We’re urging Dublin City Council to forge ahead with the City Centre Transport Plan.

Like many in our city we were outraged at the recent interference by the Minister for Retail in her attempt to have implementation of the Plan delayed. We have signed the letter from Dublin Commuter Coalition to the Council seeking an emergency meeting with its CEO. We call for the Council to resist the lobbying by vested interests to delay the plan, and we are deeply disappointed that the Council’s Executive have offered a watered-down, 12-hour per day Plan which has more drawbacks than benefits.

Vested interests had their opportunity to make submissions, and they took it. Of approximately 64 written submissions published online by the City Council, at least 9 of them are from businesses with core income from car parking: ParkRite, QPark, APCOA, Irish Parking Association, Trinity Street carpark, Grafton carpark, Irish Life carpark, Fleet Street carpark, Dublin City Centre Traders’ Alliance, Brown Thomas Arnotts. These submissions do express concerns, primarily around the Plan ‘resulting in difficulties/ circuitous routes/ longer journeys … for car drivers’.

But surprisingly, even the Irish Parking Association didn’t call for a postponement of implementation in their written submission, while even APCOA Parking company didn’t fundamentally object: ‘APCOA Parking are working with many cities throughout Europe in designing the future transport challenges and the role car parks can play in the changing face of city centres. We would be happy to participate in a constructive way as this plan is being developed and thereafter throughout the implementation stage’, the APCOA submission says.

A huge majority of people who access Dublin do so by public or active transport. Enabling on-time, frequent PT, active travel is inarguably more important than slightly longer journeys some for car drivers. As our letter reminds the Council, even Dublin Bus CEO Billy Hann agrees that the dominance of private cars in Dublin are the “biggest barrier” to faster and more reliable bus services, adding that cars using the city as a route to reach a destination outside of the City Centre “take up vital road space and increase journey times for people using Dublin Bus”.

As you can read on the attached PDF, the letter was signed by:

• Jason Cullen, Chairperson - Dublin Commuter Coalition
• Úna Morrison - Dublin Cycling Campaign
• Elaine McGoff, Head of Advocacy - An Taisce
• Dr. Ola L Nordrum, Operations Officer - Irish Doctors for the Environment
• Dr. Ciara Murphy, Environmental Policy Advocate - Jesuit centre for faith and justice
• Dr. Lorraine D’Arcy, Sustainability Action Research & Innovation Lead - TUD
• Janis Morrissey, Director of Health Promotion - Irish Heart Foundation
• Ciarán Ferrie - I BIKE Dublin
• Stephen McManus, Co-Founder - The Bike Hub