Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Last Thursday, Transport Infrastructure Ireland and the National Transport Authority gave presentations to the transport committee on congestion in Dublin. Transport Infrastructure Ireland said that the main solution to congestion in Dublin would be the widening of the N7 between Naas and Newbridge, widening the N2 and the N3 and the upgrade of the N11. Nothing has changed. We are based in the same old transport policy where we are building roads. I do not know where those cars on the widened approach roads to Dublin will go but they will go into gridlock. In the same meeting the National Transport Authority said that it did not have the necessary resources and engineers to design the BusConnects solution and the cycling solutions that we need, which should be how we tackle this problem. Will this Government move away from the current system and create a new agency which would be responsible for the designing of sustainable transport infrastructure because Transport Infrastructure Ireland is not able to do it?

It is just like the old National Roads Authority, NRA; all it wants to do is build roads. We need a new agency to build bus and cycle lanes for this and every other city in the country.

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