Motorists engaged in "reverse psychology" during car-free day in Dublin yesterday, with more drivers than usual entering the city ring expecting uncongested streets and happy motoring. Tim O'Brien reports.
That is the explanation of the Green Party leader, Mr Trevor Sargent, for what was widely seen as the failure of European Car-Free Day in the capital.
Mr Sargent who, with the other five Green Party TDs, had earlier handed out leaflets calling for the two Luas lines to be linked, said Dublin City Council had "given up on the event because of a lack of support" from the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen.
The Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, said the project was perhaps too distant, being a European initiative. Mr Brennan suggested a national car-free day for next year which, he said, could involve a number of Government Departments and transport providers coming up with initiatives to entice motorists from their cars.
As he waited for the start of a Dublin Cycling Campaign event at the Spire in O'Connell Street, Mr Sargent said no effort was made this year: "It had turned into more-car day."
Arriving at the Spire and apologising for being late - he said he was stuck in traffic - the Dublin Cycling Campaign spokesman, Mr David Maher, carried an effigy of "an obese child" with a steering wheel.
"Car-free day is a joke," said Mr Jonivar Skullerud, who arrived on his bicycle. "There is not even a token gesture. They said they won't close O'Connell Street but I think of it as opening up the street."
The Green Party environment spokesman, Mr Eamon Ryan, joked that his bike, which has a crossbar seat as well as a carrier seat, was a people-carrier.
"We can carry six on two bikes," he said, leaving reporters wondering whether there was a law against that somewhere.
Mr Conor Faughnan, the public affairs spokesman with the AA, said it was unfortunate that the "worst weather in September had coincided with car-free day".
Mr Faughnan, who himself drove into the city yesterday, said 460,000 people travelled every day into Dublin between 8 a.m and 9 a.m.
"The majority, 71 per cent of them, do so, not because they want to spend two hours in a car, but because there is no alternative. This is a city with a problem.
"Dublin Bus - and I say this with great admiration for them - now bring 85,000 people in during that hour but not in their wildest dreams could they cope with the numbers who travel by car.
"People cannot switch to a public transport system which is not there . . . there is no point in waving a big stick at motorists. They are not sitting in their cars for pleasure. They are the symptom, not the problem: the problem is a lack of an alternative."
Dublin City Council said the "public transport excuse" was no longer valid.
Mr Brian McManus, a spokesman for the traffic department, said huge improvements had taken place in the development of public transport in the five years since car-free day began. He said it was not City Council policy to close roads such as O'Connell Street or the quays and therefore there was no point in closing them for one day.