Deja vu as promises sound oddly familiar

[colmoc]

THE big news in transport is that it's mostly old news. For many of the projects earmarked to be bankrolled are the same ones announced in last year's estimates. And they still haven't got off the ground.
A 58pc increase in expenditure on public transport has to be broadly welcomed however.
That said, commitments to hundreds of extra buses for Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann and re-opening of stretches of the Navan rail line will not set the world on fire. They ran these around the block last year.
We're promised that a big chunk of the money will be used to complete the inter-urban motorway/ dual carriageway network by 2010.
There is also going to be a war chest of cash to clear the giant backlog of provisional licence holders waiting to sit the driving test.
Money for new Luas lines, money for the Metro, and local transport initiatives.
But don't get too excited just yet. The bottom line is that the unhappy lot of the commuter stuck in traffic jams in Dublin and in other cities is unlikely to be improved in the short-term.

www.unison.ie

Does Treacy Hogan realise that she has been reporting on this old news over and over and over for the last year.