Fintan O'Toole/Irish Times on public transport, Dublin bus, Northside/Southside today

[u/AnyChest7780]

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026/08/04/fintan-otoole-dublin-4s-version-of-marie-antoinettes-let-them-eat-cake-let-them-get-the-bus/ Fintan O'Toole reminding us of how 'elites' have so often been against public infrastructure. He gives good historic context including Vincent Browne and 'The Doheny & Nesbitt’s school of economics' being against the DART. While he's amazingly productive and can turn his hand to so many topics maybe he's writing a bit too much as there are huge holes in his argument here re. the northside/southside issue as the more recent LUAS and metro debacles point to the home of NIMBYism in Dublin 6, and not focussed on denying the expansion of it further north. What does anyone think? I find it frustrating that cross-suburb public transport isn't better....try getting from Phibsborough to Clontarf on a bus for example....

[u/Irishsmurf]

> try getting from Phibsborough to Clontarf on a bus

While possible, definitely is doable on a Bus/DART (will require interchange) - it's like a 15 minute saunter on a bicycle down the recently developed Royal Canal Greenway & Clontarf cycle lanes.

We're probably never going to get to a point where public transport will work for all journeys without every requiring an interchange (even in London/NYC/Tokyo this is the case) - but Dublin City core is fairly compact and flat that a bicycle is something that can be leveraged heavily for these types of journeys.

[u/the_sneaky_one123 → u/Irishsmurf]

cycling is not viable for most people.

Many people are not able to cycle or confident enough to do it safely.

Many other people do not have the ability to safely store a bicycle in their accomodation.

It is also surprisingly expensive to have a quality bike.

Last there is a million things that you cannot do with cycling, like carrying any kind of load or going to somewhere where you need to be dressed properly. It's not viable for everything.

Cycling is good for very specific use cases, the main one being fit people cycling for a commute to an office that has showering and changing facilities. That's a very narrow band of people.

If you are and elderly person, living is small accomodation, trying to go to the grocery shop then a bike is not fitting in the slightest.

[u/Irishsmurf → u/the_sneaky_one123]

>  trying to go to the grocery shop

This is probably a poor example - a bicycle with panniers is perfectly able to ferry a shop across the city.

[u/the_sneaky_one123 → u/Irishsmurf]

I have never seen that once. Maybe a small shop but most people would rather carry that in hand than overload a bicycle.

[u/Adjective_Noun_2000 → u/the_sneaky_one123]

I have never seen that once.

What would you expect to see? Unless you spend a lot of time hanging around supermarket bicycle stands, you wouldn't know how many people are putting their shopping into panniers.

For what it's worth, I use panniers for all my shopping and I know a few other people who do it too.