Dublin City Council yesterday unveiled plans to extend the heavy goods vehicles cordon area which bans such vehicles from entering city centre areas over a daily 12-hour period.
The extended cordon will incorporate areas of the Navan Road, Cabra, Phibsboro, Drumcondra and the north inner city when the ban on HGVs entering the cordoned areas takes effect on January 1st, 2007.
The cordon omits, however, what city councillors believe to be heavily congested areas such as East Wall Road, Drumcondra Road, Clonliffe Road and areas of Cabra.
City council executive manager Tim O'Sullivan said the council would not be making any further changes to the HGV cordon area and would provide a report on the workings of the ban after six months. HGVs with five axles or more will be banned from the city streets between 7am and 7pm under the new measures, while lorries with four axles will face the ban once the planned M50 upgrade is completed.
However, the council's plans to extend all responsibility for enforcing the ban to the Garda was criticised yesterday by councillors who argued that gardaí are under-resourced to deal with an additional road traffic offence.
Cllr Wendy Hederman suggested that HGV drivers found in breach of cordon area rules should incur penalty points and that a system of impounding trucks should be established.
At yesterday's meeting of Dublin City Council transport committee, the council also formally announced it is to abandon plans to charge disabled people for car parking.
