Rush hour Belfast

I took this picture on the 18.02 train from Belfast Great Victoria Street Station to Lisburn just as it arrived at Adelaide Station. As you can see my carriage was empty as was the rest of the train.

There is a direct correlation between economic activity and public transport uptake. The busier a city, the more congested it becomes and the more people turn to public transport to escape the traffic. Expensive parking is another reason the hard pressed commuter might give up his or her privacy pod for the mass alternative. Both are the inevitable side effects of a successful city – the infamous “price you pay for progress”. For the record, the train is busier when the schools are open and those not old enough to get behind the wheel of a car have no alternative but to ride the rails.

The train I was on was built in Spain some four years ago.  It is state of the art diesel commuter stock which forms the backbone of Northern Ireland Railway’s strategic investment plan. it didn’t come cheap and needs to be pretty full to justify the investment.  The fact it was empty is not simply NIR’s fault, it’s an indictment of our regional economy. It is why so many say we are sleep walking our way through the downturn making no attempt to address the many and growing challenges our region faces.

I’ll be on the enterprise to Dublin first thing. The train will be pretty full with most if not all seats taken – there are occasions on which it’s standing room only.

Why?

Because Dublin, like London is a city which is easier to get around on public transport for all the reasons I mentioned above. Even in the depths of recession productivity there is still three times that in the North and the DART and buses are still full every morning and night.

In the sixties things were different in the nation’s capital. The government was closing down railways because the economy was in such a state that demand had all but collapsed. It took the south 30 years to wake up from its economic hibernation.  

It is now a decade since we left our tragic past behind us. Things should be getting better by now. Lets face it, July 2009 is not the time to be sitting on empty trains in Ireland’s second city.