Transportation modes

I’m always interested in approaches to transportation when I travel. So here are some things that are going on in Dublin.

For one thing, the sharing economy is alive and well.

I saw one in action, too, but didn’t get a pick

But there were a lot of bikeshare installations, although this is the only one I saw that was actually approaching full availability:

In fact, I saw several that were completely empty:

But lest you think no one actually owns a bicycle, here’s a shop:

I’m guessing that you’re not allowed to take your bicycle on LUAS (the light rail system), as here’s one of the stops:

Now, clearly it’s not paradise for cyclists, or for bikes. I was walking along Merrion Street and saw this example:

The tag is a threat:

But since I shot the photo nearly a month after the date on it, I’m thinking they may not be big on enforcement.

Here’s another, which was just sad:

And its tag:

By the time they get round to actually impounding the thing, there’ll be nothing left.

These pedicabs were at the St. Stephen’s Green end of Grafton street (along with horse-drawn carriages, which I did not shoot); only at the weekend, though:

And here’s something I had not come across before this trip.

I would have been clueless had I not seen and heard two of them at a distance in Belfast. (The first time, in the street by my hotel, I was so stupefied that I didn't think to pull out my camera. The second I heard three blocks away while I was at the top of my hotel, and it was too far to shoot.) You get a bunch of people on the bicycle seats (probably pretty well inebriated from what I saw), and they provide the power to move around. They’re also their own cheering section.

I have to say that the notion of doing this as a team-building exercise does not appeal to me in the least. And I think it would only work in a relatively flat city. San Francisco, for example, would not be a good target market. But evidently it’s a Thing in Ireland, north and south.