Greens say traffic will be 'worse than Bangkok'

The Government was facing warnings today that traffic in Dublin will become worse than in Bangkok under a new transport plan for the city.

The Green Party is presenting new research into the draft regional planning guidelines for the Greater Dublin area, which are due to be adopted later this month.

Green Party transport spokesman Eamon Ryan said the plan’s emphasis was on developing interconnecting roads between large towns in Dublin rather than public transport.

“In my view it is completely unsustainable. More cars will arrive into Dublin and it will become like Bangkok, where there are traffic jams from 5am until 2am the following day.”

The Green Party will also present new research by Trinity College lecturer Professor James Wickham which shows the average Irish car travels almost 15,000 miles annually – double the European average.

The draft guidelines have been drawn up to integrate planning in the Greater Dublin area with the 2002 National Spatial Strategy.

The population of the area is due to increase to 1.8 million by 2020.

The draft regional guidelines envisage two distinct parts of Dublin, the Metropolitan Area and the Hinterland Area.

Towns in the Hinterland area – like Navan, Drogheda, Naas and Wicklow – will be linked with major roads but should, according to the plan, become self-sufficient in terms of facilities and employment.

The authors of the report, Atkins Consultants and local authorities in the Greater Dublin area, described this as the ‘Grapes and Bananas” strategy, with the grapes representing the towns and the bananas representing the roads.

But Mr Ryan said the strategy was simply “bananas” and would lead to major roads over the Sally Gap in the Wicklow mountains.

He added that proposals to build a 47-kilometre motorway to Navan were gathering momentum while the rail line to the town lay idle.