During my study abroad program I traveled to Dublin, Ireland. This left me in a situation that I am not accustomed to in the United States: I did not have a car to use at my convenience. This challenge during my travels, however, was rapidly conquered. This situation that I was in is an extremely normal circumstance for Dublin locals, with a staggering 33% of locals not owning a car. For locals and myself, this leaves people to use public transportation and their own two feet. The city of Dublin recognizes that people do not often use a personal vehicle and has designed city infrastructure surrounding the need for ease of transportation around a large city. During my program I was able to take advantage of a multitude of transportation methods and could observe many more.

When I first arrived in the city, I walked out of the airport and was greeted by a sight that is mostly dead in the United States: taxis. Taxis roam the city and can be summoned in order to provide customized transportation for special events such as heading to a location like the airport. As my program progressed, I was able to expand my transportation experience in many ways. My most common method of travel was simply walking. This is not ordinary walking, however. Dublin has fortified their city with crosswalks and a number of large walkways that make walking a fast and efficient means of travel. I also used the roads of Dublin for longer travel. Dublin has a fantastic bus system with stops nearby no matter where you are in the city. Paired with this, the bus-only lanes that flow through the city create a means of travel that caters to many people and is very fast due to its prioritization.

The third means of transportation that I utilized more than once was the DART. This is Dublin’s above-ground train that travels throughout the city and outside of the city boundaries to popular locations. I used this to travel to hikes outside of the city and to travel to nearby towns. This travels at fast speeds to get people to their location quickly and, similar to the bus, receives its own personal route and can cater to many people at once with many stops and a high limit on human capacity. The city offers a seemingly endless amount of means of travel. As I traveled, I was able to try many means of transportation not available nearby where I live and was also able to observe many more, such as bike lanes, which make for low-emissions travel and safety for bikers. It was an amazing experience to see all of this, and I will be sure to experiment with my travel even more in the future.

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Learn more about this blogger’s study abroad program: Engineering in Ireland: Global Industry and Culture