With London introducing a congestion charge for motorists, the Dublin Transportation Office is looking at ways to tackle the city's chronic traffic problems. Conor Lally examines the plan to clear Dublin's gridlock at a cost of nearly €22 billion
Whoever coined the phrase "rush hour" obviously never tried to get across Dublin in morning or evening traffic. The daily bumper-to-bumper crawl from home to the office and back has become the curse of the working person's life. Ask most motorists and they'll tell you commuting time is by far the most stressful period of their working day.
But in London, the city's Lord Mayor, Ken Livingstone, believes he may have found the answer. From Monday motorists entering London city centre will face a £5 (€7.52) "congestion charge". Under the new scheme all cars entering the centre of London will have their registration plates photographed and will be billed every time they drive into the "cordon" area. The new levy is based on right-wing economist Milton Friedman's theory that "the people who drive on a road should be charged . . . in proportion to their use of that service".
It sounds simple enough. But in Dublin, where the private car is king and journey times get longer every year, one wonders if such a radical plan might catch on. This week, the Minister for Transport, Seamus Brennan, told The Irish Times that introducing a similar plan for Dublin could not be done immediately.
"You can't rule it out in years to come but you could only attempt something like that when you provide the public of Dublin with alternatives. We are planning the Metro, more bus lanes are to go in, the M50 is to be finished and port tunnel will come on stream, so when all that is up and running and you can genuinely offer the public a choice, then you can consider it, but not now".
Elsewhere in the world, major cities already have plans in place similar to those in London. In the US, many cities have tolls and in California some highways have special lanes for which motorists are charged and upon which high-occupancy vehicles go free. Those not wishing to pay can use adjacent free lanes. In Norway, toll cordons operate in Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim. In Germany, electronic road pricing will start in August. Rome uses the same system being introduced in London, as does Singapore, which introduced the cordon policy in 1975.
But despite the clogged Dublin streets, it seems we are not short of ideas to alleviate congestion and may genuinely be about to get our house in order. The Dublin Transportation Office (DTO), under its Travel Demand Management Study (TDMS), will consider a number of plans aimed at getting Dublin motorists into the fast(er) lane. Consultants Booz, Allen and Hamilton have been commissioned to conduct the study at a cost of €800,000. It will be completed before the end of the year.
DTO chief executive John Henry says the congestion levy is just one of a number of radical proposals being considered under the new study.
"The key thing with all of this is that you cannot implement restrictions such as charging car owners without providing an alternative [to current motoring habits]," says Henry.
He used the 30 staff at his own office to demonstrate how certain simple policies can work. The DTO has six car parking spaces for both staff and visitors.
"On any one day half of those spaces are empty," he says. "People know that there will not always be a space for them so they leave their cars at home".
There are a number of ways in which changes to car parking policy could deter people from travelling by private car, he adds.
As part of the study, the DTO is examining ways in which car park owners in Dublin would be given a financial incentive to build residential or commercial developments on at least part of their site. It would - in theory - result in fewer parking spaces in the city, which would encourage motorists to leave their cars at home. The DTO is also looking at ways in which companies with private parking for staff might be obliged to charge staff for parking. The end result would be to make parking - and thus driving - more expensive and encourage people out of the private car.
Among the more controversial plans under consideration is charging for "road network use". The DTO is considering the "cordon" plan about to be introduced in London, where cars entering the city centre are automatically billed. The DTO also says "smart cards" could be fitted to every vehicle on the road. The cards would either record mileage clocked up in a given period or time spent driving. A motorist would then be charged a set rate with the fee automatically deducted from their "smart card" at regular intervals.
But away from charging for road use and reducing parking Henry believes the authorities here are not properly managing our "road assets".
"If you take, for example, a journey down St Stephens Green. One side of the Green might be \ a standstill. That means the capacity of that stretch of road is lost. We have to look at ways of managing that better".
What can be done? "You could have holding areas around the place where cars would have to wait for the service [a clear road] just like in a supermarket where customers have to wait to be served."
So that plan would be similar to the manner in which taxis at Dublin Airport are required to queue in a holding bay or "cage" before they are allowed access to the taxi rank? "That's a good analogy," he says.
Last Tuesday DTO officials appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on Transport. Under discussion was the DTO's "Platform for Change Strategy 2000-2016". A quick glance at their report card three years into the strategy does not inspire confidence.
First, the body's forecast on how many vehicles and people would be travelling on Dublin's roads by 2016 seems to be way off. Car use for morning commuter travel was expected to reach 488,000 journeys per day by 2016, but has already reached 428,000. The number of cars in the greater Dublin area is expected to increase by 100,000 to 700,000 in the next four years. More than half - 59 per cent - of morning peak commuters still travel by car.
But the DTO insists its strategy is constantly under review. It says it built in a 40 per cent "error zone" into its forecasts in 2000. Because of that the road and traffic plans, as well as the Luas, bus, rail and Metro blueprint laid down in its 2000-2016 strategy, will still meet the demands of city commuters even if those demands are greater than envisaged.
The DTO points out that since the introduction of Quality Bus Corridors, numbers using Dublin Bus are up by 40 per cent - 19 per cent at peak times. €808 million has been set aside for developing the Quality Bus Network.
The measures under the DTO's 2000-2016 review will cost a total of €21.9 billion to implement at 2001 prices. The new Metro line will be the most expensive at €7.22 billion. However, Henry believes this is a central part of the DTO's overall strategy as it will link bus and rail networks with each other. It will also provide a link to Dublin Airport. Improvements and extensions in DART and suburban rail services will cost €5.6 billion. The roads project will cost €5.4 billion. Luas will cost €2.1 billion. Integration of the various parts of the plan will cost €392 million and traffic management will cost €367 million.
DTO chairman Conor McCarthy told the Oireachtas Committee this week that relief measures due before 2005 will have a major impact on alleviating city gridlock. Those measures include the Port Tunnel, Luas and the completion of the M50 and the second West Link bridge. "Traffic is going to improve dramatically," he predicted.