Madam, – On January 20th I fulfilled a longed for visit to the show called We Will Rock You at the newly renovated O2 theatre in Dublin.
I’m 73 years young and travelled by bus and Luas.
Then came delays. Teething troubles with the first night electric system of the theatre meant two delays and carried the time to shortly before 11pm.
Instead of being able to relax and accept these setbacks, I had to exit at high speed before the cast had left the stage. Why? Because my bus to Shankill runs only until 11.20pm and should I have arrived at D’Olier Street one minute later than I did, I’d have been stranded some 16 kilometres from home.
I can’t describe the panic I experienced waiting for the Luas to take me back from the O2 to the city centre and then almost running the final trip from the Luas stop to the nearest bus stop. I was probably one of hundreds in the same predicament.
Why, oh why can’t we have an all-night public transport system? Dublin isn’t tiny – I have been to a much smaller city in Poland – Krakow – where the trams go all night and that encourages me to back to enjoy being a tourist into the early hours of a Polish night.
How many restaurants and places of entertainment would thrive if they could have people around their premises towards the end of every evening?
Wake up Dublin and demand the availability of public transport 24 hours a day. Or do you all want to become stay-at-home TV watchers? – Yours, etc,