I feel like a bit of a failure when it comes to transport. I tried for many years to cycle to work in Dublin covering 25km on an ebike, but gave up after several nasty incidents that almost resulted in serious injury (for example my head almost going under the wheel of a van). I've experienced so much hatred, verbal and physical violence from drivers — and I'm the kind of cyclist that is fully lit, clad in high-vis and stopping at all traffic lights.
About a year ago I started to take the bus. My commute went from an hour on the bike to over two hours. Spending four hours a day on a bus to travel such a short distance is not a fun experience. The bus meanders through a city choked with traffic. It's often faster if I get off and walk that part of the journey (I've checked). I enjoyed cycling for the most part. It was great for fitness and clearing my head. The parts of my commute away from cars were beautiful but there was a significant risk of death or serious injury every time I got on the bike. More and more drivers are buried in their phones. Cycle or bus and you'll see this.
The bus was slowly killing me. It was hard to work as the crowded bus wobbled around narrow Dublin streets along with various degrees of anti-social behaviour. I got off the bus angry and frustrated and groggy.
I've just bought a small little electric car and I can get to work in around 40 minutes. I don't have to listen to other people's loud voice calls or TikToks that are so loud they penetrate through ANC. I don't have to ask someone to make space on the seat they are occupying all by themselves and their bag and endure the dirty looks for it. I don't have to wait and wait for buses that never show up. I hate the bus. I hate that I hate the bus. I feel like a failure for having to buy a second car but I fucking tried!
I'm happy in my car. It's fun to drive and it makes me happy and guilty. I feel like I have so much more freedom. I'm not tied to the bus schedule which placed very tight limits on my time, and the bus frequently didn't show. Otherwise it would take much longer to get home. I can stop by somewhere on the way home and pick something up. Like the bike, I am by myself in the car and I can decompress. I can sing if I want.
It makes no sense for a 25km commute to take two hours. Its madness. By travelling from one suburb to another via the city centre the bus becomes wholly impractical. A public transport system has to work so that people leave their car at home. London worked for me, I got the tube everywhere. Valencia has an amazing public transport system. Dublin is completely broken.
This is a problem when the public transport system isn't built with these exact issues in mind. You're right, it shouldn't take 2 hours for that commute, and all the other issues you pointed out are legitimate. The problem is that the infrastructure hasn't been adapted to make things better for the people using public transport.
As a comparison to the Netherlands, public transport always has right of way vs regular traffic, they have their own dedicated lanes that traffic isn't allowed into (this includes taxis! They can use the public transport lanes) and even their traffic signals treat them preferentially. I take a bus very often, and quite often it won't stop at a single red light because the traffic lights are programmed to help the flow of public transport, despite the street it travels on having 5 or 6 different traffic lights. In many cities, only public transport is allowed in some of the denser streets too, so they don't have to compete with other drivers on the road.
Trams, metros and trains are pretty obvious as to why they work so well.
Same with bike lanes. First of all, whenever they can be they are wholly separated from the main traffic and live in their own independent lanes. If a bike has to join regular streets, they have the right of way and these situations are kept at an absolute minimum. The streets and intersections themselves are also designed so that drivers are forced into driving safely via traffic easing measures and low speed limits. Plus, everyone here bikes, so there isn't the same type of animosity or stigma you see elsewhere because drivers understand what it's like to be a cyclist and view it as a normal thing.
So it's not your fault and you shouldn't feel bad, it's the fault of your government for not investing into proper public transport infrastructure. They are trying to squeeze in public transport infra into existing road infra, whereas what they should be doing is redesigning the current infra to make sure public transport is better integrated.
And, guess what, the roads here are still awesome for drivers! Other than the centers of the bigger cities, there isn't much congestion to speak of and the highways are of extremely high quality (to the point we have a billion memes about feeling the bumps of Belgium as soon as you cross the border). It's not like NL is a car-free utopia, something like 65% of people still have cars, the difference is that there are alternate options that are just as good, and often better than driving. That's the secret sauce to good public transport.
The Dutch model is frequently cited by campaigners here as how things should be done. Unfortunately, as you point out, our government doesn’t really care. Investment is a patchwork of half arsed attempts here and there depending on local pressure. There are only two tram lines in the country and people keep driving their cars into the trams. Bus lanes are clogged with taxis and the Gardai (police) are absent from our roads.
A recent local council attempt to remove a couple of parking spaces and install a shared space in the area I live was met with a wave of anger and vitriolic abuse. In a public consultation people were complaining about how it would prevent them bringing some elderly relative to the GP in the snow, while transporting a fridge. Meanwhile the area is permanently clogged with cars dodging a nearby toll making the place extremely unpleasant to use as an amenity.
It’s incredibly frustrating and saddening to contribute to the problems after trying so hard to do better.