Such was the intense scrutiny surrounding the introduction of traffic management measures on Dublin’s Liffey quays last August, which amounted to a rerouting of private vehicles either side of O’Connell Bridge, it may have been forgotten that these were just the first elements of a larger plan for the city centre.
The Dublin City Centre Traffic Plan, published just over a year ago, envisages a comprehensive, though gradual, reordering of the road hierarchy in the heart of the city. Its measures reallocate road space from the car to public transport, pedestrians and cyclists. However, it does not seek to ban cars from the city. Those who wish or need to drive to access the city are welcome, but drivers who want to use the heart of the city as a rat-run or throughway to somewhere else, are not.
This is evident in the operation of the measures introduced last August around Dublin’s quays . The biggest beneficiary of this has been the bus passenger, with travel times down by 30 per cent, but car drivers who do need to access the city centre also face less competition for road space from those using the Liffey corridor as an east-west passage to elsewhere.
The next measures in the plan, due to come into force by mid-2025, will further ease the traffic burden on the city core. Banning private traffic turning left from Westland Row to Pearse Street seems like a small change but should significantly reduce the number of cars on Pearse Street and consequently on Tara Street and the quays.
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The other significant change this year will be the overdue removal of traffic from Parliament Street. The main stumbling block remains the presence of an infrequent bus route, which is due to be removed as part of the delayed BusConnects network redesign.
The clear benefits of the traffic plan for the city’s bus services should prompt an acceleration in implementing the network redesign. It will speed the journeys of the vast majority of commuters, and helps city residents and businesses. The remaining elements of the plan deserve support and should be implemented as soon as possible.