Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach. I have two questions. One is around modal share and the other is on climate targets within the strategy. On the first question, the Cathaoirleach and myself are familiar with coming from Heuston Station on a Tuesday morning and going back there on a Thursday evening, generally. We have seen huge improvements along the quays in the form of reallocation of road space and provision of segregated cycle lanes. Anecdotally, that has led to much increased cycling along the quays and is certainly a success story for Dublin City Council and the NTA in the last two years. If we provide this infrastructure we will easily reach the modal shift targets in the strategy. We should therefore be pushing way beyond the targets that are there. I think we are going to go from 4% in 2016 to 12% in 2042. That is a very modest increase given we know when segregated infrastructure is provided everybody aged between eight years and 80 years is inclined to cycle more.

The current approach seems to be to develop our networks in quite a piecemeal way rather than in a more aggressive and radical way. It seems to me the strategy should have an approach of developing much more than is currently there. Nationwide, we are looking at about 1,000 km in the next five years but we could do much more than that given the approach we have seen during Covid. I would like the NTA officials to comment on that. I certainly urge them to review the modal share for cycling in particular and to address road space reallocation. There are very few references to that in the 250 or so pages of the strategy. If we are to get people onto buses, bikes and get them walking as well we must get serious about it and the strategy must be serious about it. I acknowledge it is a high-level document but if we are putting in those targets they need to be ambitious ones. There is reference in the strategy to demand-management measures but the officials have said a few times it is a high-level document so those measures are not in the strategy. Does the authority propose to develop those, put them into the strategy and put them out to public consultation? What kind of demand-management measures should we be expecting to see?

My second question relates to the carbon emission reduction targets. The strategy concedes they do not align with the national goal of reducing emissions by 51% by 2030.

In 2018 there were 3.2 mega tonnes. With this strategy, we will get to approximately 2 mega tonnes by 2030. This is not quite 51%. That is the nationwide target. Is it the case that the NTA sees that there is less room for cutting emissions in Dublin and therefore more emissions will have be reduced outside of Dublin, to align with the 51% target in the transport sector nationwide?