Majority Support Increased Public Transport Investment

Almost 7 in 10 motorists are strongly supportive of increased government investment in public transport infrastructure, recent research from AA Ireland has found.
A survey of over 4,000 motorists undertaken by AA Car Insurance found that 65.02% of respondents described the provision of improved public transport options as “very important” to them. Meanwhile, a further 23.72% described such improvements as “somewhat important,” with just 0.92% describing the issue as “not at all important.”
“When you look across Irish society as a whole, we have been overly reliant on the private car for far too long as a direct result of under-investment in public transport alternatives by government, with this being particularly true for cities such as Galway and Cork, and for rural Ireland. Even Dublin which has more public transport options than other Irish cities has seen itself fall afoul of poor public transport planning in recent years, as evidenced by the ongoing delays at College Green,” Conor Faughnan, AA Director of Consumer Affairs stated. “If we are to move away from being a car dependent nation then large-scale investment in alternative forms of transport is needed. Simply put if you provide people with better alternatives than their car then we know that motorists will use them, but if you fail to do this then you lost the right to act surprised when you see the massive congestion issues we have across the country.”
“For a long-time now there has been a myth out there about the “lazy car-owner” who feels they are too good for public transport, the findings from this survey further confirm that this person does not exist. If you have public transport that can deliver people to work on time consistently then no sane person is going to choose sitting in their car on the M50 or in Cork or Galway over a more convenient option.”
In wider areas of transport investment, almost 70% of motorists describe increasing investment in cycling facilities as at least “somewhat important” to them.
When asked to rate how important investment in constructing and improving cycle facilities was to them, 39.31% felt such investment was “very important. Meanwhile, a further 27.82% stated that they viewed the improvement of existing cycling facilities as ‘somewhat important.’
“Cycling is a mode of transport which we should as a society be encouraging and investing in necessary infrastructure will go a long way towards encouraging more people to get on their bike and also make cycling safer. It’s being more common-place that people use multiple forms of transport so when it comes to motoring and cycling the “us vs. them” narrative simply doesn’t exist,” Faughnan added.