Getting around in Dublin was never a very difficult issue until the economy necessitated fast private transport. Dublin is geometrically very small. The area considered to be Dublin city is roughly five km. in diameter. The Liffey and the Grand and Royal Canals provided good lateral water transit to the coast and through the central city until this became impractical for modern needs. Dublin experimented with horse-drawn omnibuses beginning in the 1840s, and this system of tracks grew into a network of 40 km. (25 mi.). Later, the same tram rails were used by steam powered cars, and the system was finally electrified by 1914, when some 100km (62 mi.) of tracks existed. In the 1830s, Dublin brought in heavy rail to connect it with Dun Laoghaire, which was the better port at the time. Below is a map (click it to enlarge) of Dublin's old transit network (Harvey, 1949).
This network of lighter and heavier rail was highly effective until parts of it closed, one by one, beginning in the late 1950s. Gas powered buses (referred to as petrol buses) were introduced and have carried the bulk of the public transit load ever since. Between 1950 and 1980 though, car use sextupled and buses became even less efficient. The average bus speed is now around 7 mph, or about as fast as one could jog (of course, the smog discourages such heavy lung use). Buses have become a financial and environmental liability to Dublin as have automobiles, which have necessitated expensive infrastructure. The extent of transportation planning in Dublin until very recently has been to build high-speed roads, and thanks to E.U. funding, Dublin how has an extensive network of arterials and ring roads much like American cities do.
A light rail network has recently been developed that will take some of the pressure off of Dublin’s roads. It was many years in the process of planning, and financial responsibility was a constant deal-breaker before Ireland’s economy picked up and the advantage of rapid transit was understood. First envisioned in 1993, the LUAS will open sometime in 2000 with the capacity to carry 2800 passengers per hour in each direction. The map below is a preliminary sketch of the network. Click it to see a more detailed map with exact locations of stops.
While transport around Dublin has been the dominant issue for the last 30 years, transport to Dublin was equally difficult until 1994. Until then, all Trans-Atlantic flights to Ireland were required to stop in Shannon Airport in Western Ireland. This meant that it was not possible to fly non-stop to Dublin from the United States, Canada, or South America, and the average layover in Shannon was near an hour. This is one of the ways that national policy has served to discriminate against urban areas, namely Dublin, in Ireland. The rationale behind the law was that it protected the jobs in Shannon that had existed since European jets didn’t have the fuel capacity to fly nonstop to America and would stop over in Western Ireland, the jumping point nearest the American coast. This policy was counterproductive since smart passengers, instead of flying from New York to Shannon to Dublin and pumping their money into the Irish economy, would just fly to London and then to Dublin and save a punt or two.
With more traffic flying directly into Dublin and the improvements to transit through the city, transportation should become more efficient and help growth. However, circulation will still be slowed by massive auto traffic and the limitations of street-level rapid transit will continue to make cars convenient for Dubliners.
