Congestion grows as traffic slows

PEOPLE driving daily into cities and towns to work might think traffic moves slowly, but it will get slower.

The average speed in Dublin urban areas will have dropped from their current 13k/ph to 8k/ph by 2015, if trends continue, according to the recent Transport 21 Plan unveiled by Transport Minister Noel Dempsey.

People would arrive faster if they cycled or walked. But, then, there are not enough cycle lanes and walking past fume-filled lines of cars is not nice. Public transport is not available for many people. So, they don’t have much choice but to fall back on the car.

As the country becomes more traffic-choked, getting people to forsake their cars for other forms of transport is one of the main challenges facing our planners. Even with a good public transport system, motorists would not necessarily leave their cars at home. In a survey, half of all car drivers in the greater Dublin area said they would not switch to travelling by bus, even if services were improved.

Public transport has, traditionally, a poor image. People cite unreliability, long waiting times, and poor connections as reasons for not taking the bus. On the other hand, many see Luas, Dart, and train services as satisfactory.

Mr Dempsey’s €34 billion plan has fuelled debate. What clearly emerges from the plan is that we’re still playing catch-up in relation to transport, and opposition politicians made a meal out of an admission by the minister that 11 key projects were behind time.

Since 1996, there has been a massive 38% jump in the number of cars on Irish roads, now edging close to two million. A decade ago, there were an average of 382 cars per 1,000 adults in Ireland, but the figure has jumped to 528. It’s still short of the European Union average of 558, but we’re getting there.

In short, car usage is increasing, along with greenhouse gas emissions, and our roads are getting more clogged up all the time.

Interestingly, we also use our cars much more than other Europeans. The average EU driver does 12,000kms per year, whereas we do 25,000kms.

While Mr Dempsey’s plan provides for investment in city rail lines, including the Cork/Midleton commuter service, there’s still a huge emphasis on developing the roads network. All of which is in keeping with policies that continue to put the car at the centre of transport planning, something that is strangling the life out of every city and town.

An Taisce president, Eanna Ni Leamhna, is one of the strongest critics of policies that have brought such a situation about.

“We’re engineering our lifestyle to be car-dependent. With no public transport facilities, people living miles away from their work must drive cars everywhere,” she said.

“We’ve so many cars on roads everywhere, now, that it’s no longer safe for children to walk to school in rural areas, so their parents must drive them, which further adds to the traffic on our roads.”

Our population is expected to increase to five million by 2020, and, according to Transport 21, our car ownership levels could easily go beyond the EU average. That’s virtually certain, if current trends continue.

Between now and 2020, the number of cars on Irish roads is projected to go from 1,800,000 to 2,600,000, while planners believe walking and cycling will continue to decline.

Transport 21 is very focussed on Dublin and the east coast, and the long-term result of this could be that the west coast will become increasingly peripheral, and left in the ‘bohereen’ era, in contrast with the motorways that will lead to and from Dublin.

The consequences of a shift in transport investment to the east coast can already be seen in top tourist town Killarney, which suffers from year-round traffic congestion.

Money for a €150m bypass of Killarney, as part of the new Cork/Tralee road, has been diverted to the east coast. When planned initially, the new 27km bypass was expected to be completed by 2009.

However, not a sod has yet been turned on the cross-country route and God only knows when work will start. Engineers and politicians in Kerry believe it will be several years.

Meanwhile, people in Kerry, and especially those frequenting Killarney, including hundreds of thousands of visitors, are having to put up with congestion, because priority is being given to dealing with problems in the east of the country.

It’s a story that’s being repeated in other areas along the west and south.