The Irish Times view on road traffic in Dublin: Creating alternatives

Dublin City Council chief executive Owen Keegan has never made a secret of his desire to end car dominance in the capital, but his views have not been as directly conveyed as when he told a delegation of cycling advocates from Amsterdam last week he wanted to "aggressively restrict" road space for cars to provide more protected cycle lanes in the city.

His language may appear deliberately engineered to incense motorists, but the message does not conflict either with national policy, or with the city council's actions over the last two years. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic the council has been reallocating road space from the private vehicle to cyclists and pedestrians, and while some schemes met considerable opposition before they were installed, once in place there is little or no demand for their reversal. This is the "Grafton Street effect" where the war predicted when pedestrianisation began some 40 years ago never materialised and its reversal would now seem absurd.

Not everyone will cycle, and the city's public transport options, which realistically are the alternative to the car for most drivers, are inadequate

It is also the case that these projects have not resulted in a de facto “car ban”. While some streets have been fully or partially pedestrianised, drivers are not blocked from travelling through and across the city. But it has become less convenient and more circuitous. The environmental imperative and sheer lack of space on the city’s streets means everything that can be done to discourage car use must be done, so only people who really must bring their car into the city do, and everyone else considers other options.

It is on those “other options” that the city falls down. Not everyone will cycle, and the city’s public transport options, which realistically are the alternative to the car for most drivers, are inadequate. Metro is still a decade or more away and the 16 continuous BusConnects corridors, which could finally make bus commuting a reliable option, will only this year enter the planning phase.

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However, the city cannot wait, so motorists may for now have to accept that they will be worse off as a consequence of cycling infrastructure measures.