DAY after day, Dublin seems increasingly impassable. Despite numerous studies, including a grand strategy devised by the Government sponsored Dublin Transportation Initiative, motorists and other road users feel the capital's traffic is becoming intolerable.

This view is shared by the director of the Dublin Transportaion Office, Mr John Henry, who told The Irish Times this week: "We are facing a chaotic future if we don't start doing something about it." What's required, he believes, is a fundamental change in cultural attitudes to the "personal freedom" of using cars in the city.

"We've no choice, otherwise we'll get gridlock in a few years time," he declares. "It's a change in culture for the benefit of everybody, to make Dublin a pleasant place to live, work and play. It's not that we're penalising people. We're saying that, if you don't do it, you're going to suffer worse. That's the message we want to get across.

Without question, the morning peak period is more heavily congested than ever and the clutter is spreading through the day. Cars are parked hither and thither around the city centre, buses are snarled up, motorists break through red lights. It seems as if we're not far from an explosion of "road rage".

Some may blame the proliferation of roadworks in the run up to Ireland's EU Presidency - such works are banned after July 1st, apart from emergencies - but Mr Henry says the "major increase" in car ownership last year and the sale of a record 30,000 plus new cars in Dublin so far this year are crucial to the current congestion.

A traffic count at the Red Cow Inn on the Naas Road last month produced figures which, according to the DTO's elaborate computer model, were not expected to be reached until 2001.

One of the DTO's main functions will be to continually update its model of Dublin's traffic. "The figures we got for the Red Cow just make the implementation of the DTI programme more urgent, because it's warning us that we need to move fast to keep up. It will probably strengthen our hand in taking drastic action."

THERE'S a direct relationship between economic wealth and car ownership. Ireland now has about 30 cars for every 100 people, compared with 60 in the US. "If our economy continues to grow as it's beginning to do, the potential demand is there [for more cars]. That's what we're facing," Mr Henry says.

Commuter traffic is the DTO's target. "We're not opposed to shoppers coming in by car. Our focus is on the city centre, to making it a thriving economic unit full of people but not necessarily cars. It's been done in other cities, like Amsterdam, where trams are buzzing around, people are walking or cycling and you don't even notice the traffic."

Recently, Mr Henry brought a team of traffic engineers to Utrecht, in central Holland, to look at cycling; it was the first time he himself had got on a bike in 30 years. "That was a great eye opener for the team, because talking about it is one thing, doing it is another - using the cycleways and seeing the freedom that cyclists enjoy there. So we had a lot of converts.

"Looking at the experience in Holland, which has significantly higher car ownership than us, it became obvious that we haven't even started thinking about it properly. Just to see how they just close down half a street and give it over to the bicycles - and it works. We've got to get back to cycling and use cars only as a means of escape at weekends."

He cites a German "car sharing" project, which he hopes to introduce in Dublin. "It's basically a co operative whereby people share their cars, put them into a pool, and book a car whenever they need to use one. You're charged for the period you use it and, for the first time, you become aware of the actual cost of motoring," he explains.

How would he counteract the culture of cars as personal chariots and social status symbols? "If we're going to get people out of their cars, one way is to take away their parking spaces so they've no place to put them," Mr Henry says. "We may even have to get a benefit in kind tax on parking spaces, as there already is for company cars.

He admits, with some embarrassment, that the DTO has six parking spaces for 13 staff at its headquarters in Hainault House, on St Stephen's Green. He commutes by car from his home in Blessington, Co Wicklow, but says he intends to move back to Dublin and will then use public transport.

He agrees it will be vital to appoint a director of traffic, a job first mooted by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Howlin, when he launched the DTO last November. It is expected to be filled by the end of this year.

The director will work in Dublin Corporation, rather than the DTO, and will have wide responsibilities for traffic, including the use of wheel clamps on illegally parked cars. The post is so senior that consultants are being appointed to define how it will fit into the corporation's structure.

Part of the director's rem it will be to stop the widespread practice of commuters "feeding" parking meters in and around Merrion Square. "But we have to be careful in enforcing as well, that we don't kill the city," says Mr Henry. "Public transport must be improved so there is a balance between carrot and stick. We can't make Dublin a no go area."

HE IS disappointed by the current criticisms of CIE's light rail transit project and asks where all the critics were when the DTI strategy was being formulated.

"It's getting a bit of bad press, which is unfortunate, because it's an integral part of the overall DTI strategy, though it's not the be all and end all of the transportation picture."

The DTO, which is the guardian of the DTI strategy, opposes putting Luas underground. "What would that do for the city? It would still leave all the cars on the streets," its director says.

"Our view is that street running LRT [light rail transit] would be the most visible symbol of the change in Dublin's transport system." Given that there is likely to be a public clamour for extensions to the network, once the first phase is operating, Mr Henry says, we now have to start laying down reservations for additions to the LRT system over the next 25 years". However, he emphasises buses would continue to carry the bulk of public transport users in Dublin.

"That's why we've diverted £8 million from our traffic management budget to make a big jump on the installation of quality bus corridors [QBCs]," he says. "We'll be putting in three more this year, serving Malahide, Dun Laoghaire and Lucan, and the balance of the 11 QBCs recommended in the DTI report will be done next year.")

The DTO also has a team identifying sites to be acquired and developed on the periphery of the city for "park and ride" car parks, as a further encouragement to switch to public transport.

Mr Henry is concerned about the spread of low density housing and shopping centres on Dublin's outskirts, usually along new motorways, and says this underlines the need for a regional land use strategy. Otherwise, he fears, "we'll end up with a doughnut city".

As a senior engineer with South Dublin County Council, he was prepared to "throw road standards out the window" if developers and architects came up with higher density alternatives to traditional semi detached houses, with front and back gardens. "Building 10 houses to the acre is not conducive to good public transport," he says.

Though the traffic picture will improve somewhat in July and August because of school holidays, the respite this year will not be as noticeable as before because of the explosion in the number of cars. But the DTO will continue to monitor the trends to ensure that the figures in its £2 million computer model match the reality.