Give me a crash course in . . . car-free towns

I hear two Dublin local authorities are planning the development of a major new town that will be car free?

That’s right. South Dublin County Council and Dublin City Council have got together to draft plans for City Edge, a new town of up to 85,000 people — the size of Galway City — where residents will be expected to walk, cycle or use public transport to get around.

City Edge? Where is that?

It’s 700 hectares of, at the moment, largely industrial land in west Dublin bisected by the Naas Road. It includes lands at the western edge of Dublin city’s area, just beyond Drimnagh and Walkinstown, and the eastern edge of South Dublin County Council’s area close to the M50. The overall plot has been split into five districts of Naas Road, Kylemore, Cherry Orchard, Red Cow and Greenhills.

I can see how you might get away with not having a car in the city centre, or maybe even in the Docklands, but that sounds pretty far out from town.

Well, it’s not as far as you might think. All of the land is within the M50 and there are already pretty decent transport links to large parts of the area, including the Luas red line and the rail line to Heuston Station. There are also plans for a Luas line to Lucan, as well as a new rail station at Kylemore, a new Luas stop on Naas Road, and potentially a new Luas line to Kimmage.

The councils also don’t expect all the new residents of the area will be city commuters. They hope to develop City Edge on the “15-minute city” principle, where most of what people need on a daily basis, including employment, schools, shops, restaurants, medical and cultural facilities, will all be within, or within a 15-minute walk or cycle.

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I’ve seen how long it takes to develop any transport facilities in Dublin so I can’t see how residents could do without a car until then.

The authorities do recognise that, so as an interim measure they are planning to provide “collective parking units” — multistorey car parks to you and me. These will be used in the first few years as the area gets up and running and will later be decommissioned as the area moves towards becoming “virtually” car free.

What does “virtually” car free mean?

Some parking will be retained throughout the area to facilitate people with disabilities, there will also be limited parking for visitors to the area, though this will be metered, and likely quite expensive to deter long stays. It has been stated that “zero workplace parking [will] be provided for new employment centres, with the exception for persons with identified mobility needs”.

Has this been tried elsewhere?

Yes. The councils have undertaken case studies of a number of large-scale new residential developments internationally, including Merwede, southwest of Utrecht in the Netherlands. This canal-side industrial estate is being transformed into a high-density mixed-use urban district with an emphasis on cycling and walking. As with the City Edge proposal, car parking is separate from the residential blocks, and district centres are car free. For those who need use of a car, car-sharing schemes are promoted.

When will this new town be built?

The target is 2070.

That’s almost 50 years away! I’m not sure I’ll be around then for this brave new world.

That’s the ultimate end date, but the town will grow incrementally, as most town do. By 2035 the councils expect the first 5,000 apartments for 12,000 residents will have been built, growing to 40,000 homes and 85,000 residents by 2050.