Ending city-centre car dominance presents opportunities for a better Dublin

For decades, the various bodies controlling traffic in Dublin have struggled to deal with ever-increasing congestion, delays to public transport, and a grim daily experience for cyclists and pedestrians.

The Draft Dublin City Centre Transport Plan is the latest effort from Dublin City Council and the National Transport Authority to grasp this particular nettle by introducing a number of car restrictions, and in some cases full traffic bans, to allow the creation of a more pleasant city environment and the more efficient running of public transport.

The interventions in the plan are targeted at just a few particular locations in the city centre, but these changes will have a widespread impact. Possibly the most significant is the introduction of “bus gates” – a euphemism for car bans – at two points on the city quays, one on the northside and the other on the south side of the river.

On the northside, a bus gate would be introduced on Bachelors Walk just before O’Connell Bridge, though the exact location is not specified or shown on any map in the plan. Since 2017, cars have been banned from turning right on to O’Connell Bridge, a move which stopped private traffic crossing from the north to the south of the city at this point. The new bus gate will mean cars can no longer go straight ahead on to Eden Quay or left into O’Connell Street with these routes reserved for public transport only.

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Ending city-centre car dominance presents opportunities for a better Dublin

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However, the last chance to divert from the north quays is not detailed in the report. Perhaps drivers will still be able to take the last left before O’Connell Street on to the tiny Litton Lane, but that only offers access to the back streets of North Lotts and Great Strand Street, before spilling out again on to the quays. For drivers coming from Heuston Station along the quays, the last chance to head to the north side of the city will be at Church Street or Chancery Place, which run either side of the Four Courts.

Motorists on the north quays looking to head south will in theory still be able to cross at Grattan Bridge, but will have to then turn right on to the quays heading west, as travelling straight ahead to access the south of the city will no longer be an option, with the closure of Parliament Street to traffic planned.

[ Plan proposes most radical restriction of private traffic in Dublin city for decades ]

The bus gate on the south side is a trickier proposition still. Again the exact location is not specified, but it will be along Aston Quay. This would likely mean a driver coming from Tara Street or Talbot Memorial Bridge would have to stop at O’Connell Bridge and would not able to penetrate into the south side of the city at all, as due to the existing College Green bus gate they would have to turn left on to D’Olier Street and left again on to Townsend Street, leading them away from the city centre.

Blocking cars at these two points on the quays presents an opportunity to achieve what has heretofore seemed the impossible – a fully segregated cyclepath on both sides of the river. This has proved particularly challenging on the south side of the river with the narrow widths of Aston Quay and Wellington Quay making it hard to accommodate a bus lane, general traffic lane and a cycle lane, but once cars are removed from the equation this suddenly seems a more viable prospect.

Similarly making Eden Quay public transport only offers an opportunity to create a new civic plaza at the Custom House, although according to the plan it has yet to be determined if this is better on the quayside or at Beresford Place.

Another seemingly small restriction, stopping cars from turning left from Westland Row into Pearse Street, could also have a transformative effect, allowing the council to end the multilane nightmare that is the route from Pearse Street to Tara Street, again reducing the number of cars that can access the quays or head towards the Custom House.

These measures do not ban cars from the city altogether, as some access will be maintained. However, using the quays to travel across or through the core of the city will be, if not impossible, very difficult indeed. This is exactly what the city council intends.

On Wednesday Brendan O’Brien of the traffic division noted six out of every 10 cars in the core city-centre area “don’t have a destination in that area”. Once you eliminate this “huge amount of through traffic”, he says, “you start to see the opportunities presenting”.