THE Chartered Institute of Transport in Ireland has called for immediate action on the Dublin Transport Initiative's proposals in a strong statement at the weekend. The institute, which is an independent transport professional body, said that the "time for ill informed, unproductive and inconclusive debate by commentators with no transport expertise" was long past and action was now overdue.
The institute said it was difficult to envisage any wider consultative approach than the one which followed the DTI formulation and, although debate was welcome, the fundamentals must be accepted at this stage and should no longer be an issue.
"In the past 20 years, many changes have successfully been introduced in the city, including the pedestrianisation of Grafton Street and Henry Street, bus lanes, altered traffic layouts, the reversal of traffic flows on the quays and improved traffic signal co ordination," it said.
Despite constantly growing traffic levels, traffic continues to move, albeit sometimes very slowly, but terminal gridlock has not yet arrived." The institute said it was confident Dublin's traffic engineers had "the expertise to bring about the peaceful coexistence of Luas and other means of transport".