Closure of Strand Road to northbound traffic

Sir, – I am a member of the Sandymount community, whose family have lived here since the 1930s, and have been active in the community since then.

The proposal by Dublin City Council to close the Strand Road to north bound traffic has a wide array of negative impacts on the environment of residential communities in Sandymount, Irishtown and Ringsend, and indeed more widely in the city.

It is clear from the researches and inquiries of our community groups, including Freedom of Information and Access to Information on the Environment requests to DCC, that this “unorthodox “ proposal (to use the term applied to it by a DCC spokesman), was put forward without anything remotely approaching a comprehensive or even adequate assessment of its impact on our environment, including safety, health and air quality. No regard has been had to the liveability of our communities, which include numerous schools (including schools for the disabled) and sheltered communities and homes for the elderly.

Nor, in endeavouring to facilitate cross-city cyclists, has there been any regard to the impact on the cyclists already using the residential streets which will now be expected to carry the traffic displaced from the Strand Road. DCC has indicated that, contrary to the impression given that this is a pilot project, it will not be reversed, but merely tweaked in an attempt to address the problems which will inevitably emerge.

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It is difficult to understand how it can be regarded as representing good urban transport planning to remove a route that serves as a bypass of densely populated residential suburbs, so as to force motor traffic to rat run through them, with the attendant air pollution, traffic congestion, noise, and danger to pedestrians and cyclists, including children going to school and elderly persons.

In response to our concerns, the City Council is now proposing new measures, referred to in Olivia Kelly’s article (Home News, December 14th) that will further constrict the flow of diverted traffic. They have a theory that traffic will “evaporate, ie that people will switch from cars to public transport or to their bikes, but it is clear from observation that a substantial proportion of the traffic travelling north along the Strand Road comprises industrial and commercial vehicles, including trucks, multi-axil and articulated vehicles, that are using Strand Road to access Dublin Port, the East Link Bridge, and the Dublin Port Tunnel. Such traffic cannot “evaporate” but will be forced to find its way along the residential streets of Sandymount, Irishtown and Ringsend, and indeed even more widely.

Slow and idling traffic in our built-up areas will contribute substantially to air pollution, which early this month, reached crisis levels in the city. The Strand Road, being open on one side to Dublin Bay, serves the dispersion of vehicular pollution, and also the traffic there flows. Further, our communities have seen no evidence that DCC has had any significant engagement with the Garda, Iarnród Éireann, or the emergency services about this project or its implications.

People, and public representatives, may want to believe that this project is of no concern to them because it is not in their area. It is clear, however, from data provided by the city council itself, that much of the south city area will experience the knock-on effects of this. Also, if DCC considers that it can unilaterally impose an inadequately researched, unassessed experimental project on a community here, ignoring the self-evident difficulties, there is no reason that they cannot do so anywhere else.

Our communities feel particularly disappointed in the city council’s response to our concerns. We would have expected that, as professional city planners, they would protect the livability of suburban communities, and consider it necessary to produce a full and comprehensive environmental impact assessment of their project, to identify all of the impacts and to work out in advance (1) whether the benefits of the proposal are proportionate to the harm it will do, (2) whether there are alternative solutions or approaches that could give better outcomes, and (3) appropriate mitigation measures that can be applied that will not themselves just exacerbate some of the problems and create entirely new ones.

The new proposals now being put forward by DCC, referred to in Olivia Kelly’s article are merely reactive to the concerns our communities have raised. They are not part of nor do they change the proposal to close the Strand Road to northbound traffic. They do not in any respect address the crucial question of how northbound traffic, with particular reference to industrial and commercial traffic, is to access Dublin Port, the East Link Bridge and the Dublin Port Tunnel, taking account of the extreme limitations and residential nature of the alternative roads infrastructure, in particular the bottleneck of the narrow and already overloaded Church Avenue at Irishtown, through which all the northbound traffic will need to find its way.

The proposed “trial period” will be during a period where traffic is at reduced levels because of Covid-19, and therefore even as a trial proposal at this time, it is flawed. It is also to be expected that there will be major delays and build-up of commercial and industrial vehicles in the Dublin Port area as a consequence of Brexit.

This project should not, therefore, proceed at this time. In the meantime, DCC should engage the appropriate professional expertise to undertake a full Environmental Impact Assessment on the project, to be published for consultation before a decision is taken on how best to proceed. – Yours, etc,

PETER CARVILL,

Sandymount,

Dublin 4.