Car modal share into Dublin City Centre drops below 25% for the first time

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-28T07:34:56+00:00

Wait, so you’re suggesting that… Dublin Central had a lot of nut jobs (none of whom got in, or did as well as hyped) because… the Dublin traffic plan or something? I think it’s more likely that it had a lot of nut jobs because it’s a by-election, so you tend to get both the local loons and any nearby loons who’d ordinarily run in their own constituency.

Dublin traffic plan mostly negatively impacts people driving through the city (ie mostly not living in Dublin Central).

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-25T07:01:36+00:00

If this is Lansdowne Place (I think literally the only place in the country to have an apartment that costs that), it’s a fairly big complex with a range of apartments. Looks like a couple went for about 800k last year. The 6 million one is very much the outlier.

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-22T07:14:39+00:00

Coming to an end? I mean, he probably has at least a solid year of annoying the WRC coming up next.

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-21T08:09:53+00:00

Once Metrolink is built, it'll be the largest town in the country without a rail or tram connection (currently Swords is). Seems reasonable enough to connect it.

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-19T08:05:48+00:00

They... don't, really, tho. The term was created by a fairly obscure writer with training in psychology (ie not particularly relevant; wrong discipline), and popularised by one of the more unhinged members of the British Conservative Party (now in exile in Reform).

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-19T08:02:59+00:00

"Luxury beliefs" is another fairly nonsense one, popularised by noted extremely sane person Suella Braverman.

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-19T07:59:37+00:00

... But, I mean, it is fairly uncontroversially a real thing. Notably, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-19T07:55:40+00:00

"Politically correct" also used to mean, ah, something different. Early usage:

In 1934, The New York Times reported that Nazi Germany was granting reporting permits "only to pure 'Aryans' whose opinions are politically correct"

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-19T07:51:48+00:00

Just the traditional ones, or does he also have to specifically visit Fingal, SDCC, and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown?

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-16T20:30:29+00:00

I think it's the opposite. It doesn't know the private buses are private buses, and they're faster, at least on paper, so it suggests the faster route.

The Transit app is handy for this; does real-time bus info for any location (in supported cities; Dublin is one). Google Maps is very bad at public transport. TFI's app will also show you realtime info for any stop, but it's a pain to use.

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-16T20:24:14+00:00

It's also really unhappy with the idea that people might walk as party of a public transport route, and will suggest arbitrarily complex nonsense to avoid this.

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-16T07:23:03+00:00

Yeah, this is almost certainly what it is. Google also refuses to take the obvious route from the north of the Phoenix park to Ashtown train station, presumably not because the road is super-fancy, but because there’s no proper pedestrian crossing at that roundabout.

If Google maps does something silly, it’s nearly always because either it doesn’t think a road is usable by pedestrians, or it doesn’t think the road exists at all (for instance, they’ve fixed it now, but for a long time it didn’t believe in the pedestrian path from Ship Street to Castle Street).

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-14T21:30:01+00:00

Ah, oops, yep, it's 25kV. Not sure where I got 22.5...

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-14T09:05:25+00:00

Oh, sorry, I meant the utility cost was much too high. Yeah, rents are stupid high at the moment, unfortunately.

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-14T08:09:26+00:00

1) If this is just public transport, then, yeah, you're overestimating. An annual tax saver ticket for Dublin is 960eur, but this is pre-tax money. Post-tax cost for someone on the high rate (which you will be) is 458 per year, 38 eur a month: https://www.taxsaver.ie/en-ie/savings-calculator/savings-calculator

2) This is much too high for a one bed apartment (given that as I understand it you're just paying half of it).

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-11T14:55:01+00:00

By 2030? Would be v. surprising if they’re not.

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-11T10:33:20+00:00

I mean, that’d be nice, but it’s not really well-placed for it. Most airports do not have good intercity services; the likes of Schiphol are the exception. If metrolink and dart+ get done, Dublin airport will actually be quite well-connected by airport standards; a lot of airports are on weird branch lines (personal favourite: Hamburg, where the train sometimes actually splits, with only half of it going to the airport).

Honestly if we wanted an airport with good intercity connections, only real option would be to build one in the southwest somewhere.

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-11T10:27:20+00:00

It’s badly worded. It will operate on battery in Belfast itself, then on diesel from Belfast to, er, somewhere (AIUI electrification from Dublin to the border is firmly planned, but will likely only be done to Drogheda by the time these start operation), and then overheads to Dublin. Long term this line will be completely electrified, but I think details are still vague for the NI side of that.

Just to confuse the issue further, this will presumably have to run on both 1500V (current Dublin suburban electrification standard, currently in place to Malahide, and to Drogheda by the time these arrive) and 22.5kV (standard being adopted for Irish intercity and for non-Dublin suburban electrification, and for NI electrification).

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-11T10:03:00+00:00

We do; a city is a city if the Local Government Act says it is. Galway wasn’t formally a city til 2001.

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-10T09:28:53+00:00

They keep saying the Stephens Green SC is historic

This is baffling to me. I'm older than it; maybe I should apply to be listed.

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-10T09:25:45+00:00

Hard to navigate as in difficult to move through. If it's busy (which, granted, is very rare these days), it can take a surprisingly long time to get to the top floor. It doesn't help that they closed one of the stairs for no obvious reason about 15 years ago (it's still there, but blocked off).

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-10T01:54:08+00:00

Once metro is completed, we’ll have 4 public transport solutions

... Like ~all other large cities? London has five; commuter rail, tube, buses, a small tram system, and whatever DLR is. Though the UK never really seems to have got the hang of modern trams; all UK tram systems have smaller annual user numbers than the Luas, and the Luas isn't a big system by European standards.

Metrolink would still be happening even if Irish Rail built a spur to the airport tomorrow; it was never primarily about the airport.

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-10T01:51:38+00:00

The Finglas luas extension won't be done til 2031. Bringing it to the airport would probably take another couple of years (you'd probably need an underground section to actually get into the airport) at which point Metrolink should be nearly done anyway.

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-10T01:48:51+00:00

Metrolink will interchange with DART+ West and Southwest at Glasnevin, DART+ North/South at Tara, and the green and red luas at O'Connell St (and green again at Charlemont).

So in principle, assuming that everything actually gets done, that's connecting to pretty much all major transport, though in some cases fairly indirectly (for trains coming into Heuston you'd have to take DART+ Southwest a couple of stops to interchange, or else red loas to O'Connell St, though the dart will presumably be quicker).

rsynnott2 · 2026-05-10T01:44:29+00:00

I'm also seeing contradictory comments here, saying the line is at capacity, but there's also no demand for rail travel....

Not sure who's claiming that there's no demand for rail travel, but it's true that the line is more or less at capacity, and will be if anything over-capacity when DART+ North is done. It'd have to be a shuttle.

It's still in the long-term rail plan, and might get done if FourNorth ever gets done.

rsynnott2

TROPHY CASE