Outside Dublin, whose central areas and inner suburbs have the lowest car ownership rates in the country, public transport coverage is constrained by the modest traffic volumes available. The rail network is limited and bus transport is the only alternative to the car for most trips.

Not only do rural dwellers own more cars, but they must also use them more intensively and annual mileage per car is around 50% higher than in Dublin for most counties. Improving personal mobility in rural Ireland means, as a practical matter, improving the road system for cars and buses.

A backbench revolt is brewing in the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael parties over the allocation of the transport investment budget.

Whatever about the Dublin schemes, cycling is not a realistic option for longer journeys in rural Ireland

Minister and Green party leader Eamon Ryan has reportedly blocked capital allocations for numerous road improvement projects, insisting that priority be accorded instead to unidentified rail projects and for greenways and cycle routes.

Whatever about the Dublin schemes, cycling is not a realistic option for longer journeys in rural Ireland.

Many of the road schemes that Minister Ryan wishes to defer are leftovers from the public capital programme cutbacks, which were an unfortunate feature of the response to the 2008 banking bust.

Taxes rose, current spending was largely protected but the capital programme was gutted and backlogs built up in many areas. Key road projects are now being deferred again, including some that were in the forward programme 15 years ago.

The list includes the N2, the road which connects Dublin to Derry and Donegal. It is called the A5 in Northern Ireland and only a short stretch at the Dublin end has been improved to dual carriageway standard.

There is no railway line on this alignment, so the only way to enhance public transport service is to cut bus journey times through road improvements.

The route from Derry to Belfast, called the A6, is finally being improved, but the link to Dublin is on the long finger again

Frequent services are offered from Derry and Letterkenny, including a stop at Dublin Airport, by Translink and McGinleys. The northwest of the island is poorly developed and poor transport links to Belfast and Dublin are part of the reason.

The route from Derry to Belfast, called the A6, is finally being improved, but the link to Dublin is on the long finger again.

Another casualty is the N20 linking the second- and third-largest provincial cities, Cork and Limerick. This route has no direct rail line either and was due to be upgraded to full motorway standard and be called the M20. Route selection had been completed and planning consents sought when the axe fell in 2010 and it is now necessary to start again from scratch. The existing route is only 100km long, but the 19 round-trip services per day offered by Expressway and Citylink take between 1.5 and 2 hours.

No rail line connects Cork to Waterford either

There are serious bottlenecks in Charleville and other intermediate points and work on this long-delayed project has apparently been deferred once more.

No rail line connects Cork to Waterford either, but work on the N25 is also to be sacrificed to the minister’s priorities.

There will be further delay on the N24, linking Waterford to Cahir and on to Limerick, and on the Mullingar to Longford section of the N4 connecting Dublin to both Mayo and Sligo.

There is a comfortable perspective among Dublin motorists that the national motorway network has largely been completed, but that is simply not the case. Links to the northwest and between the provincial cities, remain sub-standard.

Several Chinese cities, including Zhangzhou, already have all-electric bus fleets

Discouraging road investment is a relic from a time when the substitution of electric traction for fossil fuels in road vehicles appeared unlikely.

It is now government policy to transition the car fleet to (mainly renewable) electricity and electric buses have been introduced on a small scale. Several Chinese cities, including Zhangzhou, already have all-electric bus fleets and prices are falling rapidly. Heavy trucks will be harder to de-carbonise, but the search for alternatives to diesel is under way.

Public transport vs rail transport

The case for heavy investment in rail projects, which the minister seems to favour, cannot indefinitely be built around cutting carbon emissions. Carbon emissions from road transport are clearly headed downwards.

It is a common confusion to equate public transport to rail transport and Minister Ryan is prone to using the terms interchangeably.

The statistics show that bus is the main form of public transport in Ireland, even in Dublin, despite heavy investments in trams and suburban rail electrification in recent decades. In rural Ireland, rail is relatively unimportant.

It is understandable that Irish Rail should lobby for the lion’s share of the transport investment budget, but public investment funds are limited, and choices must be made.