Short-term action sought on traffic as Luas delayed

The Dublin Transportation Office is preparing a detailed action plan spelling out what can be done in the short term to deal with traffic chaos in the capital, following last Tuesday's Government decision to opt for a revised light rail system - including a tunnel in the city centre.

The DTO's action plan, to be presented to the Government before the end of this month, is likely to focus on a significant expansion of Operation Freeflow as well as further traffic management measures and improvements both to public transport and cycling facilities.

Given the rapidly deteriorating traffic situation, the plan aims to produce a major change in the city's "modal split" - the transport modes which commuters use to travel to and from work - by encouraging people to switch from private cars to buses and bicycles.

It is understood that the DTO will also be proposing a number of public transport investment projects which could "draw down" a sizeable proportion of the £114 million in EU aid allocated for Luas and now certain not to be spent on it because of the Government's decision.

Paradoxically, the political furore over the postponement of Luas has created a much more favourable climate for investment in public transport. Ministers now seem to accept that radical steps are required in the short term to improve a notoriously underfunded service.

This must be seen against the backdrop of a massive roads programme in the greater Dublin area. In addition to the schemes already completed, such as the Northern Cross route, the overall estimate for major schemes in the pipeline comes to a staggering £646.3 million.

The accompanying table, compiled with the assistance of the National Roads Authority, lists each road scheme and its estimated cost. (The £178 million figure quoted for the Dublin Port Tunnel must be treated with caution; it is likely to cost much more when work finally starts.)

Transport experts consulted by The Irish Times have put an estimate of £540 million on the Government's Luas plan. This is considerably higher than the "£400 million-plus" figure quoted by Mary O'Rourke, but it is still substantially less than the roads programme.

Over the past five years, investment in public transport has lagged so far behind that its ranking may be rated as fourth division. Under the EU-funded transport programme, a total of just £197 million was allocated to cover Luas, DART, other commuter lines and quality bus corridors (QBCs).

The huge disparity between investment in roads and public transport runs counter to the "balanced and integrated" strategy devised in 1994 by the Government-sponsored Dublin Transportation Initiative (DTI), which was meant to guide the various authorities until 2011. It has not gone unnoticed. Last year, the Dublin Cycling Campaign held a mock funeral for the DTI, with some of its members dressed as grim-faced pallbearers carrying a "coffin" through the streets before consigning it to the waters of the Liffey in front of the Custom House.

THIS theatrical gesture was born out of a sense of total frustration over the failure of successive governments to make consistent progress towards implementing the DTI's "vision" of Dublin. Instead, what the city has got is a rag-bag of fairly minor public transport schemes.

Work is proceeding on DART extensions to Greystones and Malahide, at an overall cost of £17 million. Ten new carriages have also been ordered to increase the DART's overall capacity; these will be the first additions to its rolling stock since it opened in 1984.

Though the DTI allocated £87 million for QBCs, they got almost nothing in the 19941999 transport programme. So far, only £5.7 million has been spent - from funds earmarked for traffic management - with not a single penny coming from the Department of Public Enterprise.

Altogether, the DTI recommended a network of 11 QBCs in its final report, published in 1994, because it believed they would prove most effective in changing the modal split. Since then, only one has been introduced and public consultations are proceeding on a further five.

But there are serious doubts about whether Dublin Bus will be able to make full use of the 11 proposed QBCs when they are finally completed by the end of next year. This is due to the fact that, unlike other urban public transport systems, it now receives no State subsidy whatsoever. Dublin Bus must look to its own resources for capital investment in upgrading its 870strong fleet of buses, some of which should have been retired years ago. Thus, it can afford to invest only about £10 million a year in new buses.

The DTI also recommended a necklace of park-and-ride sites on the periphery of the city, where commuters could leave their cars and transfer to public transport. Here again, however, no money has been allocated. The provision of better facilities for cycling was also ignored by the transport programme, though the DTI recommended an allocation of £12 million. A traffic management budget of £34 million is being used to finance such measures as better, more co-ordinated traffic signalling. Aggravating the whole picture is the boom in new car sales, which reached a record level of 62,000 last year in Dublin alone. And we now know that 40 per cent of this total is accounted for by company cars - by far the favourite perk for valued executives.

With the public inquiry into the Luas project likely to be adjourned yet again when it reopens on June 2nd, to give CIE three months or more to recast its application for a light rail order, there is a growing clamour for interim steps to be taken now to improve public transport.

This is based on a clear recognition that the Government's revised plan for Luas will take much longer to implement and that the city cannot be allowed to drift into total gridlock. At the very least, Dublin deserves a package to prevent a seriously bad situation getting appreciably worse.