For the fourth consecutive year Ireland will take part next Monday in European Car Free Day. However Cork City has decided not to join in the event.
Councillors in the country's second city say it would be unfair to impose further restrictions on traders who have endured road closures and limited parking during the city's €130m urban renewal and drainage schemes.
Kevin Terry, Cork City's transport director, says: "While we fully support Car Free Day, because of the upgrading of Patrick Street, the Hugenot Quarter and all the drainage work in the city, it was decided not to further disrupt commuters. However we are opening the first phase of a 900-car park-and-ride facility at the Kinsale Road Roundabout in November which should help reduce congestion."
Despite Cork opting out, the number of cities and towns taking part has risen from 10 to 18 - they are Athlone, Balbriggan, Clonakilty, Drogheda, Dublin, Galway, Greystones, Tralee, Listowel, Killarney, Kilkenny, Limerick, Newcastlewest, Monaghan, Sligo, Waterford, Westport and Wicklow.
Car Free Day began in France in 1998 in a campaign to promote more sustainable modes of transport and to provide urban dwellers with the experience of their city or town in a car-free environment. By last year the idea had spread to about 1,500 cities and towns across the EU.
"The increase in the number of towns and cities taking part in Car Free Day shows that the momentum of the initiative is building, and that urban mobility is of concern to people throughout Ireland," says Environment Minister Martin Cullen.
With Car Free Day falling on a Monday this year, the focus will be on the commuter and the promotion of car-sharing, cycling, walking to work and public transport. Dublin Bus is to give free travel on all services from 10am to 1pm, as well as thousands of free tickets during morning and evening rush hours on busiest routes.
Iarnród Éireann will also offer free off-peak travel. It says it supports the idea in principle but doesn't have the capacity to cope with the extra strain on its services caused by Car Free Day. However spokesman Barry Kenny says: "On the day we will give away free DART and Suburban Rail tickets at outlying shopping centres which will allow potential new customers a chance to try our services free."
Sustainable Energy Ireland, one of the co-ordinators of the event, sees one of the event's principal aims as being to encourage workers and businesses to think about alternatives to the car. "Driving to and from work is one of the key areas of car usage in Ireland," it says. "We would encourage firms to get involved and to try different modes of employee mobility."
The organisation says that many companies and business parks have moved towards mobility plans for employees - these are based on encouraging alternatives such as cycling, walking, car-pooling and buses.
Car lobbyists believe the initiative unfairly focuses on the car as the cause of commuter woes. The AA feels that the initiative is badly named, suggesting a more accurate title would be "Public Transport Day".
"The problem with 'car free' as an ethos is that it unfairly casts the private-car user in the role of the environmental bad guy," says Conor Faughnan of the AA. "Car users are scapegoats for traffic problem, but they are in fact just the most obvious victims of a situation which they did not cause." He says that Dublin's traffic jams are caused not by cars but by a lack of public transport. "The motorist should not be castigated when there is no viable alternative for hundreds of thousands of Irish commuters."
Minister Cullen rejects claims that Car Free Day is anti-car. "With Car Free Day we are not suggesting that there is no place for cars in a modern city," he says, "but rather that there needs to be a better balance that recognises the strengths and weaknesses of different transport modes in forming a complete urban system. The event highlights the range of choices".
Many towns taking part for the first time are being cautious and not baning cars from town centres. Others have come up with more novel approaches - in Athlone all cars with two or more adults will be given free parking for the day, Clonakilty, will provide supervised cycle parking and Dublin South County Council staff are to have bicycles made available to them.