Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE FIRST MEASURES of the Dublin City Centre Transport Plan will come into effect next month.
It aims to reduce traffic in Dublin by preventing private cars from travelling through the city from one side to the other.
The first set of measures, being brought in on 25 August, will be implemented on the North Quays at Bachelors Walk and on the South Quays on Burgh Quay and Aston Quay.
The use of private cars in these parts will be restricted from 7am to 7pm.
Access will be restricted during these hours to buses, taxis, cyclists and pedestrians.
Outside of these hours, the restrictions will not be in operation and all vehicles can travel as before.
However, all other routes on the quays and all other routes in the city remain the same, and access to all Liffey Bridges will also remain the same.
Road markings and signage changes will notify motorists of these changes.
Dublin City Council would like to announce that the first of the measures contained in the Dublin City Transport Plan 2023 will come into effect from 25th August 2024. For more details on the new measures please click here: https://t.co/Mj8xVoDVNc pic.twitter.com/DolOFgtDHs
— Dublin City Council (@DubCityCouncil) July 25, 2024
On the North Quays, the new restrictions commence after the existing bus gate on Bachelors Walk and there are no changes before this area.
General traffic can continue to travel along the North Quays and Bachelors Walk as far as O’Connell Street but will not be permitted to continue onto Eden Quay.
On the South Quay, the changes commence east of O’Connell Bridge on Burgh Quay and there are no changes before this area.
General traffic can continue to travel along the South Quays and Burgh Quay as far as O’Connell Bridge but will not be permitted to continue straight onto Aston Quay.
Access for residents will be maintained, though there may be a different route to or from the area.
There will be no changes to the disabled parking bays and there are no changes to for taxis.
Dublin City Council added that the “vast majority of routes to hospitals will remain the same” and that the “majority of routes to city centre carparks remain the same”.
It’s all part of a plan to increase walking, cycling and public transport rates, while driving down car and taxi journeys.
Decision made: the first sections of the Dublin City Centre Transport Plan are going ahead on 25th of August.
— Michael Pidgeon (@Pidge) July 25, 2024
It's the right call by the Chief Exec.
It's been a long fight. Well done to the council staff, councillors, and campaigners who have pushed for this. pic.twitter.com/pLSBU8AF5Z
Dublin City Council added that these first set of measures on the North and South Quays “address the 60% of general traffic in the city centre that is not stopping, working or shopping but is travelling through the city”.
It noted that between 7am and 7pm, just 2% of movements at the Bachelors Walk / O’Connell Street junction are undertaken by people in cars, yet at least 50% of the road space is assigned to cars.
These figures are the same on the South Quays at the Aston Quay / O’Connell Street Bridge junction.
This causes delays to the public transport network, particularly buses which account for 49% of users at these junctions.
The Council said that creating additional road space is not an option, so the existing space “needs to work as efficiently as possible”.
It added that the measures will allow for more space to be allocated to public transport, which will improve the reliability, speed and service for public transport.
The Council said a working group, chaired by the Dublin Lord Mayor James Geoghegan, will now be established to monitor the impact of changes.
This group will include business organisations, the National Transport Authority, elected members and other interested parties, such as members of the disability community.
Originally, the plan was to ban private cars on Bachelor’s Walk on a 24/7 basis.
Minister of State for Business, Employment and Retail Emer Higgins had also asked Dublin City Council to delay the plans until at least after Christmas.
She said there was a “need to get this right” and added: ““I would prefer for further consultation with retailers and further implementation of Bus Connects before we introduce a significant change like this.”
In response, Green Party councillors labelled the move “bizarre” and a “major overreach”.
Speaking at the time, Green Party leader on DCC Cllr. Michael Pidgeon said that people in the city are “sick of waiting in traffic and waiting for buses” and that the plan should proceed.
“This last-ditch intervention by Minister Emer Higgins is utterly bizarre. She is doing the work of vested interests – car park owners who fear any progress that would undermine their bottom line,” he said.
Transport Minister Eamon Ryan also backed councillors to have the final say on the plans.
“It’s up to the city council to decide, they decided twice and if they decided to delay now I think the people of Dublin would be rightly deeply upset,” he said.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I wish they would also aim to restrict the amount of subhuman filth that litter the streets attacking people.
@Gerald Kelleher: And murdering a tourist in cold blood isn’t dehumanising poor human behaviour?
@Gerald Kelleher: he’s not talking about littering, you do get that, right?
@Trevor Donoghue: Gerald only cares about waffling
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: Gerald is an AI bot
@Gerald Kelleher: The overall imperative for natural selection is that those who are better adapted to their environment are far more likely to survive and pass on their winning traits to the next generation. I for one favour an environment where civilized people remain the dominant force and society is kept safe from the scrotes that seem to have taken over our towns, cities and public transport. Those who make excuses for these types of degenerates often lack the courage to stand up to them. Don’t forget, the more they get away with, the more unsafe your world will become for you and your family!
@Tony Doran:
Victorian natural selection is an attempt to dehumanise others with extermination imperatives attached.
In 500 years how the Anglo-Saxon race will have spread & exterminated whole nations; & in consequence how much the Human race, viewed as a unit, will have risen in rank.” Darwin.
Nobody is subhuman, not even those who have developed pollution of the mind as Origin of Species with its roots in the differences between famine Ireland and industrial England.
The traffic in Dublin isn’t actually that bad anymore with people working from home, it’s the bloody traffic lights that are out of sequence all over the city. Lights going green letting 3 or 4 cars through, filter lights not staying green long enough. Mespil Rd at Leeson St Bridge there is no right filter light at all, cars constantly getting stuck on the junction and breaking the red light, that’s going on years.
Church St is a mess since they closed off Capel St. I could name about 50 junctions in the city where the build up of Traffic is caused by the Traffic lights.
@Gerard Carey: name them..go on, we’ll l wait.
@Gerard Carey: I agree, was waiting on the filter light to turn green to turn on to the quays, by the time I realised it wasn’t working the cars behind me wanted to smash up my car, then when I did turned right (I had to break a red light) I was straight into a red ‘pedestrian’ light and stopped making them behave even worse!!! Scary stuff, so yeah you are indeed correct
The thing is our old world is changing and there is one big squeeze happening to take as much from us as possible in reality we do have more money which would give us freedom but they squeeze us more and more to make sure we stay in our box and if you try to better your self there so much red tape few make it creates the illusion we free and live in a true democracy.
The new world is 15 min towns and cities. All cars nowadays are owned under just few companies. They soon will provide cars on subscription which be used just from pickup points on edge of towns and villages close M and N roads.
Retail parks will become collection and delivery depots for online orders. The majority are position for this.
Housing will become more dense.
More land will be rewilded farm land will be reduced, farming communities will slowly disappear. There lots for new ways to grow foods.
Everything is going to be boxed off , with space each of life’s requirements what they believe will given us a full filled life.
Like taking animals from the savanna and saying they be happy in the zoo with everything there at the price of not being free. That’s where we heading.
@Be Lucky: I live 15 mins walk or less to supermarkets, parks, public transport, cafes etc. It’s great, don’t need to drive much. Thank you WEF for imposing this 15 min hell on me.
@Be Lucky: that’s actually very old world
@eoin fitzpatrick: You are not alone, many people would welcome 15 min cities.
The problem is that people in positions of power cannot be trusted, regardless of the alleged ideologies they subscribe to, not least because modern technologies and AI can give them virtually omnipresent oversight of everyone that is connected to any network in realtime.
Authoritarian regimes of the past relied on informants, threats and fear of the consequences if people uttered an opposing opinion, and they managed to contain and subjugate entire populations for decades.
Even with current technologies, people could be digitally cancelled to the point that they have no identity or access to funds to buy anything for expressing dissent, in which case a 15 min city could become their prison.
@Be Lucky: You might not be too far off there Lucky.
One of the problems is that they have the plan, we don’t know what that looks like 10, 50, or 100 years from now. They make small changes that seems innocuous when introduced but when you put them all together you find out that you didn’t want to go that direction but now it’s too late. London is a good example in some ways, they now charge you congestion charges, ULEZ charges, rip off parking charges, toll fees and more, just to drive around your own cities on roads you funded, no longer free.
In China, in some stores, you cannot shop there if your social credit rating is not high enough! I guess you couldn’t possibly run a country of a billion people all running around dreaming and inventing and thinking, all willy nilly, it would be chaos! Much easier for the Chinese Gov to control the whole show, keep the money coming in nice and stable, keep the plebs in their respective bubbles and with just enough space to breath.
The concept of government was born out of requiring a panel of representatives to stand for all of the people and efficiently make decisions for all of the people. We don’t have that anymore, that’s where we are, we have been conned. Come General Election they will be knocking on your door and promising the stars, they will publish manifestos outlining their grand plans and then, once they have feet under the table, they will shaft you.
Back to the article, I can’t see that left turn only onto O’Connell Street from Bachelors working at all, will they change it back if its a failure, we’ll see.
@Paddy Short: Jaysus lads….how do you come up with this stuff. You think our politicians are that smart that they are planning this massive conspiracy that will come to completion in 100yrs??
@Be Lucky: You need to put the crack pipe down. Why would you not want to be able to walk 15mins to everything you need??
@Dvsespaña: Certainly if people had a travel pass “cancelled”, they might be stuck – if & only if they were commuting daily too far away to cycle, and couldn’t get there any other way. As if thefts are magically going to stop overnight. LThat goes against my whole experience of having a car stolen by some git supposedly exercising his freedom to travel. Yet you’re imagining this oppression in a walkable city – where we can stroll away! No one’s asking you for a passport to leave a county.
AI doesn’t really feature in tracking people’s movements. CCTV and satellites might. Etagging might. AI is only the software, which can itself be monitored and restricted. Besides, if we had cities with free central transport, we could all use it without having to show passes & get around quicker.
They should build a tube like in London.
@Sean Money: we’ll if a hospital costs 3 billion a tube would be 30 billion and bankrupt the country for a second time
@David Cotter: could they not borrow a few tubes from the hospital?
Stop cars from going from one side of the city to the other!? So what do I do when I live Northside and work Southside and have an 9km journey? Cycling not something I can do. I start work 630am, in an already highly stressful job! I worked all through Covid but now im getting the 2 finger salute rather than a clapping of hands!
@Lilly Lalogue: move
@Lilly Lalogue: not sure why these plans would affect you but where do you go on the southside and from where do you travel?
@Lilly Lalogue: You do know its 7am to 7pm.
You are in work at 630am.
Getting home might be a bit tricky.
@Lilly Lalogue: Nobody is stopping cars going from one side of the city to the other, they’re stopping you using the very centre of the city to do that. Genuinely don’t see why bypassing the most central streets in the city when you have no intention of stopping there is such an issue for people.
As we live in a city divided by a river why not take away the toll charge on the East Link Bridge to encourage people to use that instead of travelling through the city centre when they want to travel from Southside to Northside??
Because drivers think O’Connell Bridge is the only bridge across the Liffey?
So…where do the thousands of private vehicles that currently use the quays go? Serious question…not go to work maybe? What’s the alternate route?
I thought that’s why the M50 was built? To let every driver in a 4-seater car to bypass the city centre instead of cutting through it.b
Well put on more Luas trains then
What about deliveries to shops?
@Kieran Ferrett: read the article.private cars only not allowed.
@Willie Marty: Read again, some routes not allowing delivery vans.
@Willie Marty: think again…only buses, taxis and cycles allowed…
Simple solution, slap a tax, levy, fee, AND a surcharge on drivers. Problem solved. Anger building and building and building.
Eimer Higgins….. 0 Éamon ryan….. 1
@David Cotter: yep, she got calls from the car-park owners and instead of standing up for people, she just threw her lot in with the greedy carpark owners.
Shameful.
Where do vans and commercial vehicles ,factor in
All great news for city. But what’s the plan for all the traffic to go instead? The M50?
@Barry O’Sullivan: M50 already a parking lot at peak times, now Naas road and lucan same.
Yet everyone suppose to work from home, more traffic than ever. 45 min journey into Dublin now could be a 2 hour journey at peak times.
Get the For Sale sign ready for Dublin City Centre.
Closed for business signs being erected on all entry points of City on 25th of August.
Eamos parting shot. The final nail in closing Dublins business
The electorate deserves all this as they believe Ireland’s maritime climate will change into an equatorial climate.
Asking people to adopt terms like polar climate, maritime climate, and tropical climate so they can appreciate that the Earth science of climate covers many topics is in contrast to the dour predictions where terms like climate action, climate justice, climate neutrality, and so on follow climate.
Reason like juveniles and expect to be treated the same way.
This is silly. It Will cause more traffic and delays.. it will push more cars onto the M50, a motorway that is already small and one the government was told should have at least 4 lanes when getting built because in 10 years time it will have huge delays, they didn’t listen. All of this will cause way more pollution. This plan works for people who live in city centre and not outside of it. Some places in North Dublin take 2 hours by bus and 30 minutes by car.. this doesn’t include the time waiting on a bus, that would add up to 3 hours total in some cases. Businesses will suffer, because I gurantee you that those cycling and walking to.city centre are not the ones shopping there for the benefit of out economy.
@Jason: Traffic will be driven into already jammed inner suburbs, phibsboro, inchicore, ballsbridge etc resulting in awful congestion, longer bus journeys, frustration and mayhem..but sure a few cyclists along the quays will be happy ..
It’s not going to change anything. People will still drive. There’s not enough public transport at the moment, buses constantly go by bus stops with hoards of people waiting, buses are full, LUAS platforms are packed as people ‘jostle’ to get on/off.
Vehicles will just use other streets to get around town – which in turn means thant Public transport will also be caught up in surrounding traffic build up.
This is really putting the cart before the horse. More public transport is needed.
A recent study showed that there are approx 240 private vehicles through Bachelors Walk during rush hour. At a rate of 1.4 people per vehicle on average, that’s 336 people.
There are 33 corridors of entry by private vehicle to the City Centre. That’s 11,000 (approx) people who would require public transport.
For example, buses have a capacity of 90 approx. that would require 122.2 more buses during rush hour.
Or 3.7 buses per vehicle access corridors for rush hour.
LUAS is at capacity, and adding another carriage is not possible for some lines due to the length of the tram and the curvature of the track (great planning).
LUAS would need to be at every stop at 2 minute intervals like clockwork.
Then you also need policing, policing of the streets for vehicular access. Policing of public transport on all avenues.
This would require at least 33 garda (per corridor) and additional transport police to hop on/off on each – approx 2 per corridor, 66 in total – that would almost 100 garda on patrol.
And they’re already at capacity.
You said it. I’m thinking of all the Scandinavian & European countries where people hop on a fast train & get where they’re going, even if it’s under a river or through a mountain. And here we all are waiting for queues of cars to pass because there isn’t any reliable alternative.
They should roof merchants quay while they are at it. Keep the cr**k heads dry.
Give the crack to the kids who the hell cares
One less hungry mouth on the welfare…..
And that’s the way it is
I think your headline meant to say “speed up buses”
More nonsense from DCC. Instead of traveling from Burgh Quay to Aston Quay, a distance of a couple of meters, now you drive in circles around narrow streets to end up in the same place. Brain dead thinking, absolute BS.
Good. Practically everyone can still get into town by bus, Luas and train.
Pity the comments are all from cross drivers complaining that town isn’t what it was & they never go there anyway.
The city centre isn’t about to close down because you stopped buying a newspaper at the lights 25 years ago!
have your say