Yesterday was World Car Free Day. The first I heard of this was on the 7 O’clock news. As an initiative intended to increase awareness about how handy it is to commute into Dublin city centre on public transport or by cycling/walking there could not have been a more perfect day. The weather gods were actually kind to the organisers providing extremely rare (some thought extinct) sunshine. That unfortunately is where the success of the event ended.
When I arrived at the train station I was greeted by the dreaded tanoy system announcing in its computerised voice that there was severe disruption to all rail services due to an “incident”. Not wishing to be easily defeated in my efforts to reduce my carbon footprint, I proceeded directly to the bus stop. This unfortunately resembled the queue in Busáras to the last bus to Dingle after the All Ireland football final the previous day. It was time to resort to more drastic action and see if my father would give me a lift, to which he kindly obliged, however the traffic into town was horrendous. This I later discovered was due to the fact that one of the main roads around Merrion Square had been closed to set up stands for Car Free Day. As one of the main arteries though the city the repercussions for the cars were felt far and wide.
At lunchtime I wandered down to Merrion Square to see the festivities that clogged up the traffic. Dublin City Council were handing out free high-visibility vests and arm bands with luminous pencils and rulers. I presume they are intended for cyclists who dare to enter the pit that is Dublin city centre traffic. I still haven’t figured out what you’re supposed to do with a pencil and ruler to make you safer; wave them at motorists in a threatening manner? In any event at least they had some connection with the concept of car free day. The other stalls were selling cheap jewellery, crepes, hummus and other such farmer's-market type produce. There was a group in the middle of the traffic-free road making a very elaborate mosaic with shells and sand. It looked however like it had a couple of hours to go before completion. I found it hard to fathom what exactly the purpose of it all was.
On the way home the shell and sand decorators were packing their shells into boxes, I wonder how many people actually saw the finished article? Unbelievably when I got down to the station the trains were all delayed again. The platform in Pearse was heaving with suit clad bodies and the digitised voice was telling us that there had been a train failure in Connolly and all services were delayed. As far as I can see the only car free place in the city was the road that was closed in Merrion Square! There was no mention of the event on the 9 O'clock news and the only article I found in the paper this morning was very negative. On the whole this was a damp squib which had the rare opportunity of being a bone dry success!
When I arrived at the train station I was greeted by the dreaded tanoy system announcing in its computerised voice that there was severe disruption to all rail services due to an “incident”. Not wishing to be easily defeated in my efforts to reduce my carbon footprint, I proceeded directly to the bus stop. This unfortunately resembled the queue in Busáras to the last bus to Dingle after the All Ireland football final the previous day. It was time to resort to more drastic action and see if my father would give me a lift, to which he kindly obliged, however the traffic into town was horrendous. This I later discovered was due to the fact that one of the main roads around Merrion Square had been closed to set up stands for Car Free Day. As one of the main arteries though the city the repercussions for the cars were felt far and wide.
At lunchtime I wandered down to Merrion Square to see the festivities that clogged up the traffic. Dublin City Council were handing out free high-visibility vests and arm bands with luminous pencils and rulers. I presume they are intended for cyclists who dare to enter the pit that is Dublin city centre traffic. I still haven’t figured out what you’re supposed to do with a pencil and ruler to make you safer; wave them at motorists in a threatening manner? In any event at least they had some connection with the concept of car free day. The other stalls were selling cheap jewellery, crepes, hummus and other such farmer's-market type produce. There was a group in the middle of the traffic-free road making a very elaborate mosaic with shells and sand. It looked however like it had a couple of hours to go before completion. I found it hard to fathom what exactly the purpose of it all was.
On the way home the shell and sand decorators were packing their shells into boxes, I wonder how many people actually saw the finished article? Unbelievably when I got down to the station the trains were all delayed again. The platform in Pearse was heaving with suit clad bodies and the digitised voice was telling us that there had been a train failure in Connolly and all services were delayed. As far as I can see the only car free place in the city was the road that was closed in Merrion Square! There was no mention of the event on the 9 O'clock news and the only article I found in the paper this morning was very negative. On the whole this was a damp squib which had the rare opportunity of being a bone dry success!
5 comments:
Did you know that nearly 80% of trips in Tokyo are by public transport. Stations can handle millions of people through the turnstiles daily (eg Sinjuku Station about 3.6 million visitors entering or exiting each work day). And Tokyo Metro is one of only 2 metro systems in the world that shows a profit.
sounds like a very stressful day in the city!
Conor, I'm delighted to see that you're reducing your Carbon footprint instead of driving that big hunk of German metal into the city and taking-up 2 parking spaces with it (can you smell the envy?). I don't miss the Dart...
Donncha(Yangon)
PS - your writings make me smile.
..... only in Ireland!!
Thankfully my commute is mostly only now to the office in the front bedroom! I try to arrange meetings in non rush hour times.
Every time I think that it would be nice to have a purpose built office in town, the thoughts of the days you've just described come flooding back and the office in the front bedroom looks more and more attractive!!
Hilarious post, as usual. Like Gay above, it's nice to be occasionally reminded what we are missing in Dublin. As far as I'm concerned, AA Roadwatch is more entertaining listening than Gift Grub.
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