Our cities all have commuting problems but, given that the population of greater Dublin is about 4½ times that of greater Cork, and that our other cities have far smaller populations, it is fair to say that much of the greater share of our commuter problems arises in our capital city.
Some of these difficulties derive from the layout of Dublin, which has only one north-south route across the city centre, that between the Bank of Ireland and Trinity College. Moreover, access from both northern and southern suburbs is somewhat restricted because of the need in both cases to cross a river and canal.
Even more fundamental, however, is the fact that Dublin is an extraordinarily low-density city. As little as one kilometre in almost any direction from O'Connell Bridge, houses with gardens are the principal form of residential accommodation.
This means that the city has not lent itself to rail mass transit, the economics of which are largely a function of high-density housing. The defunct Harcourt Street line apart, it was only along the coastline that rail commuter services came into existence - the economics of which were not helped by the fact that half of the hinterland of these two rail lines consisted of water.
Throughout the lifetime of our State Dublin has lacked any serious attempt at physical planning. Responding to public demand from a population half of whom are at most two generations away from rural life, successive governments have permitted very low-density housing with gardens in every direction around the city core, with the result that within the 100-plus square miles of continuous built-up areas the population density is a fraction of what is normal for a city of this or larger size.
Developers have been free to build housing for Dublin commuters in towns 50 or more miles from Dublin. And because of very high Dublin house prices, arising from exceptional economic growth, tens of thousands of commuters have felt it necessary to move to these distant towns - from which even those who go by train must daily spend 2½ hours en route - and car commuters much more.
With oil prices already pushed to record levels by rapidly growing world demand, failure to address this perverse pattern of spatial development will impose heavy, possibly unbearable, costs upon future generations of residents of this region.
On the first anniversary of Luas and as the South Eastern Motorway is opened, I have to say that the solution to this problem is the creation of an efficient metro system within the Dublin city area, running underground in the city centre as metros do in cities of similar size elsewhere.
This situation was belatedly identified by the Government a couple of years ago, and a commitment to build such a system was announced by the Taoiseach at a press conference that I recall attending.
The development of such a system, offering easy access to the city centre, would stimulate higher-density development along these metro lines, and thus gradually reverse the present uneconomic pattern of housing development up to 50 miles from the capital. Unhappily there is every sign that, as one minister for transport has succeeded another, the Government, demoralised by its mishandling of the Luas project, has lost its nerve and seems to have lost the will to carry through its own metro plan.
While we await a recovery of governmental nerve on this issue, measures to deal with the immediate crisis of road congestion should include early completion of the extraordinarily slowly emerging bus-lane system; the introduction of a sufficient measure of competition in urban bus operations to limit the abuse of monopoly power by management or unions; and the introduction of an efficient road-pricing system to replace fuel tax.
The British government is preparing its population for such a road-pricing scheme, using GPS to track car movements: we should join them in this process. It would hugely reduce travel costs for rural dwellers, and it would tackle in the only possible effective way the problem of car congestion on urban roads.
In the absence of rational planning and the construction of a Dublin metro, three-fifths of the Dublin region's population growth is taking place outside Co Dublin, in the parts of the three neighbouring counties of Kildare, Meath and Wicklow that are nearest to the city. In these areas the population growth rate is running at an astonishing 3.5 per cent a year, as against 1 per cent a year in Dublin itself.
The transport solution to this outer suburban commuter problem lies with a series of radial rail services enabling all who live 10-30 miles of the city to have access to a commuter station within a few miles of their homes, from which the centre of Dublin could be reached by train in 30-45 minutes.
How near are we to such a situation? Closer, perhaps, than many imagine. The construction of adequate park-and-ride facilities at outer suburban stations is still grossly inadequate, of course, and in order to complete the network one old rail line would need to be reopened, that to Navan via Clonsilla and Dunshaughlin. There is, I believe, some danger that if, as has recently been suggested, this line is reopened, a false economy might lead to it not being extended as far as Navan. This would be very shortsighted.
The population of the part of Meath along this line is growing very rapidly and this part of Dublin's hinterland seems capable of taking a bigger population increase than can be easily provided for along the other existing four commuter rail lines.
True, the population of the towns along this Meath line is 35-40 per cent less than the population of those served by the Kildare and Maynooth lines, which respectively enjoy 38 and 27 trains a day each way.
But the population along the Meath line is growing much more rapidly than elsewhere, and it is hard to believe that by the time its reconstruction would be completed it would require fewer than 20-25 trains a day. And in terms of the social value offered by the diversion of so much traffic from road to rail, that volume of rail services would seem to justify fully the investment required.