Within a decade Dublin commuters who drive their cars to work could face a congestion charge similar to that faced by motorists in London.
Hidden behind the announcement of the establishment of the capital's new Transport Authority came confirmation that the Minister for Transport is, for the first time, considering introducing a controversial congestion charge for the capital when his ambitious Transport 21 programme nears completion in 2015.
"Transport 21 will make a substantial impact on congestion," said Minister Cullen. "When substantial progress has been made on the implementation of the major programme of improvements in the greater Dublin area, then and only then will congestion charges be considered."
The move to introduce a congestion charge will be welcomed by Dublin City's transport planners, not least among them Owen Keegan, the capital's Director of Traffic. "Personally, I believe the introduction of a congestion charge is inevitable," he said. "I would have argued that it would be better to bring in such a charge sooner rather than later." However, Keegan said he understands the Minister plans to introduce a charge only after much of Transport 21 has been delivered.
"Commuting motorists impose significant costs on everyone else," argues Keegan. "But it was always going to be politically difficult to impose a congestion charge when the public transport infrastructure was not in place."
As part of the Transport 21 programme, Dublin is set to benefit from a range of initiatives to increase public transport capacity, such as the provision for 80 million LUAS and Metro passengers each year. However, there has already been widespread scepticism that the 10-year deadline for completion of the entire project is too ambitious and cannot be met.
As a result, there is doubt that the extra public transport capacity needed to tempt commuters out of their cars will be delivered. Introducing a congestion charge before an adequate public transport system is in place has been described as simply another way of taxing the motorist.
Before London introduced its congestion charge, 87 per cent of commuters coming into the area covered by the charge were already using public transport. In Dublin, the opposite is true. Seventy per cent of Dublin commuters travel into work by car, because for many there is no alternative.
"The public transport capacity just doesn't exist in Dublin to cope," explained the AA's Conor Faughnan. "If a congestion charge was introduced here, the Government would be saying 'drive your car in and pay or work elsewhere'. It would be a deadweight tax on the movement of vehicles in the capital. Even debating a congestion charge now is way ahead of ourselves."
But consideration for a Dublin congestion charge has been on the Government's mind since 2003 following the successful introduction of congestion charging in the British capital. At the time, the minister for transport, Seamus Brennan, would neither confirm nor deny that eventually he would introduce such a charge in Dublin.
As with his predecessor, the current Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen, clearly had a report from the Dublin Transport Office, which was published in 2000 and promoted the need for a congestion charge, on his mind when he launched Transport 21. That reports states that: "Given the objective of reducing congestion, it is clear that any strategy that relies on the provision of additional infrastructure and improved services alone will not succeed. It follows that some form of demand management is necessary. Examples of demand management include road-pricing or congestion charging."
Incidentally that report also called for the construction of many of the public transport initiatives announced in Transport21.
However, that report also states that a congestion charge has the potential to bring a reduction of between only eight and 12 per cent of car journeys into the capital.