The Luas goes North?

The powers-that-be, ie the direct rule Mandarins of the Department of Regional Development, are considering a rapid transit system for Belfast.

The top option on the table, aimed at reducing Belfast's growing gridlock, is a Luas type light rail system.

But at the risk of sounding like a MOPE, why is it that this plan only focuses on East Belfast when the worst tailbacks in town are located along the Falls Road, the Westlink and parts of South Belfast?

This is reminiscent of when the Brits gave Stormont millions in the Sixties for a motorway to Dublin and they built one into the middle of Protestant nowhere (ie Dungannon) instead.

Or indeed of the time in the early 1980s when the Southern authorities decided to build a little seaside railway for the affluent coastal suburbs of Dublin rather than one that would actually take the most car-bound commuters off the roads.

Comber does not need a Luas. It's a village, for goodness' sake. They should instead build a tram line that goes up the Falls, and another route that takes some of the commuters off the Westlink.

Belfast needs a transport system that serves the greatest number of people rather than a partisan Protestant community light rail.

Backing Blair on public transport

Now that Teflon Tony has decided to leave Downing Street some indeterminate time this century, we can all look back in joy at the glorious work done by the lads of www.backingblair.co.uk.

No fans of the man whose legacy will be the death of untold thousands of Iraqi civilians, they have been agitating for his removal for years.

During that time, they managed to create a hilarious, close-to-the-knuckle series of flash animations about the state of British politics as they see it. All of them are worth a gander.
But my personal fave has to be this one.

The lads responsible for the music are two junior doctors from London who ply the UK comedy circuit under the moniker of Amateur Transplants.

If this is what they feel about the London Tube, god only knows what they might have to say about the Luas, Translink or, god forbid, Iarnrod Eireann.