THE EU Transport Commissioner, Mr Neil Kinnock, yesterday strongly endorsed the EU light rail plan for Dublin, saying there were numerous examples in comparable European cities to show that such a system would work.
On a short visit to promote his "Citizens' Network" green paper on transport policy, he said the alternative of putting light rail underground was "very, very expensive" and would not produce the desired results in the short-term.
Mr Kinnock said street-running light rail would obviously take space away from cars, but he saw this as one of its benefits. He also conceded that there would be disruption in the short-term, but said any city which had been through it now counted light rail as "a blessing".
He recalled being "astonished" by the peak-hour traffic congestion in Dublin 12 years ago and said it was bound to be worse now.
Mr Kinnock said it was reasonable to forecast that traffic volumes throughout the EU would double during the next 20 years. However, it was "vital that we do not take a fatalistic attitude and surrender to the idea that epidemic gridlock is inevitable".
He said the Commission was taking a "pro-active" approach to this and the green paper had suggested that roads alone would not solve the traffic problem in urban areas. Instead, more and better public transport was needed to make cities more accessible to all.
He "strongly commended" the approach taken by the Dublin Transportation Initiative. "We are at one . . . in the efforts to develop modern public transport systems and management as the means of rescuing major parts of the societies and economies of Europe from impending paralysis".
The Minister for Transport, Mr Lowry, said the Government welcomed the EU green paper's recognition of the "central role of public transport" in coping with the "explosive growth" in transport demand and "fully agreed" that the growth of car use in urban areas was "unsustainable".
