Yesterday's traffic chaos shows how a road-based transport system will never work.

Green Party General Election candidate, Deirdre de Burca said today: "The traffic gridlock that Wicklow commuters experienced on the N11 on Wednesday is absolutely unacceptable with constituents reporting to me that they spent anything from one hour to seven hours getting back to Wicklow from Dublin. At the same time, the Government is pedalling a dishonest myth that building more roads is one of the best options for tackling climate change. Both the review of the National Climate Change strategy and the new Green Paper on Energy policy promote the idea that building more roads will bring environmental benefits by reducing congestion and therefore allowing more efficient energy use in our cars. The head of the National Roads Authority took a similar line on the Newstalk breakfast show yesterday morning, when he said building more roads would reduce fuel use."

"That myth is blown away by international research, which shows that building roads actually encourages more traffic and in turn leads to further congestion and higher greenhouse gas emissions. A leading American study found that 90% of new road capacity was typically used up within 4 years (1). And even when we add an additional lane to a motorway it has been estimated traffic volumes quickly rises to fill 50% of the new capacity leading to an overall increase of 10 - 25% in emissions (2).That reality is becoming more apparent in Ireland every day. There are more than 50,000 new cars on Irish roads each year. If those additional cars were lined up bumper to bumper they would fill a single car lane all the way from Dublin to Cork.

"The National Roads Authority has sold the roads programme on the basis that journey times would be cut. The problem is that whenever new motorways hit urban areas, traffic gridlocks and journey times stretch. Despite extensive investment, typical intercity journey times have not improved since the 1960s and 70s, and local journey times can now stretch for hours if you hit a certain road at the wrong time. The traffic chaos in South Dublin yesterday highlights the extent of the problem. Unexpected waterworks on a section of road outside Bray lead to massive tailbacks on the Southern Cross motorway, itself only recently opened, and which was supposed to bring 'freeflow' driving conditions.

"The solutions from international research are perfectly clear. Countries that invest heavily in public transport systems and tailor planning to favour walking and cycling, have greatly reduced greenhouse gas emissions, as well as more efficient economies and a better quality of life. In Ireland our policy makers have still not learnt that lesson. The recent ESRI report on the National Development Plan was full of praise for investment in roads while at the same time questioning the public transport programme. It is as if our leading economists are blind to the latest economic thinking – as coherently outlined in the Stern report. They are unable to put a price on the external costs such as congestion and pollution which the roads programme cause. The Government has spent ten years examining and deferring decisions on major projects including the Metro while green lighting massive roads projects on a simplified cost-benefit analysis, which is clearly flawed.

With its growing population centres on the East Coast, County Wicklow needs serious investment in its public transport infrastructure” says de Burca. “What Wicklow Town or Arklow commuter would choose to sit in gridlock in their cars on the N11 if there was a fast, reliable rail system that would bring them straight into Dublin? Furthermore, if the Luas extension from Cherrywood were to service the town of Bray, it would provide another critically important public transport link to Dublin and to the airport eventually for the people of County Wicklow. Unfortunately there are no plans to invest in the Rosslare Rail line over the next twenty years according to current government plans” she says. The electorate really needs to impress on their politicians that providing good quality public transport services is now a top priority for them”.

(1) Hansen and Huang 'Road supply and Traffic in Californian Urban areas' Transportation Research Agency 31:205-218 (2) Barth Scora and Younglove, 'Estimating emissions and fuel consumption for different levels of freeway congestion.' TRB meeting Jan 1999 (3) Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy 'Sustainability and Cities' 1999 (4) www.epa.gov/otaq/stateresources/transconf/generalinfo/fullrpt.pdf