Dublin Corporation has reiterated its support for an on-street Luas light rail system, with the city manager, Mr John Fitzgerald, saying the corporation was now "anxious to get on with it".
He said the corporation favoured the on-street rail system proposed by CIE because it believed this was "the best option for the city and we're satisfied that it can be managed well". It was also part of the overall Dublin transportation strategy.
"We're anxious to get on with implementing the full DTI (Dublin Transportation Initiative) strategy. If a decision is made to go ahead with Luas, all of the pieces can now begin to fall into place, and the aggregate of those measures will provide a solution."
The corporation is known to have played a crucial role in reinforcing the conclusion reached by W.S. Atkins in its review of the on-street and underground options for Luas, published last week, that the current CIE proposal - costed at £263 million - should proceed.
On March 9th, six weeks before the Atkins study was finalised, the corporation wrote to the consultants stressing that it was "fully committed" to Luas and was pursuing a traffic management strategy which would provide it with an "ideal operating environment".
The letter, written by Mr Christy O'Sullivan, divisional engineer, said the corporation was "fully committed" to working with CIE towards realising the DTI vision, formulated in 1994, of a more "public transport and pedestrian-friendly city centre".
Referring to its earlier submission to W.S. Atkins last November, Mr O'Sullivan said the corporation was making significant progress on key DTI initiatives and had "further developed its overall approach to the future management of traffic in the city".
He drew the consultants' attention to the O'Connell Street renaissance plan, which has as its ultimate aim "the removal of all through-traffic from the O'Connell Street/Grafton Street axis and its conversion into a pedestrian and public transport corridor" in three phases.
"In terms of the Luas proposal, there is a clear commitment to removing sufficient volumes of through-traffic required to facilitate the construction and operation of Luas," Mr O'Sullivan said, adding that this would be achieved by creating "environmental traffic cells".
His letter to W.S. Atkins said the overall network of "ETCs" had now been agreed and work was progressing on a number of schemes, which would have the overall effect of diverting "significant volumes" of traffic away from the core central area.
Mr O'Sullivan also noted that a link road between Mercer Street and Aungier Street, designed to direct traffic onto the Patrick Street/ Nicholas Street dual-carriageway, had been approved by the City Council last March, and work would begin "almost immediately".
He said a privatised tow-away and wheel-clamping service would be operating this summer. Together with "Operation Clearway", this would ensure that disruption and delay to city centre traffic were "greatly reduced".
W.S. Atkins was told that the corporation was also carrying out a strategic routes analysis to optimise the computerised traffic control system (known as SCATS) and provide greater priority for pedestrians at various crossings.
Mr O'Sullivan said work was proceeding to increase the headroom beneath Connolly Station at Sheriff Street so that a bus "layover" facility could be provided. This would "enable the removal of many on-street bus layovers in the city centre".
Referring to QBCs (quality bus corridors), the letter predicted that all 10 routes proposed by the DTI would be completed by the end of next year. One QBC (serving Lucan) had already been installed, three more were under construction and five are at design/consultation stage.
Dublin Corporation and Dublin Bus had set up a working group to maximise the use of QBCs and to develop more cross-city routes. Progress was also being made on other elements of the DTI strategy, including the Dublin Port tunnel and inner city road schemes.
Work on the implementation of a strategic cycle network was proceeding "in tandem with the QBC routes and a number of other schemes". By the end of this year, Mr O'Sullivan said the amount of new cycle facilities in Dublin "will have doubled".
