£2.5 bn transport investment plan is proposed by DTO for Dublin area

The Dublin Transportation Office has submitted an ambitious £2.5 billion investment plan for the next seven years to the Government for inclusion in the forthcoming National Development Plan.

The Dublin Transportation Blueprint 2000-2006 puts forward specific proposals for road and rail improvements in the Dublin area and the surrounding counties of Meath, Kildare and Wicklow.

The blueprint emphasises the importance of building development taking place around transport lines to support future housing and industrial development, as advocated in the Government's strategic planning guidelines.

While the blueprint expects the population of Dublin to rise to 1.6 million and employment to increase at a rate of 16,000 jobs a year by 2006, it warns that "development should be concentrated in the metropolitan area and its immediate environs".

Towns located in the hinterland around Dublin should be encouraged to develop as self-sufficiently as possible, each having a high level of employment activity, shopping and a full range of social facilities.

According to the blueprint, while "commuting links will be provided by good road and rail infrastructure", there may be cause for "demand management measures to ensure that unsustainable levels of peak-hour commuting do not occur".

Within the Dublin area the blueprint envisages investment in bus and suburban rail, Luas, roads, cycle and motorcycle projects, traffic management and public information and promotion.

The blueprint gives an expected completion date of 2003 for the Tallaght to Abbey Street Luas line, the Sandyford to St Stephen's Green line and the city-centre to Connolly Station line. It gives 2006 as the completion date for the Broadstone to Dublin Airport line and the underground section linking St Stephen's Green and Broadstone.

The investment in Luas is put as £166 million for the Tallaght line; £122 million for the Sandyford line; £20 million for the city-centre to Connolly line and £108 million for the Broadstone to airport line. The underground section remains uncosted. The total cost is £416 million, with additional planning costs of £12 million.

In order to increase the capacity of existing suburban lines, the DTO favours a number of developments, including increasing platform lengths, replacing the signalling system between Howth and Barrow Street to accommodate another three peak-hour trains, the phased purchase of an additional 46 DART carriages and 58 more diesel cars.

Because of the level of growth, options the DTO intends to investigate during the period include an additional rail link through the city-centre; a conventional rail link serving the airport and Swords; options for a rail link to Navan; separation of inter-city and suburban trains; more sophisticated signalling to increase technology; and the provision of enhanced rail services to growth centres as defined by government.

Bus-to-bus and bus-to-train interchange facilities are planned across the city at a cost of £15 million.

Bus fleet additions should include coaches, midi-buses and double-deckers at a cost of more than £68.12 million. In addition to the 11 planned quality bus corridors which the DTO assumes will be in position by the end of 2000, there should be another five radial routes including Clontarf, Kimmage, Dundrum, Howth and the Rock Road.

The blueprint acknowledges that it is assuming that 150 more buses will be operating on the QBC network by the end of next year, carrying 9,450 more people in the morning peak time; a number of radial bus routes will have been created; 120 new double-decker buses will have replaced 50 old double-deckers and 70 single-decker buses; sub-contractors will be operating 60 school bus services and an additional 11,300 people will be carried in the morning peak by DART and suburban rail.

In its submission on roads, the DTO says projects to be financed include the completion of the C-Ring and the national radial routes. A total of 20 category B roads, such as urban bypasses, are suggested for financing, at a cost of £185 million.

A "safe, sustainable mode of transport" should be created with an investment of less than £50 million, which the DTO says should result in a saving on accidents of £5 million per year. Just four to five per cent of commuters travel by bicycle now, and the DTO suggests that this could be increased to 18 per cent if the facilities were in place.

Traffic management and enforcement measures should also be granted investment, argues the blueprint, particularly to develop dedicated routes for heavy lorries, measures to combat noise and air pollution and demand management strategies.