Galway ‘ideal city’ for pilot sustainable public transport system

GALWAY could be used as a “demonstration city” for the Government of what can be achieved through a sustainable public transport system.

Transport Minister Noel Dempsey said the city is choked with traffic congestion, but that it is “an ideal city” to establish “a really strong public transport backbone”.

He was speaking at the launch of the Government’s policy report A Sustainable Transport Future, which aims to have almost double the number of people walking and cycling to work or school by 2020.

Under the plan, the Government aims to have 10% of all cars run on electricity by 2020, and has set a target to have 150,000 people travelling to work by bike.

The cost of the plan is estimated at €4.5 billion, which Mr Dempsey said will come from his department’s existing budget and money already allocated to the Transport 21 plan.

The plan has been widely dismissed as unrealistic and lacking in firm commitments. Responding to proposals to set up “e-working centres” to allow people to work closer to home, Irish Rural Link said broadband infrastructure is not adequate to allow this to happen.

Labour Party spokesman on transport, Tommy Broughan, said the plan “is filled with vague unachievable aims and recycled policies that have already been announced by a range of other ministers”.

Fine Gael transport spokesman Fergus O’Dowd said it contains no new policies. “This plan isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. It aims to encourage commuters to use buses more, at the same time as Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus are preparing to axe routes. Crucially, the plan has no funding and no timetable”.

Mr Dempsey also indicated that he would introduce legislation to speed up public transport decisions in local authorities.

“I am making provision in a future Public Transport Bill, where it takes forever to get a bus corridor or a cycle way, in that we can adopt a new procedure, a public inquiry procedure, where we appoint a person to put the route out, we take the public consultation and then the decision is made without having this interminable negotiation going on.”

He said plans for a new bus gate in Dublin’s College Green have been postponed until July because traffic will be lighter that month.

“Maybe that’s a valid reason, I hope it is the reason, that it’s not that public representatives haven’t the courage before a local election to do something that I think would be in the best interests of the public,” he said.