Other Members’ Questions

With respect, I would like to raise with the Minister the issue of traffic congestion in Dublin. I am honoured to represent Dublin Rathdown. It is a wonderful constituency with national amenities locally available. We have Explorium, Airfield and Dundrum Shopping Centre. I am sure there are many of the Minister's own constituents who regularly travel to Dublin Rathdown. For example, they might be students in UCD or they might be working or attending a meeting in Sandyford Business District. Like many of the Minister's constituents, many of mine in Dublin Rathdown cannot access many of these amenities except by car or by public transport. In addition, we also have people from neighbouring counties, from Dún Laoghaire, Wicklow and Wexford, who regularly travel through Dublin-Rathdown in order to access services in Dublin city. Even though my constituency is a place where we live, work and play, it is also an area that is at the heart of the traffic congestion issues that we now face in Dublin. As we know, Dublin is the eleventh most congested city in the world and with our population expected to grow by another 20% by 2040, even if we maintain our level of traffic as it is now, that will actually be an achievement by 2040. We have quite a significant challenge around that. The programme for Government is committed to addressing congestion. It is also committed to addressing sustainable travel, which I fully support. I definitely want to see more buses in Kiltiernan, Stepaside and Dundrum but we must ensure, as we continue to roll out sustainable travel, that we do not make the existing congestion worse. In the last five years there have been numerous section 38 projects and other projects around Dublin-Rathdown and Dún Laoghaire that have not taken into account, however well-meaning they have been, the impact they would have on traffic. It is simply not possible to remove roundabouts, remove filter lanes, take out turning lanes, change traffic light sequencing and close roads and expect that there will be no impact on traffic. My constituents live the reality of that every day. They are surrounded by blocked roads, stuck in buses that do not move and traffic is now being diverted into their neighbourhoods. We have increased rat running in a lot of areas and studies have shown that this has actually made it less safe to walk and cycle. Effectively, this is undermining our objective of achieving sustainable travel. I welcome the additional investments in the budget and look forward to more investment in sustainable travel but what are we going to do in the meantime about trying to address our congestion challenges in Dublin? I know the Department of Transport is looking at developing a congestion management plan for Dublin. Will that include recommendations that traffic assessments are undertaken before and after any project is implemented to determine its impact on traffic congestion?

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. It is something about which she is passionate and that she has raised on many occasions in this House. She also engages regularly with her constituents in trying to find solutions. We can all diagnose and identify the problem but how do we find a solution to significant traffic congestion problems, particularly in the city centre, given the impact on our overall economy, our environment and, most importantly, the quality of life for people? We all want to be able to get about, those who live and work in the city, tourists and those who are visiting, in the easiest, most efficient and climate friendliest way. A study published by the Department of Transport estimated that the economic cost of congestion in the greater Dublin area in 2022 was around €336 million. There is a loss to our economy on top of everything else and if action is not taken, this will only get worse. Addressing congestion in Dublin requires a multifaceted approach across a wide range of stakeholders. As the Deputy said, in March the Minister for Transport convened a roundtable discussion with representatives from a number of organisations. The aim was to explore practical solutions to addressing congestion in the greater Dublin area, looking at how stakeholders could work together to identify various different actions that could be implemented in both the short and medium term to reduce congestion overall. The plan will include a wide range of measures specifically looking at buses, Luas, heavy rail measures, and the M50. I know myself from coming into town for the last number of years that there has been an increase in the number of cars on the road. So often now there are two parents driving to work, heading towards the M50, which adds to the congestion. The plan also addresses national road measures such as park and ride, park and share, freight measures, traffic management measures, regulatory measures and active travel measures. It is intended that the group and stakeholders will look at all possible options and that the plan itself will focus initially on the greater Dublin area. Obviously, if this is successful, we would like to see it replicated elsewhere in Dublin and in some of our other towns and cities. Many of the measures will help to alleviate congestion for school transport, with a focus on supporting third level students in accessing universities. It is important to note that the Minister's intention is that this would then build on other initiatives like the moving together strategy, which is specifically to improve the efficiency of our transport system, and the sustainability/mobility policy action plan, which sets out how we can increase active travel, shared mobility and public transport. It is important to ensure that there is a synergy between any other strategies that we have and that we are taking the actions that are already underway, that have been invested in and that are working, and including them as part of this wider overview. Again, there is a real focus and priority there. I know that the Deputy has fed into this through her advocacy over the years and the intention and ambition now is to move on this as quickly as possible and focus on both short and longer term actions.

I am delighted to hear the Minister, in her reply, talking about school traffic because we are all very aware that in two weeks time there will be a school break and the traffic volumes will just fall off a cliff. Other cities like Belfast, London, Lisbon, Ottawa and Rome all provide a dedicated school bus service. Would that be something we could look at? For many Dublin families, as the Minister said, driving is the only option to get their children to school and this creates extra journeys and extra traffic. Every dedicated school bus has the potential to take hundreds of thousands of car journeys off the road every year, reducing congestion, reducing hassle around school gates, improving air quality and making local neighbourhoods more attractive. I would also like to highlight the situation in UCD which is also in my constituency. It is estimated that 25% of the staff and students there are commuting more than 25 km. One of the initiatives that has been proposed to try to address that is an extension to the Luas green line but we do not even have planning or designs for that. Will the new congestion plan look at measures to address and help student commuters?

The Deputy is right that any plan has to look at students, parents bringing students to school and also third-level students and staff who are travelling. I see myself when the schools are not open that the traffic heading into town is much less. Indeed, the traffic within the county is much less and that obviously applies in Dublin city centre too. Any plan will have to look at the students that are travelling, the routes that are being taken and the options that are available. Perhaps, to the Deputy's point, there could be specific school transport in the way that we have across the rest of the country. Obviously our school transport scheme was introduced to ensure that those who were in more rural areas were able to get to school but people still face the same problems when they are in the city centre, with parents having to choose particular routes that are blocked up or where there is huge congestion. For any plan to be efficient and effective we need to make sure that there is a focus on students from primary school or even earlier, right up to third level. In particular, are there specific measures that could be introduced to alleviate congestion as part of a wider plan?