A choice? Some choice ... Kathy Sheridan

Not a minute went by while researching our commuter series when my thoughts didn't fly to Dublin City Council's director of traffic. Probably something to do with that macho, Mensa-man way he might look at you while growling : "We have given up trying to cater for the private car and if people haven't worked that out yet, then there is a serious problem with IQ."

That's Owen Keegan, folks, the man who says gridlock is the fault of all those morons who "choose" to take cars into town.

The man who says that parking meters are priced to give the motorist a "choice" between bringing cars into the centre or using public transport. The man who finds you all so bloody bone-headed that he is "looking at" the London congestion charge "with interest . . ." The man who talks endlessly about "choice" but who has "never", never y'hear, "taken the view that an alternative should be in place as a precondition [for congestion charging]."

Phwoar.

I was thinking of Owen when Pat Rice, a Co Louth man who commutes to the Bank of Ireland computer centre in Cabinteely, was describing his day. Pat leaves his house at 6 a.m., takes the 6.20 Drogheda-Dublin train to Connolly, walks to the Bank of Ireland HQ in Baggot Street where he collects his moped from the basement, then put-puts all the way out to Cabinteely to arrive at 8 a.m. That's two hours after he left home.

Nuts of course. But guess what, Owen? If he relied on city buses, it would be nearly three hours after he had left home.

That's why he spent over €1,000 on a moped. That's "choice".

I thought of Owen again when Carlow-based Barry Wall, another smart IT man, described a day that begins at 5.30 a.m., when he sets out for Clonskeagh. It takes 90 minutes by car. But why not the train? The 6.30 would get him to Heuston in 90 minutes.

But flagging down the two buses needed for Clonskeagh in the city rush-hour would take another 45.

To travel home, he would have to leave the office at 5.15 to get to Heuston for the 6.20, which would get him back to Carlow at around 7.30/7.45. That's 13 hours after leaving home - 105 minutes of it spent traversing the city, Owen.

And I thought of Owen again when Carol Dougan, a mother of young children, described her day. She lives in Ratoath and works in Ballsbridge. But despite the fact that she sets off at the ungodly hour of 6.10 a.m., commuting through the city adds 2½ hours to her working day. If she left home at 8 a.m. - which would allow her to drop her children to the creche - it would take another hour. Yet the distance each way is no more than 20 miles.

Carol is one of those alien creatures who have to collect the children and often have a pile of groceries to get in on the way home. What would you do with a recalcitrant woman like that, Owen?

What have you to offer people like Carol, Pat and Barry and the thousands of early-rising, hard-working people who crave nothing more than freedom from soul-killing city traffic?

Of course the unfortunates joining the convoys up the main primary routes from dawn are not all Owen's responsibility.

Many of them are there because, like Gerard and Josephine Ford from Rochfortbridge, for example, there is no public transport service to Leixlip, short of going into the city centre and out again. Young couples, already struggling, are having to buy two cars just to stay in work.

Even the president of An Taisce, Frank Corcoran, who lives in Blessington, acknowledges that many people have no choice but to drive.

What Owen has failed to grasp is that gridlock hurts lives and families a great deal more than it hurts him.

Most who have moved to commuter land are stoical enough to take the extra mileage on the chin; it's the agonising crawl from the city fringes that destroys them.

People are not stupid. If I only had a euro for all the interviewees who railed at the absence of park-and-ride facilities at the city approaches; at the insanity of suburban and metropolitan train services sharing a line with a national route; at how an exploding population like Gorey's can have a train station without commuter trains; at the frenzied rush for seats on rush-hour trains; at the bedlam in Heuston - in full view of bus inspectors - when passengers from the Portlaoise train attempt to board a bus; at the closure of a suburban service such as the Arrow on Sundays and bank holidays.

Is this what city officials call "choice"?

Owen, if you really want to live dangerously, try mentioning your "interest" in a congestion charge to the man who has been pushed out of his native city by house prices, has no alternative to the car and is already apoplectic at talk of a road toll on his 50-mile commute.

Tip: wear a gumshield and have your engine running . . .

ksheridan@irish-times.ie