I'll write a more opinionated piece tomorrow, but for the moment here's my press release...
Greens say Metro-North a better option than €4Bn. Eastern Bypass
The Green Party has criticised a new report on the Eastern Bypass as being out of touch and out of date. The Report from the National Roads Authority costs the proposed motorway at €4 billion, and proposes the construction of a new bridge across Dublin Bay from the Dublin Port to Booterstown.
Green Party Transport Spokesperson Ciarán Cuffe TD stated:
"This Report lacks any sense of vision for Dublin. Instead it simply throws out more roads as a solution. This approach was out-dated twenty years ago, and it beggars belief that such an approach can still hold currency today.
Local Green Party Election candidate for the South East Inner City Claire Wheeler stated:
"We are facing catastrophic climate change as well as economic depression. Now is not the time to spend on more infrastructure for cars. We need proper public transport. In any case as a tunnel would be prohibitively expensive given the geology, and a bridge would ruin Dublin Bay. Such a bridge would often be closed to traffic due to high winds."
Deputy Cuffe went on to say:
"Instead of more roads in urban areas we must invest in public transport. The Metro-North project between the city centre to Swords, and the rail inter connector between Connolly and Pearse station would allow more people the choice of using high quality public transport and would represent better use of public funds.. The success of the two Luas lines show that if high frequency public transport is provided, it will be well used.
"It is incredible that the NRA can produce a Report almost one hundred pages long in 2009 with only a passing reference to climate change. The Report also acknowledges that the Eastern Bypass may lead to the transfer of people from public transport into cars (Page 79). How many more Reports do we need to show that more roads are not the solution to transport issues in urban areas.
"This report deserves to be binned. I intend writing to my colleague Noel Dempsey, the Minister for Transport, and request him to look again at the terms of reference of the NRA so that this type of approach is not repeated. It is anachronistic that tax-payers money has been spent on such a document.
"Both the Labour Party and Fine Gael supported the Eastern Bypass and inserted it into the Dublin City and Dún Laoghaire Rathdown Development Plans. As both of these Plans are currently being reviewed I call on their their councillors to reconsider their approach and back public transport instead.
Note
The NRA Report may be found on their website at the following link
http://www.nra.ie/News/
5 comments:
Brain-dead. What in the name of the almighty is it going to hook onto? roads that are already too busy, that's what. Just take a look at Dublin in 1915, and the tram-tracks. Supply those, with frequent trams, and people will leave their cars at home... but they won't leave them at home for an unreliable and overcrowded DART (95% is not good enough!!) with huge holes in the timetable at rush hour to let the diesels go through and ineffective connection between the north and south of the city centre.
Sorcha, that 95% allows them to be a good few minutes late (10 I think) on what is meant to be a comparatively short journey time.
As for the nastiness of those images, it's hardly the old San Fran Esplanade in all fairness. I'd not be in favour of the scheme but let's have some perspective here.
I find it hard to agree with your post.
What's it going to hook into? It's the last section of the ring road around Dublin, it will hook into the port tunnel and the M50 in the south.
It is a key of strategic infrastructure but should be of the lowest priority in T21 in my view. I see no harm in proceeding with planning though.
What's happening with traffic management or cycle lane standards? I think cycle lanes should be on the road but separated by concrete barriers as in Paris and Amsterdam. The amount of cars that drive into them is disgraceful, what are the greens doing about it?
I just enlarged those images and, yes, I agree, they're really nasty.
Ciarán, the Eastern Bypass notion goes back a lot further than 20 years. It goes back to when the main sewers (if memory serves) were laid along the foreshore at Sandymount strand and the then Corpo engineers wanted to turn Strand Road into a four-lane dual carriageway into the city, with the occasional footbridge to allow access to the beach amenity. The prom on the beach was a raod-in-waiting for many years, until traffic volumes pushed the by-pass idea further east, into and over the bay.
I think Booterstown was always the intended 'landfall' for the by-pass, with a road reservation up to the N11 by St Helens, but I'm open to correction on that.
- TS
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