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TRAFFIC IS RUINING Dublin city centre – and we now have a bold plan to fix it. Decades of poor planning and a lack of joined-up thinking have left the city centre a place of transport misery.
Drivers are frustrated in gridlock. Buses are trapped with them on the narrow quays. Cyclists aren’t safe. Pedestrians are hemmed in on small footpaths, forced to scurry across the road, picking their way through cars that barely seem to move.
It leads to a core city centre that looks grubby, congested and noisy. And for all the appearance of massive traffic, only around 270 private cars an hour go along Bachelor’s Walk in the morning rush hour – that’s less than five cars a minute.
I was born and raised in Dublin, but the Liffey has never been a destination. You would rarely aim to meet or walk along the quays – they are instead a place to move through as quickly as possible.
Dublin deserves more respect than we give it: it is a thriving, creative, prosperous capital – not just an extension of a dual carriageway.
Dublin City Council has launched a plan to end this congestion. They studied traffic patterns and found that three in five cars in the core city centre were “through” traffic. In other words, cars that weren’t coming from or going to the city centre – just using it as a through route.
With this in mind, the new plan aims to cut that off and make space for buses, cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers who actually have a destination in town.
The plan has two main elements that are new. They will turn parts of the north and south quays by O’Connell Bridge into bus lanes only and traffic going north on Westland Row will now be right-turn only, instead of the current left-turn only.
Relatively easy changes to make, but combined with some existing plans like a traffic-free College Green and Parliament Street, they should have big benefits for the city centre.
However, these fairly localised changes have caused some media and online uproar. Breathless headlines described two short bus lanes on the quays as “a ban on cars”. Joe Duffy spoke in exasperation about nobody being able to access the city, dismissing a man with a visual impairment who called up to say that the plan would improve his bus route.
Pat Kenny accused me on Newstalk of trying to make Dublin like Venice or Paris (heaven forbid!), while Miriam O’Callaghan put it to Eamon Ryan that people will only be able to access Dublin by bike or bus.
But this was all just bluster.
The clear principle of the plan is this: any street in Dublin you can currently drive to, you will still be able to. With all the fearmongering headlines or broadcasters, this simple fact is ignored.
Since yesterday’s media coverage, I have received 24 emails and social media messages from people concerned about how to make a regular journey.
In 22 of the cases, the plan won’t make any difference to their route. In one case, the alternative route took the same time according to Google Maps. In another case, the alternative route took two minutes less than their current one.
Even once this plan is fully implemented, there will be cars on virtually every street in Dublin. If this is a “war on cars”, then it’s one of the least successful wars in history.
Regardless, the plan is necessary. The current arrangements don’t work for anyone and leave Dublin worse off. In most cities, the river is an attractive space — the jewel of the city. In Dublin, we treat it as a rat run – a space that is held hostage by a small number of cars to save a few minutes off a journey.
And for the tens of thousands of people getting the bus, their daily journey will be much faster and more predictable.
There are always going to be cars in the city centre – they’re necessary for some people and many journeys. But we cannot allow that necessity to pretend that through traffic is doing our city centre any favours. We need access for all people and modes of travel coming to the city: alternative routes for those who going elsewhere.
Dublin City Council is often accused of being slow to act and lacking a clear vision for the city. Often, that’s an assessment I sadly agree with.
But in this plan, they are advancing a meaningful vision of how Dublin should be: a place to go to, not just to drive through. Let’s get on with it.
Michael Pidgeon is a Green Party councillor for Dublin’s South West Inner City.
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Putting the carriage before the horse, do you know why London and Paris can put these car restrictions in place? Because they have a state of the art public transport and a little thing called METRO that we don’t have. If Portlaoise was in France, 80 KM from Paris and needed to go to Le’Santry, you could take a train, stop in “Le’Red Cow” and take a metro. Right now, you have to take a train all the way to the city centre, take the luas, and take a bus to leave again the city centre to the M50 taking you an unreasonable amount of time.
@J Ven: Like Dublin, most people in London get around by bus. They brought on more buses when they introduced their congestion charge. The same thing will happen in Dublin with BusConnects being introduced at the same time as the through traffic restrictions.
Without restrictions on cars BusConnects will be a massive waste of a few billion euro.
@Michael Barry: no, most people use the underground, overground, network rail and then buses for local trips. It would still take an hour and a half to get to central London by bus or half an hour by train
@Martin Mongan: from where? Used to take me about 20 mins from Dalston and 30ish from Brixton and Camberwell when I lived in those places. SE doesn’t have tube either.
@eoin fitzpatrick: I live in SE10. Within walking distance of my flat I have charlton, Mazehill, Westbourne Park and Greenwich stations. It has overground (national rail) lines. The dlr goes as far as lewisham and Woolwich now. From example to get from charlton to Denmark hill (Camberwell) would take 25 minutes. From Denmark hill you get overground all the way to Islington. You can get from Denmark hill to Victoria in 10 minutes. To get from charlton to Victoria by bus would require 2/3 buses. That’s not to mention the new Elizabeth line with runs to Abbey Wood. SE doesn’t have a lot of underground trains no but it has a myriad of train lines. You can even get trains from Woolwich to Luton airport now.
@Martin Mongan: i was just saying there was no tube, and i either cycled or took the bus from camberwell green or train from denmark hill.
buses are a huge part of the transport infrastructure in london was my point.
@eoin fitzpatrick: and I’m telling you there very is much a tube in SE. I get one to work every day. The northern line, the Victoria, the jubilees ,the dlr, tfl overground and Elizabeth line all have stops in SE
@Michael Barry: BusConnects will not connect my area, it will be at least 20 minutes walk to bus stop, grand for people who can
@Martin Mongan: where’s victoria in SE? my stop was brixton but didn’t think it veered into SE
@eoin fitzpatrick: everything to the east of vauxhall. It’s SE1.
A 4km bus journey through Dublin at rush hour takes me an hour and a half, which is insane. I’d love to cycle but it feels very dangerous and the infrastructure isn’t there. If we want to make public transport faster we have to tackle unnecessary cars journeys, no two ways about it. So much of the traffic is school runs/one person in a car going to work. More people will take public transport if it’s faster, right now it’s a shambles. Plus, car free city areas are way nicer to be in.
Kinda hard for people to take all these changes while billionaires and the elite still fly on private jets, have yachts, big cars and travel all over and arent paying anything extra. A fuel tax on private jets might show its not only the ordinary joe soap having to save the planet
@Tom Newell: Even if you ignore the emissions, Dublin can’t handle the amount of cars going through it. The bus system doesn’t function properly because of endless cars.
The majority of people are getting around Dublin by bus. Why should the 20% of people who use the city centre as a shortcut cause so much disruption to the other 80%? Makes zero sense.
@Tom Newell: it’s to do with reducing private car traffic and helping the working classes who use buses to get around easier. it will also make the city easier to walk and cycle in.
and it’s a few tiny changes, you can still drive into town.
@eoin fitzpatrick: Wrong, wrong and green party propaganda. It is also a failed plan as shown in London right now with the cycle lanes and LTNs.
The and you no doubt believe traffic will evaporate, yes evaporate. I have no doubt Capel Street will be used as an example, I hope it is.
The traffic did not evaporate, it moved to Church Street
A city custom made for tourists , cyclists and devoid of businesses , a beating heart and Dubliners
@Cflood: traffic is the beating heart of Dublin?
@SYaxJ2Ts: Ha!
@Cflood: Some of us Dubliners would like to get on a bus that’s moving in the next 10 minutes, not blocked in by cars. Do you think people don’t shop, work, or study in Dublin? Cinemas and supermarkets only exist for tourists now?
@SYaxJ2Ts: no , of course not . Ridiculous comment . It’s the people who use it to comfortably quickly and regularly access a city that always accommodated them . They’ll simply stay in their cars abandon the city centre and block up access to the suburban shopping centers
@F Fitzgerald: blocked in by cars ? Practically The entire city is serviced by bus lanes
@Cflood: bus lanes are always blocked by private cars and taxis though. In London you get a fine if you go in a bus lane they are camera entorced, our ones are pointless.
@Cflood: it’s not a ridiculous comment. If you really want to drive in, you can. This is aimed at discouraging those who drive thru the city
@F Fitzgerald: The roads are there just so much of them has been narrowed that traffic is at a stand still.
You heard him, he wants everybody to cycle.
Enjoyed that, a refreshingly realistic perspective of current Dublin.
Let the proletariat walk, good enough for them. What right thinking Southsider would want to go north side or visa versa for that matter. As long as our government ministers have their chauffeur driven limos and their Paddy’s Day trips, what do they care.
@Patrick Presley: the proletariat are on buses i think you’ll find, the cleaners and canteen workers in the city centre are not driving to work, they either use buses or cycle. so many carers get around by bike too, that poor girl killed in rialto was a carer.
@DGQ: if you think foreign cleaners are all driving to work you’re way off. All the cleaners in my place are Brazilian and most of them cycle or take the bus.
Wonder what is Michael’s stance on his party leader & deputy leader’s insistence on them continuing to fly Business Class around the world to all these summit’s. Eamon Ryan’s Carbon footprint whilst in Government is shocking when you look at his air travel & that of his entourage, total hypocrisy in lecturing & taxing ordinary citizens. As someone with an involvement in Green issues & Biodiversity, I would never vote for any Green Party member. They abandoned Green issues for woke issues & their hypocrisy beggars belief.
@SV3tN8M4: who will you vote for then? They all fly and are not one TD voted against carbon taxes.
@SV3tN8M4: you only have to be on the morning and evening flights to and from Brussels to see how much of taxpayers money is spent on putting carbon into the air. And they’re mostly civil servants. A plane I travelled on to Brussels a few years back had 10+ TD’s and MP’s on it and most of the rest of the passengers were their entourage or senior civil servants. We were two of about 24 people travelling for leisure etc.
@eoin fitzpatrick: The stopped being the greens of old, of the left and are now and Upper Middle Class Party, who tell people to do as we say not as we do!
You cannot argie against the great leader or you are out and the two great policies they have they ignored in government.
And a question I asked on other social media yesterday to you in regard to issues around Westland Row.
So to travel from Irishtown to Markievicz House you will now have to travel Macken Street and over the Samuel Beckett Bridge, down North Wall, over the Matt Talbot Bridge, Shaw street, Townsend Street??Rather than 100m along Pearse Street at the Westland Row Junction? Am I wrong?.
Even though Pearse Street at this junction has currently 2 bus lanes, one of which goes to Pearse Street Garda Station and the other to Tara street. Recent problems on Tara street were caused by road restrictions due to a new office/apartments being built.
@E Brennan: is anyone going to ask these councillors to explain the Samuel Beckett bridge ? Easily the most inefficient use of a new bridge in any city in Europe – easily – is like these self appointed experts on the council to present some real data about this bridge – the effect of not allowing left turns if you have come thru the tunnel and HAVE to ridiculously go down to Custom House in single line congestion – there’s bike lanes on the bridge empty – the volumes of congestion along bord gas theatre daily trying to use the bridge is forced congestion due to inefficient planning and terrible sequencing – this bridge is ONE example of a bunch of clowns not
Knowing how to utilise space and manage traffic – this is why I’ve ZERO confidence the same people know what they are doing .
@Dave Hammond: I agree with your basic query, but not the well intentioned efforts to apply safe routing. I suspect that excluding that left hand option is to stop drivers from avoiding the East Link toll bridge. Same query arises in regard to the Pearse St. left turn exclusion.
There is a more significant safety & environmental Port traffic failure, in that the Port Tunnel not only is incapable of routing hundreds of 40 tonne trucks, but also excludes hazardous loads which are compatible, on safety conditions. These Hazardous hgvs then route totally unmonitored, 24/7 via North side populated areas,alongside commuter bus’s and traffic. That is a huge tragedy risk.
So, my concern is to address this as a top priority, and ban inner city street parking to enable & promote bus, dart,luas use.
@Dave Hammond: Eh that is the Traffic and Transport Section that decide those things and the councillors do not have a say in things like that.
The management have their own plans, Owen Keegan may be gone from the council but they are all his team. Bad traffic is what they want so they can ban it. So what if it puts thousands of people without access to the city.
@William Noel Kelly: That wont work either as people bneed to use cars in the inner city. Fact!
Sure it is a ban on cars just wait ? But on the other hand they would be better putting their time into clearing up. This inner city cesspool.
If you really want to stop “the school runs”, provide schools locally and school busses. Provide affordable local crèches so parents could drop their children on the way to public transport. Provide a 24 hour service for shift workers, factory, hospitality and hospital workers. Provide more park and ride facilities and more electric charging points in suburban areas. I don’t live in Dublin anymore because as a disabled person it is increasingly difficult to get around particularly as cyclists frequently cut the traffic lights and ride on the footpath. The busses are hard to get on and off of. By the way, why is our local public FF rep getting a bus shelter erected in our village, Bracknagh, Offaly. We don’t have a bus service. The nearest transport is 6 miles away.
Dublin badly, badly, badly needs an underground.
Buses need to be removed from city streets, except for short local journeys, such as runs to and from underground stations.
So let me get this straight.. I’ve to travel all the way from rush north dublin in the morning to UCD, takes well over an hour.. that’s being up at 5am and out by half 6, then I’ve to cut through town to get home because the M50 is so bad that it takes me 2 or even 3 hours to get gome at times. I can’t use any public transport because THERE IS NONE! The M50 which you where told would be a failure in less than 20 years unless you made it more than 3 lanes and you didn’t. Now more traffic will be pushed onto the M50 because cutting through town and then up on to the M1 is now a huge no go. But wait there’s more! I could cycle right? Get up at 2am, spend hours cycling to work which I can’t because how could I cycle on a motorway? There’s literally no transport to UCD
@Jason: why don’t you take the train? and then dart? friend of mine that lives in balbriggan does that and he works in UCD.
and if it’s such a nightmare getting to work why did you take the job?
@Jason: I don’t know where you’re coming from but couldn’t you get a 16 or 41 bus into town, then a 39a to Belfield?
Sorry, I missed Rush. A 33 or 33a running from 5: 45 am would get you to town for a 39a across in under 2 hours.
@F Fitzgerald: Is that NTA timing as if so it is way wrong, the 39 route is dying a death at present!
Could the journal make a short animated video of how the new system works.
I think it would give us all a better idea of what to expect
@Michael Keegan: Nobody knows, the plan was to get it into place asn work out the details later. As the council and the government may change.
They have spent millions of on badly designed work just to get some of it in place as they believe it will never be taken out. Then they can join up the pieces.
It was called Gorilla Urbanism it is now called Tactical Urbanism They were building a cyclke lane that would be used about 4 months of the year and would close in 5 years as it was in Sandymount and that is good vote country for his sleepness. Except the people fought back and got it cancelled, for now. They are spending thousands more trying to force their wishes on the citizens of the area.
Roll on local elections. You’ll get your answer for the mess you Cabbage heads have caused to our Country
Elderly people left freezing in their cold damp homes. They can’t afford to heat due directly to your policies.
They can’t go out in their cars as it’s become frustrating and too expensive.
They are lying on trollies due to badly managed hospitals non existent public transport options
They are giving their life savings to their children to help them try to buy a house.
Food is now a luxury rather than a necessity.
Your anti elderly and less well off people politics are harming the most vulnerable people.
Your cost of living crisis has banished a whole generation from home ownership. All the while you allow vultures to buy to buy up the only alternative rental properties.
Marvellous work. Keep it up please, you’re contributing to your own extinction at the next elections!!!!
Keep all the funds for bicycle lanes, Unbelievable!!!!
The city is in a mess and this plane will make it worse. Bus Connects is a failure already. The companies do not have the staff or the vehicles to fulfill the promises made by the minister.
This plan excludes a large amount of the community from the city centre, those who cannot Active Travel which is actual Able travel. You must be able to walk or cycle for 15 minutes or more. Or get on and off various forms of public transport. It is Ablest and Ageist in its concept and cares little for the majority of the residents of the city between the canals. Funny the big question that the writer asked was, will Guinness trucks be ok. Oh and these plans do not work as seen in London and across the UK. The cars still travel but so much slower, public transport is delayed, in London sometimes for over an hour on routes.
People will still need their cars and where are they going to go to get across the city. The M50. So spend hours sitting in a glorified car park.
Nobody has ever says we do nit want to change things, However the replacement systems need to be in place first. You can tell the truth when you hear his great leader say, 2Cycling will be the most popular form of travel, soon”. Yes it is anti car and it is discriminating against people who need cars and vans. Yes it does exclude the older and disabled communities and endanger greatly the passengers on public bus services access to the buses. That has been shown in denmark and London where they have tested similar designed bus stops. All for the cycle lanes being busy twice and day and for delivery cyclists on moped/e-bikes/pedelecs.
A great idea (not yours allthesame) Literally everywhere else outside this 2km area where no working person lives is a mess… but bravo a ‘slow handclap’ to ideas stolen from other places that implemented them 20 years ago…. You are visionaries.
Will Civil Servants and Politicians still have Free Parking in the City Centre…
@Alan Dunne: of course they will. It’s only private sector suffer and pay for everything.
@Alan Dunne: Parkin is benifit in kind aka part of their wages!
@Max Cooper: That is one of the great wrongs in this country. That ALL Civil Servants are raking it in.
Some are the top staff are raking it in, bit the average worker is not making anything amazing.
But it was easy to use them as scapegoats.
The DCC plan merely displaces the rerouted traffic volumes onto other populated city areas, with no consideration for the health & wellbeing of the citizens. That is imperative.
Also, it is a ridiculous contradiction to exclude the brewery trucks from the quays, to free up road use for city destined vehicles, when they are bound for Dublin Port & city pubs.
What the city needs is the banning of all on street parking, except for designated disability & drop off/ pick up provisions. The on street storing of vehicles not in use is the incentive to use them to city destinations rather than public services.
Ditch this nimblest plan to improve the ambience around DCC hq & City Hall, & address the basic causes for car usage.
@William Noel Kelly: On street storing of vehicle, you really do love your little sound bytes. A lot of those vehicles will be blue badge holders. there are nineteen thousand in Dublin CIty centre and only nine hundred spaces. Even then they have been moved into terrible places.
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