Ireland is heading for a transport crisis if money isn't invested in viable alternatives to the car culture, it was claimed today.
The Sustainable Transport Working Group has called for a rethink of Ireland's transportation strategy.
Sustainable Transport Working Group chairman Gavin Harte
The group, which held a forum in Dublin today, said that with rising oil prices, the explosion in the number of cars on the road and increased gridlock, it was widely agreed that there was a problem with transport in Ireland.
"We really do need to consider viable alternatives. . . . We're driving down a cul-de-sac and we don't realise it's a cul-de-sac," the working group's chairman, Gavin Harte, said.
Mr Harte said the group believed that there was no strong voice in favour of public transport but that public transport was better in many ways than private transport.
Cormac Rabbitt, an engineer with the Dublin Metro Group, called for an underground rail system under the city linking existing transport hubs in a "circle line" round central Dublin.
Brian Guckian, a researcher into rail and integrated transport, said that rather than building motorways around Ireland, a dual approach that upgraded existing roads and improved and extended railways was cheaper and more effective.
"Motorways open up land for development in the most inappropriate way. "We have to get away from long distance commuting, which is destroying people's lives," he said.
PA