Progress on Dublin transportation plan depends on response of all road-users

The DTO is responsible for monitoring the transport problem in Dublin and co-ordinating the response of all the relevant agencies to tackle the problem. Last Thursday saw some interesting developments in the debate.

The event which received most attention was the dramatic arrival on the steps of Government Buildings - by horse and cart - of the president and chief executive of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. Their mission: to demand that the Government solve the traffic problem by introducing "emergency legislation" of the type used to fight serious crime in the wake of Veronica Guerin's murder.

The colourful style in which their message was delivered suggests that the chamber - like many similar representative bodies - has a keen sense of public relations. But their superficial call for "emergency legislation" makes you wonder whether they are more interested in simply being heard than in making a serious contribution to a serious problem.

Nobody needs to be convinced that Dublin's transport problem is dire. The Government knows it. The local authorities and agencies know it. And - more than anyone - the commuters know it.

The factors which have brought us to this position are too many to rehash here. But two are crucial:

In just nine years there has been an explosion in the number of cars in the greater Dublin area. In 1991, there were 280,000 cars in the region. This year that number is over 400,000. A further 150,000 cars are expected to be added in the next few years.

No city could cope with that kind of growth in cars unless there was a huge and ongoing investment in infrastructure and in public transport. Infrastructure to help carry a growing number of road users. Public transport to help dampen demand for cars and to provide real choice to people who need to get into and around the city.

There was no such investment in Dublin's infrastructure or in public transport in the city during the years when it could have made a difference.

But to suggest that this Government - or its immediate predecessors - is to blame for the problem or for delaying the solution is naive. In the 1970s and 1980s - when strategic investments might have made the most difference - the country was on the verge of bankruptcy. And nobody foresaw the type of economic boom which has brought so many cars, so quickly, onto our streets.

I am not an apologist for anybody, but I have to say that this Government has been more energised by the transport problem than they are given credit for - and they have not been afraid to put their money where their mouth is.

In addition to supporting major infrastructural projects such as Luas they have agreed and funded a wide variety of tactical initiatives to try to relieve the current situation.

The Short Term Action Plan - proposed and co-ordinated by the DTO and funded by the Government - is a £200 million list of measures to help deal with today's problem as quickly as possible. And it's making a difference; already new and better buses are arriving, special QBCs are being built, extra resources are being invested in the DART network and cycle-ways are being developed.

The DTO is just now in the process of finalising a submission to Government for a £2.5 billion programme of initiatives which would roll out between 2000 and 2006. We are confident that the Government will look favourably at these projects and will propose them to the EU for support.

But the reality is that even if we get the green light for all of our proposals, it will be some time - years in some cases - before we will begin to see their impact on the situation. The Chamber should realise this because we have discussed it with them at length - including at a meeting which I sought shortly after taking up my present position.

In the meantime - and this is the real irony of the carry-on last week - progress on the issue will depend much more on how businesses and individual road-users in the city respond to the problem; whether they continue to wait for others to solve it for them or whether they decide to change their own habits to help relieve it.

The other development of last Thursday - which received no attention because none was sought - was a meeting held under the auspices of the DTO which discussed, inter alia, how we could encourage organisations and businesses within the city to change their own commuting behaviour and that of their employees.

We are looking at how best we can encourage individual businesses to make greater use of special tax concessions introduced in the recent Budget to encourage people to use public transport, flexi-time (which has been around for years but is under-utilised) and other initiatives which might help ease the present situation.

The point is that the answer to this problem does not just lie with the Government. We can all do our bit - Chamber of Commerce included. Indeed, as a determined car-driver who has spent all my life working in the heart of the city, it has been an eye-opening experience to sit on this side of the debate for the past six months.

The more I learn about the traffic problem, the more I realise how much of the solution lies with individual businesses.

Later this week the DTO is organising a public meeting at which one of the most senior transport planners in Zurich will speak about how that city dealt with its transport crisis, and the lessons we can learn from that for Dublin.

By their nature, these initiatives lack the drama and colour that is so favoured by lobby groups seeking attention for their issue of the day. But I would wager a fair bet that when the solutions start to bite and the traffic situation improves, it will owe more to the people who slowly but steadily helped businesses in the city to change their behaviour than it will to the oration from the horse and cart.

Conor McCarthy is chairman of the Dublin Transportation Office