Dublin cannot afford luxury of inordinate development delays

What a difference a decade makes in the life of a city. Reading Frank McDonald's recent series of articles on traffic, it struck me that maybe some people still think we're only waking up to the traffic problem now and putting solutions in place.

The truth, of course, is that it's 10 years since the local authorities, government departments and public transport providers set to work on what became known as the Dublin Transportation Initiative. It's taking longer than any of us would like to implement the key elements of the strategy. But that's democracy - or is it?

The Irish Times, the Chamber of Commerce and others have, from time to time, called for a dedicated transportation authority to take on the functions of the apparently diverse range of bodies involved in traffic and transportation. Would it do things better or faster? Most probably not, is my guess. In fact, a single-purpose transportation authority operating beyond the realms of local government risks solving traffic problems at the expense of other issues that are of at least equal importance to the overall well-being of the city.

The reason we experience inordinate delays in delivering major infrastructural projects is due, in the main, to the ease with which individuals or minority groups can delay the process by using the legal and planning systems. The Southern Cross Motorway, for example, was delayed for about five years by legal action involving a small group of property-owners.

There is no suggestion that individual rights should not be protected. There is, however, an unassailable argument for a fast-track planning and legal process which recognises major projects deemed to be of urgent significance for the local economy. The Vasco da Gama bridge in Lisbon, involving an 18 km crossing of the river Tagus, was planned, designed and executed in seven years. The Oresund bridge and tunnel between Copenhagen in Denmark and Malmo in Sweden, which is due to open next year, will have taken 12 years. The motorway "ring" around Dublin city will have taken 20 years by the time it reaches the Loughlinstown interchange. This will still leave uncompleted the Eastern By-Pass from Dublin Port to Booterstown.

The new Planning Bill goes some way towards dealing with legal and planning restrictions. It does not, and cannot, deal with the inordinate delays experienced with projects that get caught in the legal system, a process which lends itself to exploitation by those who seek to delay projects.

The port tunnel and the final stages of the motorway are at, or close to, construction phase. We should now be laying the groundwork for future projects, including the eastern by-pass, on the basis that we cannot afford the luxury of similar time-frames in future.

Economic growth, car ownership levels and, hopefully, visitor numbers will continue to increase and will require continually improving infrastructure.

There are two immediate and almost separate requirements. One is the roads and rail investment needed to move vehicular and other traffic around Dublin and radiating from Dublin outwards, including access to the port and airport. The other, almost separate, requirement is management of access to and egress from the city centre. This necessitates a dramatic shift, preferably voluntary, from car to public transport.

Inevitably, there are healthy tensions between constituent elements of the Dublin Transportation Initiative. There is not much wrong (and sometimes much that is welcome) with competition between highly-motivated groups of people driving towards a common objective. We have, for example, looked for limited deregulation of the bus service, on the basis that gaps in the public transport system should be filled by carriers licensed by the individual local authorities.

I share the view that Dublin Bus would retain the vast bulk of this business; indeed the superb Dublin Bus performance on the recently-opened Stillorgan Corridor reinforces this view.

However, I believe that limited deregulation would strengthen the hand of Dublin Bus in its search for adequate investment (of which it has been starved for years) and its relationship with its unions. If local government involvement in this process required some sort of subsidy to secure better services, then I believe we should be prepared to take up that challenge.

An adequate public transport alternative, which must be primarily bus-based for the time being, is essential to securing a change in the mindset that car ownership, and the personal right to whatever road space is required to get to and from the city centre, is an inviolable right of each citizen.

A lot of long-overdue projects, on which the city is dependent, will be completed within the next few years. The port tunnel will go to tender shortly. Anybody standing in the foothills of the Dublin mountains can see the foundations of the southern section of the motorway making its way from Tallaght towards Loughlinstown. Preparatory groundworks for Luas are under way and 100 miles of cycleways will be in place this time next year. Things are happening and the benefits are beginning to be seen.

If the last 10 years have taught us anything, it is that nobody can foresee what Dublin will be like at the end of another decade. There are indications that we are at last moving out of the adolescent phase of always looking to somebody else to solve our problems.

There is, post-EU Category 1 status, an increasing confidence in our ability to get up and get on with things on a more courageous basis than heretofore. In the age of technology and the global economy, there is no reason why Dublin should not go on to be one of the finest cities in Europe.

But we still have some growing up to do.