Margaret Thatcher reportedly claimed in the 1980s that, if you are over 30 and still taking the bus, you have failed in life. Four decades on, facing astronomical energy prices and the increasingly obvious cost of climate change, legislators still wedded to cars in cities have failed in politics.
The long shadow of Thatcherist thinking in Irish politics, though, means Labour’s demand this week for a €9 public transport ticket – days after a similar summer deal expired in Germany – has a whiff of idealism about it. Germany’s three-month great public experiment changed travel behaviour (train trips were up 42 per cent) and saved 1.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide – equivalent to 70 per cent of Dublin airport’s annual carbon emissions. It reminded people of greener transport alternatives and put summer outings within reach of many lower income families. But even in Germany, with its dense population and decades of consistent public transport investment, millions of people live outside urban centres, have few alternatives to the car and had little use for the €9 ticket. That is the crux of the Labour proposal: why should taxpayers in Connaught or Munster, their rail network decimated in postwar years, subsidise Dublin Luas users?
A €9 ticket presupposes, too, that Ireland has a functioning, integrated transport network. Many would dispute this, pointing to decades of chronic underinvestment, low population density and decades of Dublin-centric planning. Even in the capital, empty off-peak trains rattling up and down the coast are a chastening reminder that half of its potential catchment area is the Irish Sea.
Offered a realistic transport alternative, even Irish drivers will switch. Rather than Germany, Austria is closer in scale to Ireland. Its “Climate Ticket” – €1,095 a year for every kind of public transport, including free rides for children – has been a huge success. Similarly, a €365 annual public transport ticket in Vienna, cross-subsidised by a levy on all firms operating in the Austrian capital. To change Irish hearts and minds on public transport, politicians need to think bigger.
