[thechat] politics
John Handelaar
john at userfrenzy.com
Sat Mar 17 14:33:00 CDT 2007
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
E john at handelaar.org T +353 21 234 9938
M +353 85 748 3790 http://handelaar.org
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