Tomorrow is the first of May. Here in Austria, it is a holiday. Guess what happens on holidays here? The shops close! They all close on sunday anyway, which we have adjusted to, but tomorrow, they will also be closed! Now, consider what happens in Ireland when the shops close FOR TWO DAYS. It happens once a year. On Christmas Day and Stephen’s Day. I am going out to get some groceries in a minute. My list is not long. I think it has about five items on it, and the shops are closing FOR TWO DAYS! I will be interested to note whether the queues are longer than usual or whether they are about average. Will I find aisles stripped of all perishable food stuffs and alcohol. The shops are closing. FOR TWO DAYS! I’m actually glad they will be closed, instead of wasting tomorrow looking at garden furniture and paint at the local baumax, we will venture out into the country side and try to explore some area outside Vienna.

Here in Vienna, a monthly ticket that allows you unlimited access to the entire public transport network costs just €49.50. Not only that, but it is transferable. To put that in perspective, consider that a montly bus, luas, dart ticket in Dublin costs €175 unless you are part of the tax saver scheme. The mind boggles as to how Dublin Bus, Irish Rail and Luas can justify a ticket price that is three and a half times the price of a Viennese ticket, especially when our bus, dart and luas networks are quite primitive. They operate on a star topology with no ring connecting all the lines. The system here in Vienna is extremely joined up. It is simple to hop from tram to tram to get to your destination, or tram to u-bahn and back to tram and maybe onto a bus, if that takes your fancy. Our apartment is located within walking distance of the U-Bahn and numerous tram lines, in fact there are about six different lines within one hundred meters of our door. The Green party are always banging on about the importance of the environment and yet, while they have been in Government back home, they didn’t insist on getting the Transport portfolio. Instead, Ireland has to put up with Minister Dempsey.

The vision statement on the department of transport’s website is quite amusing.

The Department’s strategic objectives in relation to public transport are

* The provision of a well functioning, integrated public transport system, which enhances competitiveness, sustains economic progress, promotes balanced regional development and contributes to social cohesion;
* The provision of a defined standard of public transport, at reasonable cost to the customer and the taxpayer;
* To ensure the timely and cost effective delivery of the accelerated investment in the infrastructure and facilities necessary to ensure improved public transport provision.
* The Government’s investment strategy for public transport is Transport 21. The status of public transport projects under Transport 21 can be viewed at www.transport21.ie

The idea that the department of transport does anything to enhance competitveness, or sustain economic progress is laughable. A prime example in Dublin of the failure to enhance competiveness was the licensing of the Patton Flyer. Then consider the integrated ticketing mess in Dublin and you can see how little progress has been made in the area of public transport in Ireland, despite our celtic tiger boom and despite the fact that local authorities and planning departments were limiting parking spaces in apartment developments to “encourage use of public transport” when in reality, if you live in suburban Dublin and work anywhere other than the city centre, it is highly unlikely that you are going to be able to avail of public transport to get to work. If so little progress was made in Dublin, I don’t really have to state that even less progress was made country wide. The high cost of our public transport means that Ireland is going to remain a car dependent country for a very long time because most commuters have no choice. One day, Dublin may have something approaching an integrated system like Vienna, but I doubt I will see it in my lifetime given the current recession. What galls me is it would be so simple to build a tram network in Dublin, many of our roads are wide enough, they already accomodate two bus lanes. Switching bus lanes from each side of the road into the centre is easily achieved as is laying tram lines and putting power lines in place. That gives you bus and tram lines in the centre of the road and car and taxi lanes outside them. If we had a system like this, it would be a great opportunity to remove the privileges that taxi drivers enjoy on our roads. A premium rate transport choice like a taxi should not warrant special access to a bus lane. If trams were more prevalant, it might also reduce the number of collisions between trams and cars, because at junctions cars will need to cross tram lines and if they were everywhere, then drivers would adjust to checking for trams before turning right across a junction.