DTO: Platform for Change
The Dublin Transport Office published its ‘Platform for Change’ document in 2000, in which it outlined the transportation strategy for the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) from 2000 to 2016. The document produced a practicable set of recommendations for new transport infrastructure and complimentary measures to manage projected growth in the demand for travel from all sections of the community over twenty years.
Firstly it sketched a vision of the GDA as:
- a City and Region which embraces the principles of sustainability;
- encompassing a leading European City, proud of its heritage and looking to the future;
- having at its heart the National Capital, seat of government and national centres of excellence;
- a strong, competitive, dynamic and sustainable Region;
- a Living City and Region, on a human scale, accessible to all and providing a good quality of life for its citizens.
It then recognized the improvements in transport facilities, over the final decade of the 20th Century, such as the increased provision of QBCs, cycleways and Park and Ride amenities as well as the welcome arrival of LUAS. This was contrasted with the challenges that modern, booming Dublin poses for any successful transport strategy. The main challenge stemmed from the unforeseen economic boom with all its attendant consequences such as population and car ownership growth. Both the Strategic Planning Guidelines and the original 1995 DTI Strategy had failed to predict this:
- The population of the original DTI Area has grown more rapidly than was projected in the original DTI Strategy.
- The population predicted for 2001 was actually exceeded in 1997;
- GDP grew by 79% between 1991 and 1999, compared with a DTI forecast of 38%;
- the unemployment rate has already declined to less than 5% while DTI was forecasting a rate of 17% in 2001 and 12% in 2011;
- car ownership rates have substantially exceeded those projected and are steadily increasing towards the European average of 450 per 1000 population. Car ownership per 1000 population was 292 in 1996 and 342 in 1999, far outstripping the original DTI forecast of 288 for the year 2001
The challenge for the DTO was to prepare a transportation strategy that met the objectives derived from their Vision Statement yet doing so in the context of the these pressures:
- a rapid growth in population and households, leading to increasingly dispersed travel patterns;
- a substantial increase in employment leading to a large increase in the demand for travel in the peak hour;
- increasing car ownership resulting in additional commuting by car, which is economically inefficient and environmentally unsustainable;
- an unprecedented and continuing high level of economic growth;
- slower than expected delivery of some of the major infrastructure projects recommended in the 1995 DTI Strategy.
The DTO then outlined the principal components of its strategy for overcoming these problems:
- an improved DART/Suburban rail network including improved passenger carrying capacity on the existing network and the development of more tracks on existing alignments,
- an interconnector between Heuston Station and East Wall and other new rail lines;
- an extension of the on-street light rail network (LUAS);
- the development of a higher capacity segregated light rail network (METRO);
- a much expanded bus network, comprising an integrated mesh of radial and orbital services and a substantial increase in passenger carrying capacity;
- a package of measures designed to improve the integration and attractiveness of the public transport network, including park and ride facilities, integrated fares and ticketing, quality interchange facilities and improved passenger information.
- an integrated public transport network which provides for a radical transformation in the quality and quantity of services provided
