Attached is the response to the NTA’s Greater Dublin Transport Strategy 2022-2044 (hereafter ‘the Strategy’). It is submitted by members of Dublin Bay South Green Party and is based on the Green Party’s transport policy (available at https://www.greenparty.ie/policies/transport-urban-development/).
As the first part of the document shows, the Strategy ignores the consequences of the low level of investment to date in Dublin’s public transport; its piecemeal approach to rail investment ensures that in the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) overall car usage will actually increase by 2044. The second part of the document shows the extent to which the Strategy fails to produce sustainable and inclusive mobility within the GDA and outlines the key measures needed to achieve this.
Extracts from the attached report have been submitted separately under the relevant chapter headings but the document should be considered in its entirety.
The need for structures that enable vision and leadership
Announcing plans and then postponing them indefinitely exposes transport policy to justified ridicule. Sustained public transport investment offers the chance to make Dublin a sustainable but inclusive city, in which all can move around and connect without having to own a car. This needs a political leadership able to present to citizens a vision of how our city could be and able to follow through decisions to implementation. This in turn requires political structures that facilitate effective decision-making, structures that both generate accountability and offer real power so that attract politicians with ambition for the city. At its simplest this means a directly elected mayor to whom a Greater Dublin transport authority responsible.