Having been spoilt by two-and-a-half years living in the heart of DARTland (right beside Sandymount station), I recently suffered three weeks at the mercy of Dublin Bus while preparing to move lock, stock and barrel to Paris. "Suffered" is the only appropriate word, for the short time spent in Busland made me realise that relying on Dublin Bus was a recipe for missed appointments and long, frustrating waits.
Living close to the city centre lulls you into trusting public transport: the next DART usually arrives within 15 minutes and gets you to any other point on its narrow ribbon within a predictable time. Close to town, buses are plentiful too, even if slower than the train. It's easy to support the principle of public transport, questioning the sanity of every lone car driver lugging a three-piece suite along congested streets.
But move a few kilometres further out, away from DARTland, and the centre of Dublin becomes a distant mirage. While politicians and CIE management talk of "quality bus corridors", the reality is that in an area such as Kilmacud, which probably contributes more than its fair share of commuting cars, bus routes are being scaled back and proponents of public transport are becoming an endangered species.
Loyalty slips
As one of those proponents (who has thus far eschewed car ownership) I agree that commuting by bus is a necessary part of congestion avoidance. But when you miss an appointment because you opted for a defunct bus route (the 52) or when a full bus passes you at 3 p.m. (the 48A), your loyalty slips.
As passenger numbers declined over the past decade or so, Dublin Bus has reduced not the size of its buses but their frequency. Fewer buses mean the service is less useful, meaning fewer passengers. Eventually, as in the case of the 86, there is only one bus every two or three hours, and that may be nearly empty.
Given this impoverished state of our bus network, long, empty "quality" bus corridors will hardly serve the cause of public transport. If cars are going to be kept off large swathes of city streets, then the bus lanes must be full of moving buses.
Thankfully, having a pedal cycle and a motorcycle at my disposal, buses were not my only option. Indeed, as I waited impatiently in the rain watching appointments going up in clouds of exhaust smoke, I realised that two-wheeled transport was the only way to guarantee arrival times. Twice in those three weeks, it would have been quicker to walk to the city centre than to wait for the bus and then mooch along slowly in it. Weather permitting, I used two wheels.
Paris network
After three weeks of this isolation in outer suburbia, I was off to Paris, and soon any nostalgia for DARTland was quickly dispelled as well. Despite frequent strikes - travellers here quickly learn the meaning of en greve - Parisians quickly become agitated if a Metro train doesn't arrive within three minutes. All around Paris the network of buses, Metro trains and suburban trains makes getting around the city a joy, while, unlike in Dublin, most journeys don't have to start or end in the city centre.
Metro train doors open even before the trains are stopped, a brief whine warns alighting passengers to get on or miss out, and within seconds of stopping the train is on its way again. Closing the doors just as someone arrives on the platform seems callous, but passengers don't mind when the next train is only a minute or two behind.
Cleaner stations
Despite the French love affair with smoking, and a disturbingly familiar penchant for dropping rubbish on trains, both the stations and the carriages are much cleaner than Dublin's equivalents. While the travelling public can take a fair portion of the blame for any grubbiness in Dublin's DART stations and carriages, Iarnrod Eireann's habit of letting rubbish bins overflow is inexcusable. Meanwhile, above ground in Paris, buses and taxis move more swiftly in separate lanes, and there seems to be a lot more of both. Cyclists often get their own lanes too, not up on the footpaths competing with pedestrians and shards of glass, but on the roadside, and marked off with solid, reflective markings.
The only disenfranchised commuters here are those on roller blades, who, depending on their dexterity, take their chances amid pedestrians or motorists. The day of the quality blade corridor cannot be far away.