Department of Transport’s traffic-congestion agenda set to ruffle Coalition relationships

Viable alternatives will have to be in place before measures like congestion charges are introduced under guidelines that will shape new policies being drafted this year.

Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan is to tell Cabinet colleagues he intends to develop a demand management strategy for road use — raising the prospect of internal Coalition tensions over some of the choices coming down the tracks.

Policy options to be considered as part of the process, which will involve consultation before concluding later this year, include those drawn up in modelling by the National Transport Authority (NTA). Options to be considered include congestion charges, fuel price increases, cheaper public transport and the pedestrianisation of urban centres.

Green Party enthusiasm

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are sceptical about any proposals for congestion charges, despite enthusiasm in the Green Party for such a move. Sources pushed back against the prospect of such a levy in Dublin before the next election, with one senior figure noting that Mr Ryan would merely be proposing to set up a group to examine the issue at the Cabinet meeting, rather than actually introducing specific policies.

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The Irish Times understands the Department of Transport has drawn up guidelines on developing the strategy, which stipulate that “viable alternatives” have to be “in place before, or in tandem with, new demand management measures”.

The principles guiding the development of the strategy also outline that it should minimise the associated impact on business and industry, as well as provide for an “incremental transition that is well communicated”. Cities will be targeted first, then large urban areas and there should be a “limited rural impact”.

There is an acknowledgement at senior level that policies which entail large-scale change for voters could become politically divisive. “Of course, there is a risk in any societal change that the change itself rather than the outcomes become the story,” said one Green Party source.

The party believes that by articulating the case for reform, as well as incrementally advancing solutions that improve public transport and the environment, it can bring voters with it — but the same source conceded it will be at times a complex and challenging process.

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Indicating the severity of the potential for political trouble, one Fine Gael TD dismissed some of the policies suggested by NTA modelling as “absolutely daft stuff that will see the Greens wiped off the map at the next election, even in Dublin”.

Dublin South-West TD Colm Brophy said he wanted to see an emphasis on projects like Metro South West “rather than the pre-emptive introduction of punitive measures which will have no real effect in terms of what we’re trying to achieve”.

‘Infrastructure first’

His party colleague, Dublin Fingal TD Alan Farrell, said there must be “infrastructure first” with “more trains, buses and options for those in rural Ireland. Congestion charging for Dublin should only be introduced when the city is supported by 21st-century transport infrastructure.”