she a Luas woman (warning it's long)

I rode the Luas for the first time this morning. The Luas is a new tram system that opened earlier this month in Dublin. The trains are silver, sleek and with their purplish interior, look like they would be more at home in France or Japan than in Dublin. As with any change, there was a big to-do about this new system in the press and especially on talk radio. Then again, what isn’t an issue on talk radio? They would create more traffic congestion, the cost is too expensive, and cars can’t drive on the tram tracks, therefore effectively closing certain streets to vehicular traffic. Dublin Bus complained that the trams were allowed to signal for priority when coming up to stoplights causing the busses to run behind schedule due to increased congestion. So what was Dublin Bus’ excuse for continually running behind schedule before Luas? The rain?

As someone accustomed to the Toronto Transit system (TTC), I wasn’t complaining about any possible improvement to the Dublin Transit system. Dublin Transit makes the TTC look efficient. Busses are regularly late, and on many routes don’t run often enough. When I first moved here, I lived in an inner northern suburb serviced by four bus routes. The busses travel from their respective terminuses through my suburb then into the city centre. From my suburb into the city centre, all four routes ran along the exact same streets. Some genius at Dublin Bus thought it best for these four routes to have the exact same timetable. So instead of the prospect of a bus coming along once every 5-10 minutes, all four busses come by once every 30 minutes. If you miss one bus, you miss them all and you have to wait another 25 minutes (usually in the rain) for the next one. Further, there is congestion along the bus route as one bus crawls along behind the other. I should add that the street these busses travel along is a main north-south artery that connects the city centre to the airport. It’s not a small, residential avenue.

I reached the end of my patience with Dublin Bus when one evening, I watched the bus drive by me as I ran up the street. I stood at an unsheltered stop for 25 minutes in 2C temperatures, cold drizzle and blustery winds that prevented me from putting up my umbrella. By the time I got home, I was a soaking mess and the damp chill had travelled down into my bones. I felt as though I would never get warm again. It was then I decided to move closer to the city centre and lessen my reliance on Dublin Bus. My toxic flatmates only hastened that decision. By comparison, the fact that there isn’t an express bus along Eglinton Avenue East seems to be a trifling annoyance. Of course, there should probably be a subway line along Eglinton Avenue, linking up at Kennedy station in the East End, Eglinton West in the West End, and then heading out to the airport, but hey, I wasn’t elected Planning Commissioner.

The only good thing about the Dublin Transit system is the suburban train line (DART) and the fact that there are more bus routes in Dublin, or at least more areas are serviced. It’s a rare, isolated suburb that isn’t serviced by at least one route. Toronto can’t say that about many of its inner suburbs, let alone the outlying ones. I’m also only talking about Metro Toronto in this instance, as the public transit in neighbouring municipalities borders on non-existence.

I had a job interview this morning and by my calculation, it would have taken me 45 minutes to walk to my destination. If I took the bus, it would have taken me an hour – 30 minutes to walk along the Quays (east-west route along the River Liffey, which dissects the city) to the bus stop, and another 30 minutes on the bus. If I took a bus along the Quays, an additional 15-20 minutes would be added to the trip. An elderly person with a walker can walk faster than a bus traveling along the Quays at certain times of the day. By taking the Luas, however, the trip only took me 40 minutes – 30 minutes walking to the closest stop, a 5-minute wait for the next tram, and the tram ride itself.

As I woke up at the ungodly hour of 6am to get ready for my 8:15am interview this morning, I reflected that though Toronto is much bigger than Dublin, both in population and size, it takes much longer to get around here. The distance I was traveling to my interview wasn’t that great – the equivalent distance and approximate direction from Bloor & Bathurst to Yonge & College. Yet, what would be 20 minutes at most on the TTC would take an hour on Dublin Bus.

One good thing about Dublin, however, is that the city council recognises the fact that the city is growing and a public transit plan needs to reflect the increased population and density. A second Luas line is opening in August on the north side of the city. However, true to Irish form, the lines are not compatible. So that means that even though they don’t link up now, they also never can in the future. Brilliant. That move almost makes Toronto’s Urban Planning seem forward-thinking and proactive in comparison. Almost. At least they’re trying. Toronto, on the other hand, seems to deny reports that estimate the population in the GTA to swell by 5 million over the next 10 years. Toronto’s response to projected population growth is to cut back on public transit. If DVP currently stands for Don Valley Parking Lot, what will it be like in a few years time? Where will everyone park? I suppose the city can convert any remaining green space along the waterfront into parking lots. The Gardiner Expressway and massive condo developments have already blighted the area anyway.

Riding the Luas this morning almost brought a tear to my eye. I had forgotten that public transit can be fast and efficient, and oh the luxury of taking a tram that doesn’t sit in traffic behind cars waiting to turn left (or in Ireland’s case, turn right). This is unlike taking the streetcar along Queen, College or Bathurst, for example, where streetcars sit in traffic along with everyone else. So what’s the advantage of taking public transit if it’s not any faster or more convenient? In its second week of operation, the Luas trams were full with morning commuters. For all the ballyhoo before it opened, people seem to welcome it now. It would be really sad if I were to return to Toronto a year or two from now and wax poetic on how Dublin Transit is so much better than the TTC.