Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan has warned against diluting or delaying the Dublin City Centre Transport Plan, designed to reduce traffic congestion and improve public transport in the city.
Mr Ryan also hit out against politicians seeking advantage by “playing on concerns” about the impact on business of traffic management changes in the city.
He was speaking at an Oireachtas transport committee on Wednesday following changes to the transport plan which, when it was published last year, included 24-hour “bus gates” on Bachelors Walk and Aston Quay restricting passage to public transport only.
Dublin City Councillors were on Monday told the restrictions were being reduced, and would only apply from 7am to 7pm daily. While private motorists would not be permitted to drive directly east and west along the Liffey Quays at O’Connell Bridge, only a 50m section of Aston Quay would be inaccessible to cars.
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Following the intervention of Fine Gael Minister of State for Enterprise Emer Higgins, senior council officials and the National Transport Authority met a number of city business groups, including car park owners.
Dublin City Council chief executive Richard Shakespeare told councillors this week he had been asked at the meeting to delay the implementation of the plan from August to “March or April 2025″ and to consider an economic impact study on the plan commissioned by the City Centre Traders Alliance.
At the committee, Mr Ryan said those who “play on people’s concerns for electoral benefit are not actually serving the people in the end”.
[ Junior minister accused of ‘Fine Gael dog whistling’ over Dublin transport planOpens in new window ]
The implementation of the plan was a matter for the council, he said, but he would be “deeply concerned” by any delay, and a “weakening” of the scheme which could dilute its benefits.
Not going ahead with the measures as planned would “cripple the bus network”, he said.
“These traffic management measures in Dublin are needed to get our bus system working,” he continued. “We do have to make sure we provide for people with accessibility needs. First and foremost, I think that is improving the public transport system.”
Mr Ryan said he had never come across a traffic reduction or public transport enhancement measure that had not benefitted business in the city.
[ Dublin councillors seek no delay on transport plan amid ‘big business’ lobbyingOpens in new window ]
“This is not something that can wait for the sake of Dublin city, and to my mind for the traders. Dublin city needs a boost, and when you really enhance public transport and make it safer to walk and cycle and make a more attractive public realm, that will benefit everyone in Dublin city.”
Tackling Dublin’s congestion had been “dogged by decades of delay” and he was “very hopeful” the scheme would progress in August.
A spokesman for the council said Mr Shakespeare had yet to receive the traders’ study, but would decide within the next “two to three weeks” whether to change the implementation dates.
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