THE most bizarre aspect of Operation Freeflow is that it represents no more than an attempt to enforce existing traffic laws. Everyone in Dublin knows that laws such as the ban on parking on double yellow lines are broken daily. And even when offenders are caught, only a third pay any penalty.

The main thrust of the emergency programme of action Mr Brendan Howlin unveiled a week ago seems to be to free additional road space so that people can get to work on time. But since most Dublin commuters travel alone into town by car, they are likely to be the first to benefit.

Some elements of the package aim to improve the lot of public transport users and pedestrians. But apart from pledging a crackdown on illegal on street parking, it is surprisingly weak in dealing with a fundamental cause of traffic congestion, the availability of so much off street parking to commuters.

The volume of traffic entering the city centre is determined by the number of parking spaces. Most motorists can only drive into town because they have a guaranteed place to store their cars, whether in an office block basement, the grounds of Government Departments or on derelict sites serving as makeshift surface car parks.

Nearly every back garden in Merrion Square has been cannibalised to provide off street car parking. Leinster House is a neo classical building set in a large, partially landscaped car park, which is available free of charge to TDs, senators and, indeed, members of the Oireachtas press corps. This must be one of the most valuable "perks" in town.

The biggest single category of building currently under construction in the centre is the multi storey car park. Ostensibly, these facilities are available for public use, as specified by the Finance Act which provided generous tax breaks to encourage their construction. But it is estimated that one third of their spaces are contracted privately to commuters.

THE only hint in Operation. Freeflow that there might be something amiss here is its promise to "introduce tiered/progressive parking charges at Dublin Corporation car parks". But the corporation only has control lover three multi storey car parks in the city centre: Drury Street, Cathal Brugha Street and Schoolhouse Lane. So this would have a limited effect.

Basically, the idea is to increase ball day parking charges to a relatively punitive level, say £30 or £40, to deter commuters from using these facilities. However, unless this regime can also be applied rigorously to the numerous other car parks operating in the city centre - not to mention those yet to be opened - it will be an empty gesture.

The corporation has just completed a car parking survey which reportedly confirms that commuters occupy one third of all purpose built parking places. If this is true, perhaps the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Finance would take steps to claw back the tax incentives which made their construction so profitable to developers.

Needless to say, Operation Freeflow makes no mention of the company car menace. That so many companies reward their valued executives with cars confers not merely a badge of social status, but also means these personal chariots are used for commuting. This has become a significant, if undocumented, contributor to congestion.

In southern California, under the 40 volume air quality management plan designed to decrease traffic induced smog in Los Angeles, companies are banned from supplying cars as "perks". Instead, they are encouraged to reward executives in less anti social ways: free holidays in exotic places or paying private schools fees for their children.

Even diehard motorists who seem married to their cars must realise that Dublin will cease to function if the traffic problem worsens. At present, even one small glitch, such as the recent Telecom hole on Merrion Road, threatens to bring the city to a standstill. Total paralysis cannot be far away.

Operation Freeflow will buy time, by freeing up some road space. But it is axiomatic that the more road space created in an urban area, the more cars fill it up. That's why today's traffic travels at the same average speed as horses and carts over 100 years ago, long before the automobile took over.

The only way to relieve the situation is to improve public transport, making it irresistible to car commuters. This is borne out in the DART corridor, where over half of all city bound commuters use public transport compared to one third (or even less) in the rest of the city, where only buses are available. That's why buses alone cannot be relied upon.

Yet, for the past six months or more, Dublin has been dogged by a fractious debate about the proposed Luas light rail system, perhaps the only suggestion offering real hope of relief. Indeed, a prime reason for supporting Luas is precisely because it will take road space away from cars and dedicate it permanently to public transport.

This is also why the roads lobby fears Luas. Some irredeemable motorists in powerful positions worry that there may be no room for their cars. Like Garret FitzGerald, they want it put underground in the city centre, even though this would eliminate one of its most powerful attributes, the ability of street running light rail to civilise the city.

THE experience of the French cities of Grenoble and Strasbourg demonstrates that the installation of a light rail system can be used as a lever to secure major environmental improvements, particularly in the city centre. People can walk, cycle and breathe again because the streets are no longer clogged with cars. It might almost be a different world.

Dr FitzGerald has argued in these pages that because the Dublin Transportation Initiative's forecasts have been outstripped by the current boom in new car sales expected to reach a record 115,000 this year, nearly half of it in the Dublin area - the DTI strategy is fatally flawed.

But I would suggest that this crisis makes its implementation even more urgent.

We have been throwing roads at traffic problem for far too long, with nearly every main road leading into the city centre widened to cater for more and more traffic. Yet Stillorgan Road, the biggest of them, is choked with commuter cars every morning, just like the 12 and 14 lane "freeways" in Los Angeles. Even the M50, when it's finally finished, may end up as congested as London's M25.

A key change which should help is the appointment early in the new year of a long awaited director of traffic in Dublin Corporation, who will take over all traffic management from the Garda Siochana, including the traffic wardens. If this happens, as Mr Howlin promised more than a year ago, it will represent a long overdue measure of reform.

Above all, what is needed is firm political leadership. Indications from the new Minister for Transport, Mr Dukes, that he is prepared to look again at the option of putting Luas underground are unhelpful. It, is time for the Government to hold bits nerve and proceed as rapidly as possible to implement the EU approved and funded DTI strategy. Anything else would be a betrayal.