Planner says Transport 21 is unsustainable

EPA conference:The Government's €34 billion Transport 21 strategy is not sustainable and will need further investment, political leadership and more initiatives in the years ahead, a senior planner at the Department of Transport said yesterday.

Addressing an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conference, Towards 2020, the Environment in Ireland's Future, Dave Fadden of the department's strategic policy and planning division described Transport 21 as an "investment in service and infrastructure" that by itself could not deliver sustainable transport.

Mr Fadden said the answers to the questions "is there a sustainable transport policy anywhere in the world?" and "is there a sustainable transport strategy for Ireland?" would be "no and not yet" respectively.

He said sustainable transport was a "tall order" and predicted commute speeds in Dublin could be as slow as 8km an hour by 2016, even after the Transport 21 investment.

Among the issues to be considered were the State's rising population, from current levels of about 4.2 million to about 5.8 million in 2036. While the State is trying to cut transport emissions, he said these may increase by 218 per cent by 2020.

There were "many more figures to show we are on an unsustainable trajectory. If you see the solution as just investing in the supply side all the time, it isn't going to work."

Providing sustainable transport would have to involve other agencies; he was disappointed to note a drop in cycle usage in recent years and a decline in the number of children walking to school. He also quoted figures that indicated a rise in childhood obesity. Sustainable transport he said, would have to involve walking and cycling as well as "intervention" in the fields of education and health.

Mr Fadden said there would need to be four key changes. These were "political leadership; vision, participation and a plan". He did not believe in "permanent government" by the Civil Service and said there was a need for "some kind of a champion" to give political leadership to drive the necessary change.

In this regard, he had been encouraged to hear Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey say on Monday that "he was passionate about sustainable transport".

Mr Dempsey had been speaking at the launch of a cycling initiative in Dublin and Mr Fadden was critical of the media, which he said had largely failed to report the event.

"Maybe they are the kind of people who only see a headline," he said.

Remarking that in Copenhagen, some 30 per cent of commuters cycled to work, while in Bilbao, the city's pedestrian lights gave preference to walkers, not cars, Mr Fadden said sustainable transport needed to involve integrated government.

The Department of Health was spending on obesity, while there was a need to encourage commuters to walk. These issues should be linked to education, tourism and spatial planning.

Mr Fadden quoted the EU's definition of transport planning: "Transport planning should take account of safety and security access to goods and services; air pollution; noise; greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption; land use, cover passenger and freight transportation and all modes of transport".

He predicted "a difficult journey", but it was "better to light a candle than curse the darkness".

The director of the Dublin Transportation Office, John Henry, stressed his commitment to sustainable transport. If every motorist left the car behind for one trip a week, he said, there would be 150,000 trips fewer a day in the greater Dublin area.

Town planner and the head of school of spatial planning at the Dublin Institute of Technology, Hendrik W van der Kamp, said while urban sprawl had contributed greatly to congestion, there were signs of hope.

These included the way people had taken to measures like clamping, bus lanes, cycle lanes and park-and-ride sites. Another innovation was the section 49 scheme, where developers paid for transport schemes like tram lines.