Fare deal: Ireland joins Europe-wide efforts to coax people out of cars
The train departs Dublin punctually and glides west through sunlit, verdant countryside, like a glossy advertisement for Irish Rail. Some passengers snooze, others read or chat or simply gaze at the meadows flashing past.
Daisy Arrey, a 19-year-old student heading to Longford, finds the journey relaxing and cheap. Karen Mulligan, 38, returning home to Mullingar after an excursion to the capital, is glad to have avoided motorway tolls and parking hassles. Tom and Marita, a couple in their 60s on their way to Edgeworthstown, appreciate not having to navigate twisting rural roads.
This train, which terminates in Sligo on the Atlantic coast, seems a showcase for public transport and progress in Ireland’s effort to wean people off cars to reduce carbon emissions.
Fares on Irish public transport were cut by 20% in April until the end of this year and halved permanently for those aged 19 to 23 – the first such reductions in Ireland since 1947. Anecdotal evidence suggests increased ridership on several routes, according to analysts.
It is part of a Europe-wide experiment. Germany’s “€9 ticket” project grants a month of unlimited travel on urban and regional networks. Spain is making some commuter routes free from September until the end of the year. Austria’s “climate ticket” grants access across its network for €3 a day.
Small but useful innovations await travellers bound for Sligo: the station has a new bicycle storage facility and the town has a new e-bike rental service, part of Ireland’s wider efforts to promote climate-friendly transport.
But the same passengers, however, reveal blotches in this rosy portrait. Arrey has experienced harassment on buses and hopes to get a car.
The only way Mulligan, who lives in an isolated area,
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