[thechat] politics

[John Handelaar]

Martin Burns wrote:
> On 17 Mar 2007, at 03:22, Erik Mattheis wrote:
> 
>> Anybody have an opinion on private highways? Do the European ones  
>> offer
>> advantages over publicly owned ones?
> 
> Well, advantages if you can pay the toll, yes. In that you can get  
> through the Birmingham area on a Friday afternoon within your own  
> lifespan.


Dublin, genius-ly, has a big fat toll bridge slap
in the middle of the *only* road which goes around it.

And everybody has to throw coins in it.

Actually, if I get started on what's wrong with
Ireland's infrastructure we'll be here for several
months.

One more example:  the nearest transatlantic
airport from here [1] is 90 miles away.  There are no
trains, the bus takes THREE AND A HALF HOURS to get
there, and even if we did have a car it'd still be
nearly three hours away.


jh


[1]  Cork has a perfectly good, brand-new €200m airport [3]
      but a trilateral agreement between Ireland, the US
      and Canada prevents any scheduled flights at all
      other than from Dublin and Shannon, of which at least
      half *must* depart from Shannon.  This has been ruled
      illegal, so obviously [2] it's staying in place until
      early 2008.

[2]  Pro-Shannon lobbying seems to think that forcing people
      to use it is the only way of generating enough business
      to keep the area afloat.  It's between Ennis and
      Limerick - one of the most famous Irish names in the
      entire anglophone world - and it hasn't occurred to them
      to actually name the Airport after its location rather
      than a river it's near.


[3]  The new airport terminal, unlike the one next door which
      it replaces, does not have a large open fireplace with
      horse brasses hanging from it parked between passport
      control and the luggage carousel 25 feet therefrom.


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John Handelaar

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