Political incompetence to
blame
Dear sir - As we in Co. Meath face the daily stress and
time loss caused by traffic gridlock, together with the
economic loss to business, it is worth reflecting on how
the problem was created in the first place.
In view of last week's Dáil vote which saw
€101 million of the public transport budget
transferred to road development, I attribute government
incompetence in transport policy as the cause of the
problem.
The reason given for last week's budget transfer was that
there are no major public transport projects at
construction stage. The reality is that it will be at
least five years before major public transport projects
come on stream. At the same time massive new motorways,
like the M3, all heading to the M50, will open.
Let us not be fooled into believing that the M3 will
solve the problem. As with the M50, traffic volumes will
almost double to fill the additional road space provided.
And this is before we take bad planning decisions
concerning developments on the slip roads into
consideration.
If we look at how the problem in Co. Meath was created in
the first place we see a series of planning and transport
decisions that went directly against the best expert
advice presented to the government over the last two
decades. I attribute the disaster to three fundamental
mistakes that Fianna Fáil and the Progressive
Democrats have made.
They planned in the interests of developers rather than
the community. The M50 became a congested shopping street
because of political decisions that ignored expert
planning advice. Rather than building new shopping
centres within existing communities, as was recommended,
they voted to build the likes of Blanchardstown Shopping
Centre close to the M50. Such decisions are still taking
place today, like the IKEA development at Ballymun, and
no doubt will continue if the M3 is built.
They have encouraged urban sprawl. The recent growth in
our economy and population was clearly predicted and the
Strategic Planning Guidelines for the Greater Dublin Area
(of which Meath is a part) set out a plan for that growth
to be contained within the existing Metropolitan
area.
The guidelines have been utterly ignored as surrounding
counties such as Meath rezoned large tracts of land that
could only ever be accessible by long distance car
commuting. A series of Ministers for the Environment,
including Meath TD Noel Dempsey, decided to ignore such
blatant bad planning and failed to use the powers they
had available to them to instruct councils such as Meath
County Council to amend their plans.
They failed to invest in public transport. Over the past
10 years the Government has pumped massive resources into
new road building and stalled and delayed on all major
public transport projects. In 2001 the Dublin
Transportation Office released a plan entitled "Platform
for Change" which argued that public transport needed
priority. One of the first responses of the Government
was to provide finance for the widening and upgrade of
the M50, which was the very last item on the priority
list.
We still see the interests of the community in Co. Meath
being ignored through the recent Government Estimates
which failed to provide a financial allocation for
preliminary investigative work to be carried out on
restoring the railway line to Navan.
We still see the rezoning of land in Co. Meath and the
consequent increase in long distance commuting by car. We
still see that public transport is not being prioritised
in Co. Meath.
The only solution to reducing traffic volumes will have
to be some form of demand management regarding roads and
emergency responses such as the speedy reopening of the
railway line to Navan, together with a multiway transport
solution for the county.
However, there is no reason to believe that the
politicians who got us into this mess are the right
people to get us out of it.
The Green Party would expedite these solutions
immediately after entering government.
Yours,
Brian Flanagan'
Green Party candidate for Meath West.
© The Meath Chronicle, 30th. December 2006.
