GETTING FROM POINT A to point B isn’t always easy.

In Ireland, public transport is a mixed bag. Sometimes a journey takes you exactly where you need to be when you need to be there; sometimes it misses the mark; sometimes it isn’t there at all.

We’ve taken a journey of our own here at The Good Information Project over the last month diving into public transport and what it could look like in the future.

At the start, we put you in the driver’s seat and asked what you would change if you were in charge of public transport in your county – and then we spoke to local authorities around the country to find out what projects are happening with transport infrastructure right now.

Building new roads and maintaining or upgrading the roads we have takes up a significant proportion of county councils’ transport budgets, but there are also works underway to create new cycle lanes, bus shelters, and car-free spaces.

The key issues that you as readers have raised over the last month through emails, polls, on social media and during our live open newsroom discussion have touched on points like affordability, accessibility, safety and reliability. 

• Open Thread: How would you change public transport in your county?
• Open Newsroom: How can Ireland improve public transport?
• From active travel to the Western Railway Corridor: An A-Z(ish) of public transport in Ireland 
• What’s happening with public transport in your county right now? Here’s a rundown
• Poll: Satisfaction with public transport is concentrated almost entirely within Dublin
• Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil voters among least likely to support a congestion charge

And so, as we looked together at public transport, what did we find?

Donegal is at the forefront of our minds when we think about public transport and gaps in Ireland’s transport networks – it’s been described as “the land that transport forgot”.

The county’s once-extensive railway shut more than half a century ago. Many areas within the county aren’t serviced by buses, and for those that are, buses don’t always run early, late, or often enough to facilitate people getting where they want to go.

Also in the west, the future of the Western Railway Corridor is tangled and uncertain.

The line, which runs from Limerick to Sligo, is mostly disused. Many want the track restored for trains and others would like to see it converted to a greenway.

However, a report commissioned by the government concluded that a “do nothing” approach would be the most financially viable, though a separate report by a campaign group disagrees. It’s complicated.

When it comes to roads, we face challenges with traffic and balancing local needs against national priorities.

On the other hand, there are some that we do well, like the Local Link buses that provide a lifeline for people in parts of rural Ireland.

And how does all of that fit into the EU’s focus on developing a standardised Europe-wide transport network?

• ‘The land that transport forgot’: Locals say Donegal needs better buses and return of rail
• Railway, greenway, or disused line? The tangled, uncertain future of the Western Rail Corridor
• The Explainer Podcast: What happened to Ireland’s rail network – and what’s its future?
• Local needs? Or national priorities? The problem with building new roads in Ireland
• ‘We would be lost without it’: The responsive bus service that has become a lifeline in rural Ireland
• ‘This isn’t about how we can get lots of EU money, it’s how can we work with Europe to deliver A and B’

Our colleagues at Noteworthy have investigated accessibility on public transport from taxis, transport schemes, and a transport training centre that has created conflict.

• Stranded, refused and left waiting: Disabled people ‘on tenterhooks’ trying to access taxis
• ‘White elephant’: The €2.7m transport training centre causing conflict in disability community
• ‘No plans to reinstate’ transport schemes for disabled people that activists say are ‘vital’
• ‘A significant challenge’: Unclear when public transport will be fully accessible

And of course, there’s the money side to all this.

New methods buy tickets and pay fares on public transport could be rolled out within the next three years, the National Transport Authority told us.

Related Reads

The Explainer: What happened to Ireland’s rail network - and what's its future?

In London, a congestion charge has been in place since 2003 to discourage driving into the city – could it ever work in Ireland?

• Can I tap? Contactless and smartphone payments planned for public transport in next three years
• ‘People find change threatening’: Could a congestion charge work in Ireland?

So what could the future look like for public transport in Ireland?

We looked at the question of safety – who feels safe on public transport, who doesn’t, and how we can make it safer.

As with everything else right now, there’s the pandemic to consider and how that might shape the future of how we engage with transport services and what our needs are.

We also talked to five campaigners and academics about their big ideas for how to improve transport.

Their solutions are to make it more sustainable, accessible, connected, modern, and ambitious.

• Number of security officers on Luas temporarily increases by 30% after report on women’s safety
• Opinion: We need public transport that feels safe for women
• ‘There might be a tightening of the belt’: What’s the future for Ireland’s public transport post-Covid?
• Five big ideas to improve public transport in Ireland

What did we learn from all this? We’ve rounded up some of the key points into a quiz – have a go, you can toot your own horn if you get 10 out of 10.

• Quiz: How much do you know about public transport?

And that’s me signing off from this cycle of The Good Information Project. Adam Daly will be coming to you soon with our next cycle on the space race – so watch this space.