Posted by
on 17/01/12
Proposal Statement from Healthy Living experts:
People in Dublin should be able to take advantage of healthy transport options. Car use in urban areas should be taxed to reduce congestion and air and noise pollution. We should also continue to make Dublin a cycling friendly city and there should be greater pedestrianisation of Dublin City and Dublin’s town centres.
Question
Should car use be taxed in congested parts of Dublin in order to pay for healthy transport options, such as cycle lanes or greater pedestrianisation Dublin City and town centres?
What is your opinion?
Your article perfectly shows what I needed to know, thakns!
While I do support the idea I think there needs to be significantly more investment in cycling, public transport and park and ride facilities etc before we consider congestion charging in Dublin - cities like london have public transport infrastructures that provide viable alternative options to the car.
There was talk of a Dublin City Centre Congestion Charge of €10 applicable between the hours of 7am and 10am to drive in the area within the canals in a 2004 - see report for the Dublin Transport Office called 'Greater Dublin Area Travel Demand Management Study' http://www.dto.ie/web2006/TDMS.pdf
I imagine a congestion charge is low on the policy agenda now that congestion levels in the city have dramatically reduced since the economic downturn in 2007 and also now that the metro north and dart interconnector projects have been shelved.
As an active cyclist in my youth, I attempted to return to cycling, for my 10 mile commute to work, last year. I stuck it out for about a week. Apart from being side-swiped on three occasions, I found that cycle lanes were a complete joke. They start and then disappear without warning. Most are full of potholes or covered in broken glass. Some are so narrow that they might as well not exist. Motorists completely ignore them and often park on them. Most are just downright dangerous.
Public transport to and from areas greater than 6 miles from the city center is sporadic and extremely expensive. In addition, it is often dangerous at night. I for one will not be abandoning my car any time soon. These problems would need to be fully addressed before any congestion charge is implemented.
Has anyone else eripxeence with trying to use this system? I have to say my eripxeence has been really bad. The silver machines that allow you to pay using the old M-Park system have been removed. So fair enough, change to the new system. However it requires you to register and wait for a tag to be posted out to you. Not much good if you've no change and have already parked. I decide what the hell, it'll be handy next week. So I spend 5 minutes or so of my life on the phone giving them my name, address, credit card, blood type (kidding) and eventually she tells me the system isn't working and I should call back later and go through the whole process again!So there's a retail tag option, but nobody seems to know which retailers sell the tags. After trying shops on Leeson St. and Baggot St., I eventually found Londis on North Stephen's Green do the tags. But guess what, you have to activate the tag before you can put any money on it. Luckily there's an activate by SMS option. I try this method and I get a text back saying Invalid details . So I call the helpline number and they claim ignorance. They say they have no information on retail tags and only do the credit-card tags that have to be posted out (and by the way, DCC will help themselves to a minimum of 20 euro of your hard earned cash, and will never let the balance drop below 10 euro!).So I resort to going back to the office and trying the online activation for my retail tag. After going through the steps, it tells me Vehicle Does not Exist ! Well it clearly does cos I drove it to work this morning!All in all a very poor eripxeence. I accept all new systems have teething troubles, but this one doesn't seem to have been tested at all. Why have DCC started removing the M-Park machines before this new system is up and running? If only they were as efficient on other areas of their responsibility but that's another story!
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I think this approach, despite initial teething problems, worked well in central London. If the money was actually spent directly on sustainable transport I think the general public would respond positively. If it goes to the exchequer, it risks becoming a stealth tax.
Mark Bennett (not verified)
on 26/01/12