All notes

Climate notes for January 13th 2024

tabs

Dublin City Cllrs have decided that active travel is down the list of things to invest in. I understand tightening the purse strings and all that, and I believe cuts across all public spending is to free up cash for housing ahead of an election. But fuck me, active and public transport are the two lowest hanging fruit things to sort out in any city.

It’s not about banning cars or being anti-one thing or the other. If you go to Copenhagen or Amsterdam, there are cars. But they share the space. Heck, if you drive in either of those cities there’s less traffic to deal with. Some people have 3 kids and can’t shovel them onto a bike, so they drive. But the idea is that the vast majority of travel needs can be facilitated by something that won’t kill anyone in a small accident, and won’t kill anyone because of fumes secondarily.

Car brain is a real thing. I had a conversation about this with someone this week, who couldn’t conceive of taking a bus. A bus that, we both agreed, got us basically door-to-door. But the few minutes walk from the bus stop to their home was a step too far, apparently. Utterly ridiculous conversation. I also posited that having someone else drive you gives you the space and time to read a book, listen to some music or a podcast properly, etc. But no, apparently sharing space with other people is too draconian.

I guess as I get older, it’ll be for the best that the lazy people around me will be dead before I am so I get top tier healthcare because I out-lasted them by walking to places, or at the least lasted long enough to pay enough taxes into the system to justify top tier treatment for my bad back or whatever.

Tabs