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'Cue mass kidnappings at all suburban bus stops'

EMISSIONS: The great thinkers behind the Ideas Campaign, with KILIAN DOYLE

Wed Aug 12 2009 - 01:00

EMISSIONS:The great thinkers behind the Ideas Campaign, with KILIAN DOYLE

NO DOUBT many of you bright sparks will be aware of the Ideas Campaign, which invited ordinary punters to submit their ideas to save this wonderful little country of ours from going to hell in a handcart.

Well I have a few ideas of my own. Predictably, most involve large swathes of the population taking long walks off short planks. Some day. Mark my words.

Perusing the campaign’s website, I notice there are nine pages of submissions on transport alone. I suspect plenty were bashed out by people back from the pub filled with the sense of belligerent self-righteousness that comes with the drinking of eight pints of stout.

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Some are brilliant, some baffling, some blindingly obvious. The words “encourage” and “entice” are clearly a euphemism for “force” in many of them. Here follows a critique of a choice few.

  • Entice people to walk to places instead of driving.How? By shrinking the whole country to an area of three square miles?
  • Enforce a law so that all cars entering Dublin must contain at least four adults.Cue mass kidnappings at suburban bus stops.
  • Have a cobweb-like transport system around Dublin. Cobweb-like?As in, impossible to get out of and patrolled by ferocious predators?
  • Have a large covered, secure parking area for people's bicycles.Just the one?
  • Build a safer cycle route which is covered.And where might that be, pal? Between your home and place of work, perchance?
  • Discount the use of public sector transport.Presumably that is "discount" as in "lower the price of", as opposed to "discount" as in "write off as unworkable"?
  • Have a shamrock-shaped Metro station.I'm lost for words.
  • In the 1800s the Brits gave us the train system. In the 1900s we Paddies castrated it. It is now time to rebuild it.Methinks someone has issues.
  • Give parking tickets to people who double park – no exceptions (even if the hazard lights are on).That wasn't me, I swear. But I like the thinking.
  • Use canals for the transport of cargo.Why did nobody ever think of that before?
  • Boot the low-emission car industry.I can only assume that's a typo. At least I hope it is.
  • Instruct emergency services when driving between dusk and dawn that they have their blue lights flashing. Will make people more cautious and drive slowly.Ever heard of the boy who cried wolf?
  • Let every taxi driver have a speed camera for night time, to charge those who speed at night. Split the revenue 50-50.Why do I think this was submitted by a taxi driver who's watched Robert de Niro on his solo mission to clean the filth off the streets once too often?
  • Use mannequins created and dressed in such a way that they look like gardaí. Cars will slow down seeing something that looks like a garda.Indeed they will. So they can have a good chortle at it before bundling it into the boot and bringing it to the pub.
  • Build a bridge from Dublin to Wales.And could the last person over it please turn off the lights?
  • Build Ireland's answer to the Channel Tunnel. France and Britain did it during a recession – it is the cheapest time to do it.It's also the cheapest time to snaffle up a load of worthless, half-built housing estates in Longford, but – mad though they may be – you don't see our fine Government doing that, do you? Oh, right. . .
  • Ministers shouldn't be paying €6,000 for helicopter rides.They don't. We do.
  • Employ a Minister for Thinking. A contradiction in terms, surely?(This one wasn't, strictly speaking, in the transport section. But I couldn't resist including it.)
  • We need more efficiency in terms of public transport.See what I mean about the blindingly obvious? Imagine, someone actually wasted precious minutes of their life logging on and writing that. No wonder the country is a shambles.