Traffic jams are one of the great national problems of contemporary Ireland. Not fairness or equity, not naked prejudice against coloured people and Travellers, not the appalling problems of deprivation in our ghettos, not even the abuse of hard drugs or corruption in our political life and within our police force. None of these. The great problem is traffic jams.
Specifically, it is traffic jams in Dublin between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. If this problem could be resolved, then apart from the weather and the price of houses, all would be dandy.
To resolve this problem the State is planning to spend billions of pounds in the next several years, billions on an eastern bypass in Dublin (having already spent billions on the ring road), billions on Luas and billions more on a metro system. If one-tenth of the money planned for roads in and around Dublin was allocated to a targeted programme for the alleviation of poverty, the lives of hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens would be enhanced enormously.
All these massive resources to cope with a problem caused by tens of thousands of us delinquent citizens who drive to and from work at peak times each day in cars on our own. A survey published by the Central Statistics Office two weeks ago makes this point vividly.
Over half the people who go to work in the Dublin region each day drive to work by car. Only 16 per cent go by bus and only 4 per cent travel by train or DART (5 per cent are passengers in a car, 13 per cent walk and 4 per cent cycle). Nearly 80 per cent of those who travel by car do so on their own, and 94 per cent either have no passengers or just one.
EIGHTY per cent of those who travel to work by car in Dublin have a car-park space at work. Of those who travel to work by private means, 93 per cent have never used public transport. And why is it that such a huge proportion of the population that go to work in Dublin don't use public transport and have never done so?
Is it because public transport is not available, is unreliable, is too expensive, or just doesn't go to the destination required? Wrong on all counts. Some 21 per cent of those who go to work by car do so simply because they "prefer" to do so and a further 42 per cent say it is because using public transport is not "practical". Not that it is not available, or that public transport does not go to their destination, or that it is unreliable, just that it is "not practical".
Are we stark raving bonkers that we don't see the cause of our great national problem, the traffic-jam crisis, and the obvious and immediate solution to it? Are we out of our minds to contemplate diverting resources that could create a fair and enriched society for everyone by indulging the delinquent selfishness of those of us who "prefer" to go to work by car or find it "not practical" to use public transport? So what to do? Three simple measures:
On the morning of Tuesday, January 2nd next, all long-term car-parking facilities provided by public authorities for their employees in the centre of cities should be closed. This includes Leinster House, Dublin Castle, Trinity College, RTE, UCD, the Four Courts, the Dublin Corporation car-parks (one is already closed), the ESB car-parks, and all the others. This would lop thousands cars from the streets of Dublin alone every morning.
The imposition of a quadruple tax on all long-term car-parking facilities provided by private employers. By this I mean that if it is reckoned that the rental cost of a car-park space is, say £1,500 per annum, then the person who receives the benefit of that car-park space is taxed as though they had received an additional £6,000 income.
Cars carrying fewer than three people (including the driver) should be barred from the main routes into Dublin during the peak hours. This, on its own, would more than halve the number of cars coming into the city centre and, on its own, virtually solve the problem.
As for the objection that there would be no other means of getting them to work, the following could cope with that.
FIRST, they could share cars to work and from work. Second, they could use taxis, lots and lots of them (that would be for the professionals and managers who probably would not wish to share a car to work, certainly not with two others, and who would not use public transport if they were given a plenary indulgence). This would mean taking on the taxi lobby, which is far from fictional (one of the mysteries of contemporary Ireland is why anybody pays any attention to them). And third, a necessary corollary to all of the above.
In the next three months, Mary O'Rourke should arrange for the liberalisation of public transport. Anybody who wanted to could provide a bus or taxi service (even a mini-bus service) subject just to certain elementary precautions (that the vehicles were appropriate and that the drivers were qualified). She need not bother with licensing, but should bother quite a bit about ensuring the vehicles and drivers are adequate.
She might also call a halt to the plans for Luas and for the metro, pending a look at how all the above worked out.
Dublin Corporation has proposed a watered-down version of this strategy, to be phased in over three or more years, presumably in the belief that a more modest proposal has more chance of gaining acceptance.
But why wait, and why spend the billions on the alternative proposals, which will happen in the meantime? This strategy might not solve the problem but it would go a long way to doing so, and would do so at virtually zero cost. All it requires is a decision, but is a decision out of the question?
vbrowne@irish-times.ie