less stressful, and has a lower environmental impact; nor are passengers exposed to the potentially hazardous atmosphere associated with airline travel.[v]

    Moreover, as the price is a set at a flat rate of €53/£43, increasing by small increments depending on the distance from Holyhead, which can be booked via www.thetrainline.co.uk, or the Irish Ferries or Stena Line websites up until the last minute – or even at the port itself – this may compare favourably with the cost of an air ticket between the two cities, if booked only a day or so beforehand, especially during peak periods.

    Sail-rail may thus suit a variety of people: not least families with young children; persons with heart or other health conditions; older people; and those happy to exchange more time for less stress.

    Other differences in the journey experience which may attract prospective travellers include, an absence of weight restriction on passengers’ baggage, and, in general, lesser queues at passport controls.

    While booking a sail-rail ticket is straightforward, making a bike reservation is complicated, when attempted from Ireland. In this case calling a helpline to ask an operator – seemingly unfamiliar with such a request – was required to book the bike on board the train. Contact then also had to be made with each of the train companies involved with each leg of the journey.

    Ironically, rail privatisation in the U.K. has become a bureaucrat’s dream. For persons already in the U.K., sail-rail with a bicycle is far simpler, as bike tickets can be purchased along with the rail ticket itself at any station – although, in this instance, when travelling back to Dublin from Oxford, the process resulted in a ludicrous number of about ten tickets being produced to cover each leg of the journey.

    III – Departing Dublin

    Cycling to the ferry port from Dublin city centre could be more pleasant and safer. The 3.2 kilometre route to the ferry terminals from the Point Depot was approached via Alexandra Road – rather than Tolka Road, which is much busier. Neither have cycleways, and the surface along Alexandra Road is ridged concrete that is uneven and pot-holed.

    There are also Iarnrod Eireann tracks along this route, which, alas, only convey freight rather than foot passengers – or indeed cyclists! Consequently, foot passengers generally rely on taxis or rare and relatively expensive buses – while cyclists must negotiate the Iarnrod Eireann rail tracks criss-crossing the road, as no cycle provision has been made.

    Take great care if using these roads, as there are also frequently fast-moving large articulated lorries – of the kind notorious for blind spots, and disproportionately associated with fatalities of cyclists in Dublin in recent decades.[vi]

    It is regrettable, but necessary to observe, that cyclists that consider themselves potentially more vulnerable – such as parents travelling with children – would be advised to travel by taxi along this section. Moreover, as the road is quite long and runs through industrial areas, walking is not advised.

    Upon reaching the Dublin ferry terminal, cyclists must check in at the same desk as foot passengers. Rather than walking onto the boat with one’s bicycle, however, direction was given on this occasion to cross the road and cycle up the same ramp as that used by articulated lorries and cars – albeit empty at the time.

    This adds a circuitous route of circa three hundred and fifty metres up a steep ramp, which should not pose any problems for more athletic sorts, but could be off-putting for more vulnerable cyclists. If this is a concern, the ferry company could be contacted prior to booking to allow the bike to be carried on by different means.

    IV – En Route

    On arrival at Holyhead, cyclists must wait until all cars and lorries have disembarked from the ferry. A bus then conveys all foot passengers to the ferry terminal. Bicycles must be held by the rider on what are often crowded buses, although, fortunately, it is a short ride of about three minutes. An improvement for both pedestrian and cyclist would be for an external hook to be attached to the back of the bus to convey bicycles. Or, better again, if cyclists were permitted to disembark from the ship ahead of motorized vehicles, as happens elsewhere.

    Travelling on a Sunday, regrettably the experience involved trains carrying excessive numbers of passengers. Seemingly, it is often necessary to perch in between carriages on busy routes. Unlike other jurisdictions, conditions of travel on U.K. train tickets only specify passage on board a train, rather than assurance of an actual seat. Staff seemed genuinely well-meaning and helpful, yet regrettably refreshment carts were rare, while dining cars operate only on the busiest of routes.

    British people understandably bemoan the standard of their rail services, especially considering these are among the most expensive in Europe.[vii] For Paddy going to and from London, however, the cost is far less than for a person travelling similar journeys within the UK – and tickets can be booked at a fixed price until the last minute.

    V – The Arrival

    One of the great advantages of travelling by rail instead of air is that termini are generally sited in the heart of the destination city. London is no different, where melodious station names may be familiar to many Irish people – having featured in countless ballads over the last century. And for the cyclist, the recently built network of so-called Super Cycle Highways developed across the metropolis offer a pleasant way to peruse it. This is far superior to previous provision, and allows the the often-over-crowded London Underground to be avoided.

    Buckingham Palace, London.

    VI – The Return

    The fast ferry from Holyhead leaves at 4.45pm, returning to Dublin at 7.00pm, with the latest train departing London at 12.10pm, and arriving at 4.14pm, half an hour before departure.

    On this occasion, travelling from Oxford, alas the last leg of the journey from Chester to Holyhead did not prove reliable. With the train running twenty-five minutes late, the ticket inspector helpfully offered to phone ahead – presumably via his own superior – to let Irish Ferries know the train was delayed. We proceeded ‘to make good time’, by bypassing a number of stations, which resulted in the delay being cut to ten minutes.

    Regrettably, however, on arrival at the port it emerged that the ferry had already departed. Staff stated they had not been forewarned, in which case they would would have held the boat. It is not possible to say where the communication breakdown occurred inconveniencing twenty people.

    At least a Sail-Rail ticket allows for exchange of tickets between operators, and all Irish Ferries passengers were accommodated on the Stena Line ferry departing a few hours later at 8.30pm. Stena Line are to be commended for allowing bicycles to travel for free, unlike Irish Ferries which levies a rather mean-spirited additional €10 charge each way.

    VII – Holyhead

    Unfortunately, for passengers stranded in Holyhead no lockers are apparent. These basic facilities would facilitate anyone wishing to store luggage while visiting the town. Happily, in this instance, freight was light.

    In times gone by, the gap between the joint port terminal-rail station and the town of Holyhead was notorious among foot passengers, as it required an onerous and relatively lengthy journey. Hence, the ‘Celtic Gateway’ pedestrian bridge linking the station and Market Street in the town, which opened in 2001, is a notable improvement, resulting in a journey of circa two-hundred-and-eighty metres, rather than approximately eight-hundred-and-fifty metres by road.

    Although the bridge is a distinct improvement and visually attractive, arguably it is due an upgrade. It could be covered, heated, and equipped with a travellator to entice visitors out of the station and into town. Dowdy looking tiers of terraces overlooking the harbour that greet the arriving traveller could be transformed by a colourful paint-job.

    Holyhead, one of the more deprived areas in the UK,[viii] is the shop window of Wales for Irish people, who generally otherwise travel non-stop through the principality. Unfortunately Holyhead fails to capitalise on its assets of human-scaled urban spaces with vernacular Victorian architecture, as it is car-dominated. The town also contains ruins of a Roman fortified settlement,[ix] yet sadly the closure of the local tourist office[x] will not help publicise this any time soon.

    VIII – Arrival In Dublin

    Despite departing later than originally planned, the voyage back across the Irish Sea with Stena Line was pleasantly uneventful. Disembarkation, however, after midnight means foot passengers without bicycles may rely on taxis to reach the city centre. Yet, for cyclists not only have they already their own means of carriage, but also the disembarkation process was markedly more straightforward than it had been when departing Dublin and around Holyhead – with no ramps or buses, but instead, simple disembarkation as a foot passenger carrying a bicycle as hand luggage.

    IX – Summary of Experience

    At present the journey from Dublin Port to central London using Sail-Rail takes a minimum of seven and half hours, with trains arriving in the U.K. capital just after 2.30pm. By comparison a trip by air from Dublin typically takes three and half to four hours, including boarding time at Dublin airport and the overland journey to the centre of London.

    Taking a plane seems a no-brainer for anyone but the intrepid crank or someone wishing to avoid luggage weight restrictions. It could, however, be so much better.

    X – Opportunities for Future Development

    Restoration of the high speed catamaran ferry between Dun Laoghaire and Holyhead would cut journey time by twenty minutes. Separately, a high speed rail line, the HS2, is being developed between London and Liverpool, with expected journey times of just one hour twenty five minutes.[xi]

    This will leave a relatively small gap of a hundred kilometres between Liverpool and Holyhead. If this stretch is upgraded to HS2 standard so as to be a mere fifteen minutes travel time, it would bring the overall journey time between the city centres of Dublin and London to just three hours and fifty minutes (including checking-in time) – providing a serious alternative to the four hours often needed via air.

    Amidst the ongoing Brexit debate, the Irish authorities have emphasised the importance of the so-called ‘land bridge’ route via Wales and the U.K. to Dublin – yet this is in marked contrast to the silence regarding ease of conveyance for foot passengers, cyclists, or train users along the same route.

    In recent decades, numerous other European cities have been building up their high-speed rail connections, linking cities and different jurisdictions, such as Copenhagen in Denmark to Malmo in Sweden via the iconic Oresund Bridge.[xii]

    The current standard of the service from Dublin through Wales and England to London varies between local, regional, and intercity – rather than international. It is sub-optimum, with gaps, and, consequently, slower passage than is necessary.

    XI – EU Funding

    It is puzzling that little improvement is seemingly envisaged given the E.U. specifically prioritises funding for transnational infrastructure to better inter-connect Member States[xiii] – rather than projects within a single country for which far fewer funds are generally available.

    As the HS2 Project has been developing, there was the opportunity for an Anglo-Irish-Welsh bid to seek funding from the E.U. on the basis that it would improve the international corridor between London and Dublin. Naturally, it would be a prerequisite that any such bid would be include the aforementioned Liverpool-Holyhead HS2 Spur as a core component. In a best case scenario, overall project costs could be slashed for the British Exchequer – while journey times would be greatly diminished to and from Ireland.

    Inherently, this voyage should be very pleasurable – emerging out of Dublin Bay into the Irish Sea, before reaching the incredible scenery of Snowdonia, and passing beside the striking medieval and picturesque buildings of Conwy along the rail route. Passage for foot passengers and cyclists should – and could relatively easily – be encouraged. This would greatly benefit both parties, with tourism for Wales from Ireland, and with Wales offering a pleasant approach to Ireland, and the prospect of inducing more affluent tourists from Europe, and further afield.

    Indeed, cycling based ‘green tourism’ is now demonstrated to be a great opportunity for an area to develop itself.[xiv]

    Separately, given Ireland’s overall CO2 emissions’ profile, and notwithstanding Brexit, it would seem prudent for the Irish authorities to advocate for an upgraded link to Holyhead.

    It should, however, be noted that any construction using concrete releases almost a tonne of CO2 into the atmosphere from every tonne of concrete manufactured.[xv] Accordingly, the embodied energy involved would have to be taken into account in the contemplation of any such scheme.

    Therefore, the environmental cost of the construction of any tunnel between Dublin and Holyhead would probably prove prohibitive. And, based on other Irish projects, the incredibly high financial cost of €20 billion euro and upwards appears to rule out such a notion. As such, a HS2 spur and a high speed ferry appear to be the optimum improvements that could be made to the London-Dublin route.

    XII – Absence of Advocacy

    In 2015, as preparations were being advanced for HS2, a Request for Access to Environmental Information was submitted to the Irish Department of Transport, seeking a record of any correspondence with their counterparts in the U.K. as to the possibility of extending a spur from the HS2 to Holyhead.

    The response indicated that no formal correspondence had occurred. It seems unlikely there have been any developments since.

    Closer to home, regrettably there is little evidence that the approaches to Dublin’s ferry terminals will be improved for cyclists or public transport passengers any time soon.

    Stranger things have happened however: recently Irish Rail rediscovered another Dublin railway under the Phoenix Park for new use by passengers[xvi] – a move long advocated by this writer.[xvii] As such, is it unthinkable that a service could be developed along the port railway to link with the ferry terminals?

    A conceivable option would be to extend an existing Intercity or regional service that presently terminates at Heuston or Connolly to operate as far as the port; complimented by new platforms at Docklands Station. Such a scheme should not incur inordinate expense.

    As with Holyhead, an inter-terminal bus could be used for any local gaps. Hence, access by rail would be reinstated for Dubliners traveling by boat – while arriving tourist would have the option of services to destinations beyond Dublin, such as Cork, Kerry, Galway, Sligo, Waterford, or Limerick. Separately, the development of safe cycleways to the ferry terminals is long overdue. Again, this could surely be achievable at minimal cost.

    In comparison with Dublin Airport, which carries over 30 million passengers per annum,[xviii] Dublin Port only carries circa 1.5 million,[xix] where the emphasis is clearly on facilitating freight rather than foot passengers.

    Different factors are obviously at play: Dublin Port is presently best suited for foot/cycle passengers with a U.K. destination, whereas Dublin Airport obviously has global reach.

    The overall experience of passage is not the worst – perhaps a six out of ten on a good day. The withdrawal of the one-hundred-minute ferry and separately the additional charge now levied for bicycles by Irish Ferries is lamentable – as arguably was the relocation of all ferry services away from Dun Laoghaire, where previously ferry passengers had immediate access to DART and regional rail services.

    For a capital city of an island nation, conveyance to and from ferry port terminals should and could be a lot easier and safer. Whether reducing greenhouse gas emissions, or inducing ‘green tourism’, proportionally speaking, any money spent would buy little beer – yet yield great returns. With or without Brexit, the Dublin-London route will continue to be heavily used. Perhaps, one or two of the suggestions contained above may yet be considered.

    [i] Untitled, ‘Dublin-Heathrow Busiest International Route In Europe’, 21st of January, Roots Online, https://www.routesonline.com/airports/2412/dublin-airport/news/276780/dublin-heathrow-busiest-international-route-in-europe/, accessed 31/3/19.

    [ii] Untitled, ‘Dublin-Heathrow Busiest International Route In Europe’, 21st of January, Roots Online, https://www.routesonline.com/airports/2412/dublin-airport/news/276780/dublin-heathrow-busiest-international-route-in-europe/, accessed 31/3/19.

    [iii] Untitled, ‘Cut your CO2 emissions by taking the train, by up to 90%…’, The Man on Seat 61, https://www.seat61.com/CO2flights.htm, accessed 31/3/19.

    [iv] Deirdre Falvey, ‘First Look: Dublin Swift, the new fast ferry to Holyhead’, May 14th, 2018, Irish Times. https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/travel/first-look-dublin-swift-the-new-fast-ferry-to-holyhead-1.3494521, accessed 31/3/19.

    [v] Arwa Lodhi and Vineetha Reddy, 5 SURPRISING HEALTH RISKS OF FLYING, Eluxe Magazine, https://eluxemagazine.com/travel/surprising-health-risks-of-flying/, accessed 31/3/19.

    [vi] Road Safety Authority, ‘Online Video Puts Cyclists and Truck Drivers in each other shoes’ 17th of June, 2011, http://www.rsa.ie/en/Utility/News/2011/Online-Video-Puts-Cyclists-and-Truck-Drivers-in-each-other-shoes/, accessed 31/3/19.

    [vii] Tom Pritchard, London Rail Fares Are the Most Expensive in Europe, Reports Bear Shitting In Woods*, August 2nd, 2017, Gizmodo, http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2017/08/london-rail-fares-are-the-most-expensive-in-europe-reports-bear-shitting-in-woods/, accessed 31/3/19.

    [viii] UK Local Area, Holyhead Town, http://www.uklocalarea.com/index.php?q=Holyhead+Town&wc=00NAMQ accessed 31/3/19.

    [ix] CastlesFortsBattles.co.uk, Holyhead Roman Fort, http://www.castlesfortsbattles.co.uk/north_wales/holyhead_roman_fort_watchtower.html

    [x] North Wales Tourist Information Service, website, http://www.northwales.info/Tourist_Information_Offices/Holyhead_Tourist_Information_O/holyhead_tourist_information_o.html, accessed 31/3/19.

    [xi] Liverpool City Region, website, https://www.liverpoolcityregion-ca.gov.uk/high-speed-rail-milestone/, accessed 31/3/19.

    [xii] Visit Copenhagen, website, https://www.visitcopenhagen.com/copenhagen/oresund-bridge-gdk711853, accessed 31/3/19.

    [xiii] Mobility and Transport, ‘Infrastructure – TEN-T – Connecting Europe’ European Commission, https://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/infrastructure_en, accessed 31/3/19.

    [xiv] Manchán Magan ’The Story Behind Ireland’s Greenway Success’, January 20th, 2018, Irish Times,  https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/travel/ireland/the-story-behind-ireland-s-greenway-success-1.3352239

    [xv] Cement CO2 Emission, globalgreenhouswarming, website, http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/cement-CO2-emissions.html, accessed 31/3/19.

    [xvi] Conor Feehan, ‘The big day is here: Phoenix Park’s 139-year-old tunnel reopens for rail commuters’, November 21st, 2016, Irish Independent, https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/the-big-day-is-here-phoenix-parks-139yearold-tunnel-reopens-for-rail-commuters-35232070.html, accessed 31/3/19.

    [xvii] Ruadhán MacEoin, ‘Think tank: Radical departure for Dublin rail plan’, August 23rd, 2009, The Times, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/think-tank-radical-departure-for-dublin-rail-plan-nsth0bld0z3, accessed 31/3/19.

    [xviii] ‘Dublin Airport Sets New Passenger Record’, 15th of January, 2019, Dublin Airport website, https://www.dublinairport.com/latest-news/detail/dublin-airport-sets-new-passenger-record-2, accessed 31/3/19.

    [xix] Untitled, ‘Tourist Vehicle And Ferry Passenger Numbers Fall At Dublin Port’ October 18th, 2018, Hospitality Ireland, https://www.hospitalityireland.com/tourist-vehicle-ferry-passenger-numbers-fall-dublin-port/66470, accessed 31/3/19.

  • Don’t believe the Autonomous Car Hype – It’s a Sequel!

    Earlier this year, The Economist (March, 2018) published a special report speculating on the potential for autonomous or self-driving cars to solve the countless problems associated with today’s gasoline-powered, human operated vehicles.  Autonomous cars, they and other tech-enthusiasts argue, will virtually eliminate road accidents, revive suburban areas, solve the problem of parking, and reduce traffic in our cities.

    The naïve claim is that a single technology will solve a host of social, cultural and environmental problems, while allowing the economy to keep growing, never questioning whether the endless pursuit of autonomous mobility or economic growth is good for the planet, let alone urban regions.

    I – Appropriation of Critiques

    Ascribing commodities with magical powers is nothing new. Marx called it the fetishism of commodities. A commodity, he wrote, is a mysterious thing that achieves mystical properties, not due to its use value, but from ways in which it objectifies social relations. It is much easier, and profitable, to address the urbanizing planet’s profound socio-ecological crisis with a new technology than to question the social and cultural desire for automobile-propelled mobility.

    Like the rhetoric of the sharing economy, which appropriates the collective idea of sharing in the monetization of everyday life — driving, dwelling, and eating — the rhetoric around the autonomous car appropriates critiques of the automobile that have long been made by environmentalist and anti-car activists.

    The fantasy of this fetish object begins with its very naming as somehow autonomous (literally, outside of or beyond the law). All new technologies, be they cars or smartphones, pencils or paper, alter the existing cultural and social matrix of technologies. The question is how do they do so, who in particular will benefit from them, and how are they sold to the public because, today, all technologies are developed within the laws of capitalism — they have to make money and be profitable, and in the case of the autonomous car, further rather than overcome, the individualism that is at the core of the system of automobility.

    Critics of the car, activists and academics alike, have long pointed to not just the physical violence that mass automobility brings out, but the conceptual violence of automobility as the symbol of autonomous mobility.

    Automobility, in this sense is fundamentally contradictory. The ‘auto’ in automobility implies a coherent self, someone composing her biography in motion. Driving is the ultimate pursuit of the autonomous self. If freedom is motion, forever moving forward, then the car on the open road is the ultimate expression of autonomy.

    At the same time, the ‘auto’ in automation, automaton, and automobile implies a machine, not a human, and a seemingly autonomous machine that is, however, utterly dependent on an infrastructure for it to express the driver’s autonomy, often at the expense of other non-car drivers.

    Critical theorists of automobility have pointed out that automobility is not at all autonomous, but radically dependent on a host of infrastructure systems.  They suggest that the vast system that makes automobility both possible and desirable, ironically, if taken as an intrinsic part of automobility would call into question the very idea and practice of autonomous mobility. Their point is that it is not necessarily the individual in the car that expresses autonomous mobility, but that it is rather the infrastructure, the vast network of highways, gas stations, traffic lights, licensing and insurance systems, that fosters the illusion that movement is autonomous. Thus, the editors of a 2006 edited collection called Against Automobility write, ‘the complex infrastructure of automobility produces, as one of its effects, the appearance of independent automobility.’

    II – ‘Energy Crisis’

    Ivan Ilich, the theologian and radical activist, made the same claim when he criticized the term ‘energy crisis’ in the 1970s in his landmark essay ‘Energy and Equity’ (1974). There was only a crisis, he wrote, because of the number of ‘energy slaves’ that needed to be fed. His point was that the energy crisis revealed the opposite of autonomy: our radical dependence on networks of infrastructure and energy. Autonomy, in his sense, could not be found with a technological tool, green or otherwise, but with social and political liberation.

    If automobility as autonomous mobility is impossible on conceptual grounds, attempts to resolve such antagonisms will always fail.  In his last book, the sociologist John Urry wrote that even the car manufacturers are beginning to realize that automobility’s antagonisms might be ‘impossible to ‘solve’ in any simple sense.’

    The Economist said as much itself back in 2012. To address ‘peak car’ – saturation of the automobile market in the rich countries – car manufacturers had two options: either flood the economically poorer countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, and India with more gas guzzling combustion engines; or bring technology and car companies together to offer rich countries the autonomous car, a ‘highly profitable innovation.’

    The autonomous car, far from overturning the system of automobility that became dominant in the twentieth century, will only perpetuate it and fuel expectations for increased personal mobility, rather than collective, public mobility on public transit. The expectations that we should all have access to a private car to go, where we want and when we want, were in part produced by the infrastructure of automobility.

    III – Uber-flawed

    Uber’s former CEO, Travis Kalanick, argued that Uber was not, as might appear, in competition with taxis, although that is the most visible aspect of the clash (and the associated labour disputes of Uber’s drivers). Rather, Kalanick said that they were not competing in an existing market, but producing an altogether different one. Uber was competing against car ownership. The goal? To make, in Kalanick’s words: ‘car ownership a thing of the past.’

    Kalanick’s claim points to a key aspect of the discourse of the autonomous car: its proponents have appropriated long-held knowledge about the damage cars do to society, in order to sell autonomous cars.

    For years anti-car activists have pointed to a number of antagonisms. The response: autonomous cars will ease the antagonisms of automobility by reducing traffic, ending the over one million fatalities that occur on the world’s roads every year, cutting back carbon emissions (when the cars become self-driving), reduce parking and supplementing public transportation, or in some areas, offering a more cost-effective form of quasi-public transport. With autonomous vehicles, we find what The Economist describes as the possible saviour of both the system of automobility and the dispersed suburban form.

    For decades, anti-car and environmental activists have been drawing attention to these problems with cars. Their point was not to find a technological alternative that could, in theory, provide the same pseudo-freedom of mobility that the car provides, but to question radically that pursuit, and support collective solutions in the interests of the common good: safe and effective public transportation, cycling, and an urban and suburban form conducive to walking and hanging around.

    Today criticisms of the car are recycled by the industry because a technological alternative has become viable that does not call into question the economy of infinite growth. Those who for years persisted in supporting conventional cars because they were still profitable (and as such willingly sacrificed human lives in exchange for personal mobility and profit), now conveniently reach for the anti-car arguments.

    IV – Unsustainable Growth

    Autonomy (2018), is a book co-authored by Lawrence D. Burns, former vice-president of research and development at General Motors, and a key proponent of self-driving cars. The introductory chapter is entitled ‘The Problem with Cars’, and introduces a litany of problems associated with the ‘personally owned, gas-powered, human-operated automobile.’

    These cars he writes are inefficient. Cars are usually occupied by only one person, and in city centres cars rarely travel faster than 12 mph (3). Cars are heavy, and so dangerous, killing 1.3 million people per year, and they contribute to American dependence on oil. And given all that, they still spend 95% of their lives parked.

    ‘Years from now,’ writes Burns, ‘we’ll regard as incredibly wasteful the way we got around in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries….The system is completely irrational.’

    Adam Jonas, a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley, claims that the car industry is the ‘the most disruptable business on the Earth.’ ‘Happily,’ writes Burns, ‘the solution also happens to be better for the earth’. This is telling because it is economics, not an interest in climate change, that, in the end, drives such innovations. If it happens to pollute less, all the better, but the ultimate goal is infinite economic growth, which in today’s climate, cannot be sustained.

    There are, however, two glaring omissions in Burns’s account: no mention of the vast sums of money spent on highway building and maintenance, particularly in North America, much to the detriment of public transportation, and not one mention of public transportation as an already available, collective option to much of the problems he discusses.

    The bus does make an appearance in his narrative: co-founder of Google, Larry Page, while an undergraduate in Michigan in the early 1990s, was forced to wait in the freezing cold for buses that never arrived on time, if at all. While stuck waiting, writes Burns, Page wondered ‘how poorly we as a society had solved the transportation problem.’ The solution, was not to make public transportation more effective, but to come up with an idea for personal rapid transportation, which would lead to the race to build self-driving cars.

    Most remarkably, The Economist’s 2018 special section on autonomous vehicles, claims they will save the suburb from the car by reducing or eliminating driving and the amount of space given over to cars, thereby, ‘updating the 20th-century dream of garden cities.’ Garden Cities, they write, can again become self-sustaining, producing their own power through solar, and growing their own food. Since autonomous vehicles can be parked elsewhere and roads narrowed, car spaces can be reclaimed as gathering spaces for people.

    V – Suburbs without cars?

    Is it possible to conceive of the dispersed suburbs without privately-owned cars? The lack of sidewalks will turn into a bonus as the playing field between cars and pedestrians is levelled. What about the demise of car ownership? If car ownership is part of the debtscape of suburban neo-liberal automobility (Walks, 2015), how might the de-privatized self-driving car change this?

    For Wendell Cox, one of the staunchest supporters of neo-liberal automobility, the idea of suburban dwellers not only giving up car ownership, but sharing rides with their fellow suburban dwellers in self-driving cars is unthinkable. In other words, self-driving transportation services should not resemble in any form public transportation.

    In all of these cases, radical alternatives that were about a right to the city, are commodified and sold to us as saviours of the city. And it is unlikely these self-driving cars will benefit the places that need them most: suburbs and peripheries lacking in good public transportation.

    The current mood around self-driving cars places them in the increasingly exclusive central cores of cities like Google’s proposed smart neighbourhood, Quayside, on the Toronto waterfront, which will make use of self-driving cars.

    If the current forms of ‘tech mobility’ (Henderson, 2018) are any indication – like the privatised Google buses in San Francisco ferrying workers from the downtown to their suburban tech campuses – so-called sustainable forms of liveability that are associated with self-driving cars, carbon-free mobility, and bike lanes, will exacerbate rather than overcome the infrastructural inequities between the central city cores and the periphery, enhance the autonomous mobility of the few, not the many.

    References

    Steffen Böhm, Campbell Jones, Mat Paterson, and Chris Land (Eds.), Against automobility. Malden, MA, Blackwell, 2006.
    Jason Henderson, Google Buses and Uber Cars, The Routledge Handbook on Spaces of Urban Politics, Routledge, New York, pp. 439–450, 2018.
    Alan Walks, Stopping the ‘War on the Car’: Neoliberalism, Fordism, and the Politics of Automobility in Toronto, Mobilities 10 (3): 402–22, 2015.
    Lawrence D. Burns and Christopher Shulgan, Autonomy: the quest to build the driverless car–and how it will reshape our world, HarperCollins, New York, 2018.
    Evelyn Rusli and Douglas MacMillan, ‘Uber Gets an Uber-Valuation’, Wall Street Journal, 6 June 2014, <http://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-gets-uber-valuation-of-18-2-billion-1402073876>
    Wendell Cox, ‘Driverless Cars and the City: Sharing Cars, Not Rides’, Cityscape, 18, 197–204, 2016
    Ivan Ilich, Energy and Equity, London : Calder & Boyars, 1974, http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/EnergyEquity/Energy%20and%20Equity.htm
    ‘Seeing the Back of the Car’, The Economist, 22 September 2012 <https://www.economist.com/briefing/2012/09/22/seeing-the-back-of-the-car>
    ‘Special Report: Autonomous Vehicles’, The Economist, 1 March 2018 https://www.economist.com/special-report/2018/03/01/self-driving-cars-will-profoundly-change-the-way-people-live

  • Drive Time: The Irish Media’s Message

    Tune into any Irish radio station, and it is hard to escape the constant flogging of motor cars: RTE’s flagship ‘Morning Ireland’ is associated with Opel; sports bulletins on the same programme are brought to you by Kia; traffic introduced by Hyundai, only afterwards to be announced as ‘AA Roadwatch’. Ads for other brands such as Mercedes and Peugeot generally feature during commercial breaks, seemingly every third or fourth slot. By early evening it is ‘Drivetime’; while over on Newstalk, you find Ivan Yates’s ‘The Hard Shoulder’.

    Meanwhile, national newspapers carry regular motoring supplements – with adverts also layered through the main sections. In Ireland car ‘culture’ not only prevails, it dominates.

    Ostensibly innocuous, if anything the adverts appear reassuring: smooth voices caressing parents into protecting their little cherubs inside whichever metal-cocoon-on-wheels they are selling. Branding imbues these vehicles – or ‘estates’ – with a pioneering sense of ‘Discovery’; a ‘Highlander’, ‘Land Cruiser’ or ‘Land Rover’ ranging across a great sweep of virgin landscape, as opposed to the reality of sitting for hours in traffic.

    It is twelve years since the European Union’s environmental body described ‘Dublin as a ‘worst case scenario‘ for ‘unsustainable car-dependent urban sprawl(1)’. Yet peculiarly, RTE uses sales of imported cars as an indicator for how well the economy is performing(2).

    The not-so-subliminal-message is that a shiny-new-car is a good sign. But car-usage is blatantly contrary to the national interest, if we are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and associated fines. Transport, a substantial proportion of which is private car-usage, accounts for approximately 20% of all national emissions.

    As long as media outlets receive hefty advertising revenue from car importers, there will be an inducement to avoid questioning our car culture. More obviously, vehicles are frequently offered as prizes in competitions, most recently on RTE’s ‘The Late Late Show’ on the 25th of May(3). By contrast, the lowly bicycle is rarely, if ever, considered prize-worthy.

    Lone cyclist, Charlemont Bridge, Dublin.

    II – Cyclist ‘deaths’

    Typically, when a cyclist is killed headlines and news bulletins state he has died in a collision – a passive inevitability arising from being on the wrong side of an autonomous vehicle. Yet such machines are under human control. Would it not be more accurate to say a cyclist has been killed?

    Alas, neither cyclists, public transport users, nor pedestrians tend to purchase media space, despite comprising the vast majority of those in transit across Ireland, particularly in urban areas, in which most of the population now resides. Where there is coverage of transport alternatives it usually relates to how these affect motorists, as where bus lanes generate traffic jams, or where cyclists create a nuisance by failing to observe the law.

    Little substantive probing occurs into improvements to the transport infrastructure – or indeed how Ireland stacks up internationally.

    Apart from being presented as a nuisance, on those rare occasions that cycling is treated positively, it is depicted as good for children or fitness. But rarely, if ever, is it taken as a realistic alternative to the car. Overwhelmingly, the message is: four wheels good, two wheels bad.

    Last month, a cyclist was killed by a driver turning a lorry at the main N11 junction immediately outside RTE’s premises in Dublin(4). Coincidentally, currently there are plans to develop a new vehicular junction along the N11 on lands formerly owned by RTE that are being redeveloped for housing. The plans are attracting objections, alleging the proposed provision for cyclists is unsafe and substandard(5).

    Notably, the route is a major cycle artery to the country’s largest university, University College Dublin. The RTE radar does not appear to have picked up an important story on its doorstep.

    III – Cars In Their Eyes

    One basic measure the national broadcaster could make to raise public confidence would be to provide an easily accessible public declaration of any direct remuneration, ‘gifts’, or other contractual arrangements into which RTE or its senior personnel enter into with third parties, including car dealers and importers. This would be in line with the transparency the BBC demands of its employees(6).

    It is of interest that over the years reports have emerged of various ‘stars’ being provided with complimentary cars by dealerships. As far back as May 2005, Tommy Broughan TD called for transparency, informing Dáil Éireann that Ryan Tubridy had the use of a Lexus, while Pat Kenny and Gerry Ryan (both then contracted to RTE) had ‘relationships’ with BMW and Mazda respectively(7).

    Tubridy currently presents ‘The Late Late Show’, which is ‘sponsored’ by Renault. Earlier this year his comments – which the Dublin Cycling Campaign described as ‘casual incitement of hatred’ – attracted five hundred complaints to the broadcaster. He had suggested that people who (legally) cycle two abreast should be ‘binned‘(8).

    Given RTE receives almost two hundred million euro per annum from the public through mandatory TV licences, surely the Irish people have a right to know whether Mr Tubridy continues to be provided with a vehicle by any outside firms.

    What information there is available is generally gleaned from marketeers’ press releases. Investigations into possible conflicts of interest are almost unheard of, at least in public.

    Meanwhile, an opinion piece last year by RTE’s Countrywide presenter Damien O’Reilly in The Farmers Journal ridiculed Irish cyclists for wearing luminescent clothing to ensure their safety: this was ‘aggressively coloured’ as O’Reilly put it(9). Separately, the Sunday Times revealed (following a successful freedom of information request) that O’Reilly had been paid for work done on behalf of An Bord Bia in Dubai, which was approved by RTE management(10).

    ‘Moonlighting’ of RTE stars has given rise to further controversy in recent months, with Claire Byrne landing herself in hot water over work done on behalf of financial services firm Davy’s(11).

    Elsewhere there has been a failure to reveal corporate funding of programming. Phoenix Magazine reported that Derek Mooney’s Programme ‘Turf Life’, broadcast on May 4th 2018, was supported financially by Bord Na Móna, but this was not declared in the programme’s credits(12).

    IV – George’s Marvellous Meddling

    Over on Newstalk, George Hook set himself up as the champion of the poor downtrodden motorists, while castigating other road users – such as cyclists of course!

    In 2015 on daytime television Hook declared that he ‘hates cyclists with a passion‘(13), before stating: ‘They do what the hell they like. They’re a threat to themselves, they’re a threat to pedestrians, and ultimately they’re a threat to motorcars, as motorcars trying to avoid these lunatics will have an accident.’

    Last September he outdid himself, comparing cyclists to Nazis on the BBC’s Nolan Show(14).

    Champion of downtrodden motorists George Hook.

    Notably, Hook has previously been provided with a free car by Peugeot. RTE’s own website carries a report from June 22nd, 2011 in their ‘Motors’ section, entitled (seemingly without irony) ‘508 Hooked’, in which ‘Peugeot Managing Director Geroge Harbourne said: ‘George is an excellent brand ambassador for Peugeot. We very much look forward to working with him to increase the awareness of the Peugeot brand in Ireland, through his high public profile’ (15).

    V – Increasing Obsolescence

    Last year, national car sales dropped 10%, yet contrary to perceived wisdom this did not coincide with economic stagnation(16). Increasingly, those fortunate enough to get by without a car realise that these metal boxes no longer represent freedom, but are instead a costly burden best avoided.

    Cars are good for a weekly shop – but so is a taxi – and in any case the traditional weekly shop is a decreasing habit, especially among the younger generation. Yet perversely, as more people move away from cars, the national broadcaster sings the praises of the internal combustion engine with increasing vigour.

    During the ‘Bertie boom years’, many first-time buyers bought a ‘starter home’ far from Dublin, which required a long daily commute by car. This was often endured in the hope of returning to Dublin at some later date. Alas many of those dreams have receded.

    These days, although accommodation in Dublin is in notoriously short supply, most of the younger generation are nonetheless opting to stay put in the capital, and avoiding the daily imprisonment that car dependency brings. Wander around the ‘go-getter ghettos’ of Google’s HQ on Barrow Street, Docklands, and East Point Business Park: cyclists, pedestrians, and public transport users abound, but there is little sign of cars.

    In Dublin twenty years ago taxis were notoriously rare, and buses did not enjoy their own lanes. Having a motor in those days was a distinct advantage. Yet roll on two decades and owning a car is arguably more of a burden, and increasingly identified with ill-health.

    The link between car dependency and obesity is well established(17); sadly, Ireland could be set to become the most obese country in Europe(18), which in part reflects our car dependency. Yet instead of discussing the obvious links, the Irish media is more likely to allude to the danger and zealotry of cyclists. Could it be that the idea of cycling as a normal mode of transport for regular people is too much of a threat to vested interests?

    VI – A Gathering Storm

    The New Scientist(19) reported that the fumes created by car engines tend to have a worse effect on those inside vehicles, rather than outside, as had previously been believed. That lovely ‘new car smell’ may actually mask toxic odours, which the driver and occupants might otherwise detect. For example, PM 10s are among the numerous known carcinogens created by diesel emissions(20).

    Another report recently featured in the UK media indicates that a class action is being brought against Volkswagen(21), following the emissions scandal, which involved the manufacturer lying for years about the level of toxic fumes generated by its vehicles. This may be the tip of a large iceberg.

    If it turns out that children developed asthma from riding in such vehicles – and if there is no background family history causation is plausible(22) – the emissions scandal could explode further, with major consequences in terms of costs to manufacturers, and changes in public policy.

    Unsurprisingly, there has been little coverage of this in the Irish media, but the story could be of even more relevance here. Firstly, our greater car-dependency exposes us to greater danger. Secondly, the manufacturer associated with misleading governments, the public, and owners – Volkswagen – was the top-selling brand in this country between 2012 and 2016(23).

    That is a triple-whammy to which Irish people may have been particularly exposed – yet hardly a peep from anywhere in the Irish media. Might we see greater coverage of such issues in mainstream Irish media in the years to come? Don’t hold your breath, unless that is you are being passed by a noxious vehicle belching out toxic fumes.

    On May 8th RTE’s Freedom of Information Officer accepted a Freedom of Information Request from Cassandra Voices seeking records of payments or payments-in-kind from motor car dealership to leading RTE stars that have been approved by RTE management since January 1st, 2017. RTE have 30 days in which to respond. Details will be revealed in the next edition.

    (1) Untitled, Belfast Telegraph, ‘EU using Dublin as example of worst-case urban, 4th of October, 2016, sprawl’ https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breakingnews/breakingnews_ukandireland/eu-using-dublin-as-example-of-worstcase-urban-sprawl-28409383.html

    (2) Untitled, RTE: ‘From manufacturing to car sales, UK economy bounces back’, 6th of  August, 2013 : https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2013/0806/466637-uk-economy/.
    Also, Untitled, RTE, ‘2016 car sales rise 17.5%, Toyota most popular make – SIMI’ Tuesday, 3rd of January, 2017: https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2017/0103/842420-2016-car-sales/.

    (3)  RTE Player, ‘Car Giveaway / The Late Late Show’, 25th of May, 2018, https://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/the-late-late-show-extras-30003017/10884022/

    (4) Gráinne Ní Aodha, ‘19-year-old cyclist dies after collision with truck near UCD this afternoon’ 18th of April, 2018: http://www.thejournal.ie/cyclist-serious-injuries-dublin-n11-3965285-Apr2018/

    (5) Untitled, irishcyclist.com ‘NEW RTE JUNCTION COULD MEAN MORE CONFLICTS BETWEEN CYCLISTS AND BUSES’19th of April, 2018, http://irishcycle.com/2018/04/19/new-rte-junction-could-mean-more-conflicts-between-cyclists-and-buses/

    (6) BBC Code of Ethical Policy, downloaded 29/5/18 : http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/supplying/pdf/BBC_Ethical_Policy.pdf

    (7) Untitled, breakingnews.ie ‘Call for RTÉ broadcasters to declare free cars’, 5th of May, 2005,  https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/call-for-rte-broadcasters-to-declare-free-cars-201227.html

    (8) Untitled, Stickybottle, ‘Flood of complaints to RTE after ‘Late Late Show’ cyclists item’ 14th of March, 2018, http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news/complaints-rte-cyclists-item/

    (9) Untitled, Stickybottle, ‘Irish cyclists dress too aggressively – Farmers Journal column’, 27th of July, 2017 http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news/irish-cyclists-to-blame-for-their-own-unpopularity-farmers-journal-column/

    (10) Frank Armstrong, CountryWide’s O’Reilly comes a cropper with greenwash row’ 22nd of October, 2017: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/ireland/countrywides-oreilly-comes-a-cropper-with-greenwash-row-dn83xmxs9

    (11) John Burns, ‘RTE ‘kept in the dark’ over Claire Byrne moonlighting’, 22nd of October, 2017, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rte-kept-in-the-dark-over-claire-byrne-moonlighting-kzf75rp2c

    (12) Phoenix Magazine, May 2018.

    (13) Untitled, thebikecomesfirst.com ‘“I hate cyclists with a passion” – George Hook’, 5th of July, 2015: http://www.thebikecomesfirst.com/i-hate-cyclists-with-a-passion-george-hook/

    (14) Alan O’Keeffe, ‘’I’m never going to do a Nazi salute again,’ promises Hook’’, 18th of November, 2017, https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/im-never-going-to-do-a-nazi-salute-again-promises-hook-36331313.html

    (15) Untitled, RTE Lifestyle ‘508 Hooked’: 22nd of June, 2011, https://www.rte.ie/lifestyle/motors/2011/0622/145287-hookg/

    (16) Conall Ó Fátharta, ‘Brexit blamed as car sales down 10% in first nine months’ 2nd of November, 2017: https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/brexit-blamed-as-car-sales-down-10-in-first-nine-months-462040.html

    (17) Rob Stein, ‘Car Use Drives Up Weight, Study Finds’, 31st of May, 2004: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3062-2004May30.html

    (18) Rachel Flaherty, 6th of May, 2015, ‘Ireland set to be most obese country in Europe, WHO says’ https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/ireland-set-to-be-most-obese-country-in-europe-who-says-1.2201731

    (19) Wiebina Heesterman, ‘Air pollution is worse inside cars and in dust’ 23rd of November, 2016, https://www.newscientist.com/letter/mg23231011-100-9-air-pollution-is-worse-inside-cars-and-in-dust/ 

    (20) Victoria Wooloston Diesel cars “kill 5,000 people a year” in Europe — and the UK is one of the worst offenders’, 18th of September, 2017, http://www.alphr.com/environment/1007053/pollution-diesel-cars-deaths-UK

    (21) Rob Davies, Dieselgate: UK motorists file class-action suit against VW, 9th of January, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/09/dieselgate-volkswagen-uk-motorists-class-action-suit

    (22) www.asthmaorg.uk ‘Pollution’, downloaded 29/5/2018 https://www.asthma.org.uk/advice/triggers/pollution/

    (23)Melanie May, ‘These are the 5 top-selling cars of 2017 so far’, downloaded 29/5/2018 http://www.thejournal.ie/best-selling-cars-ireland-2017-3483985-Jul2017/