The Big Dig in Boston was some project.
Indeed. It took a visionary to push for it and a big thinker like Tipp O’Neill to push Ronny Reagan to help fund it.
It has transformed that city. Well worth a watch for @Mac actually.
1 Like
My favourie sign of all time
Rome was not built in a day. If it was, we would have used their contractor.
1 Like
Microsoft are based in Sandyford and invested heavily in that campus. Google just bought a building in Sandyford. eBay have a base in Blanch. Dell have a huge base in Cherrywood. All sprawl areas. Give it 10 years and you’ll see these companies moving further from Dublin for more remote activities. They’ll have no choice.
Companies will go where the talent / workers are. There’s no valid reason for people moving to Ireland to live outside of Dublin. That can’t be sustainable.
It’s only about 5k. There’s one in Norway 25km ffs.
1 Like
The lads here are deluded if you’re comparing Dublin to China or Boston. You’re talking about a patchwork city that’s close to breaking point. Built by the English and we’ve dismantled most of the good stuff they built only to realise that we shouldn’t have done that and have rebuilt some of it in a half arsed way.
Don’t we have some mickey mouse law about land rights for owning land underneath houses that makes it almost impossible to build underground? Or did the Port Tunnel put an end to that?
Boston was built by the English.
We can’t, we can’t, we can’t…
Ireland has spent a fortune devising plans for various metro systems but never took the plunge. All feasible.
They cost…but so does everything. It’s like the M50. Built half assed the first time, they had to expand it. It cost even more money. At some point you build up in spec.
The idea of satellite towns on rail lines such as Adamstown is good, but the public services must be put in at the same time as the houses
It’s “rural”, not “rooral”, mate.
Nothing you can say to foreign companies. But irish government offices could and should have been forcibly decentralized.
Just some perspective for the urbanites, the reality in rural ireland is areas where a and e might be an hour away, oncology and other services 2+ hours away. The local post office or garda station closed. When people lose access to all these vital services a dub wanting millions to shorten his commute by 20 mins sounds fairly ridiculous (i realise improved dublin infrastructure helps the national economy, but that sounds fluffy compared to having to drive a relative hours for chemo) If this was the case in one village itd be a case of tough shit the city takes precedence, but terrible services and infrastructure is what a huge amount of rural areas have to put up with. Combine them you get a population affected not far off that of dublins. Plus a lot more registered voters…
1 Like
Go further out a bit. Ratoath, Dunboyne, Maynooth, Naas, Wicklow town. All within roughly an hour of the city centre by rail. Well connected by motorways. All within an hour of a University. Additional industry in these towns would not break them and would relieve the burden on the city centre.
The travesty here is that you have local enterprise boards all fighting for the crumbs from the top table rather that proper joined up thinking. Noone wins.
That is the reality of choosing to live in a rural area.
1 Like
Ireland is so small it shouldnt be. You could have effective health services asily centralised 45 mins max from all areas, and central for 80-100k people in most cases. In the outback or prairies, fair enough its not remotely viable or sensible but with irelands relatively even spread of population its different.
That’s because of rural Ireland and simpleton TDs.
Everyone wants a centre of excellence. Doesn’t work that way.
Money doesn’t go on trees mate, centre of excellences to serve the large populations of Dublin Fingal and Tallaght are best when resources are limited
Dubliners and Fingalian are sick of subsidising the rest of oireland
Yes large population areas have to be catered for, but proper health services for a significant population area like say county donegal trumps an underground railway for dublin.
Id like to thank de dubs for subsidising my yokel lifeschtyle. Your’s etc. Cleetus.
They can travel to Belfast mate
De dubs can cycle their fixies to work. Healthier alternative anyway?
Yes, definitely. We need infrastructure to catch up with demand but it’s coming