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Maybe we should try giving people more options rather than building more roads first? Comment & Analysis: The concept of induced demand that more roads equals not just more cars but more congestion is often challenged, but it is proven over and over again, so its more than just brainworm for Progress Ireland to try to deny that induced demand exists, and it often happens within a year or two. Progress Ireland describes itself as a think tank which is focused on building houses, tunnels, companies, government agencies, transmission lines, batteries, and positivity. In fairness to them, they also advocate for rail, and when Sen Keyes, its executive director, appeared on RT Radio One and Newstalk this week, he mainly advocated for more rail. But some ideas in his article on orbital motorways for Dublin need to be challenged. Ill explain why.First, if youre unaware of, or new to, induced demand relating to motorways and other large roads, Not Just Bikes maybe has one of the best explainers out there:In a post on the think tanks Substack, Keyes, said: There is a brainworm that says its futile to build new roads, because new roads do not relieve traffic congestion.There is a germ of truth in this. In the long run, new roads do not relieve traffic congestion. When new roads get built, they relieve congestion for a while; eventually, new homes and workplaces get built alongside them and congestion settles back to normal. The process might take five to ten years.Keyes has a load of very strange lines in his article. He claims, The problem with this brainworm is that it views roads from the individual drivers perspective, when not one transport professional, academic, campaigner, or YouTuber who Ive seen talk or write about induced demand in any half-serious way has only looked at the drivers perspective. He argues that For employers, an eight lane motorway will be more useful than a four lane one even if their traffic speeds are identical because it will let them access more potential workers. But the problem with more lanes on the M50 or in parallel to it is that an eight-lane M50 might be what many employers want, but it still wont work, or, more correctly, the cost would be too great. Too many people talk about it in simple terms that the M50 cannot be expanded. Thats not really true. The cost would just be too high. Widening the M50 would need to involve the upgrade of every national route leading into it and a full rebuild of most junctions. Youre talking about the loss of thousands of homes, many businesses, community centres, green areas, etc, as well as the environmental impact, the investment cost, and then at the end of the day, the city will still be gridlocked with a lack of investment in the alternative: transport-oriented development planning and investment in active travel, buses, trams, metros, suburban and intercity rail. Keyes has calculated that Dublin needs 18 lanes of ring road based on 1960s UK road traffic planning (that has really worked well for the UK). Even if those 18 lanes are a combination of extra M50 lanes, and some kind of mix of widening the national routes, and an outer motorway or a Dublin Bay motorway, theres going to be a huge cost to it.Keyes argues:None of this means every new road is worth building. Extra traffic brings emissions, noise and sprawl, and the trips a new road induces are, by definition, the ones that werent worth making when the road was busier. But it will just fill up again is not, by itself, an argument against building anything a road or a railway or a hospital. Filling up is the point.But actually the point of a hospital is to treat people. A society should prefer hospitals that dont get as congested as the M50, and where fewer people need their services because illnesses are effectively treated and, even better, prevented.And no Government is selling a road saying it will fill up again within years, and no roads agency is saying that its a reason to build more and more urban motorways.Keyes article just goes off the rails comparing different cities orbital motorway provision to their populations without looking at many factors, including looking at many factors including those motorways serving much larger populations and, in many cases in Europe, international road routes. He points out that on its busiest stretch, between the N4 and the N7, the M50 carries at most about 6,100 vehicles an hour southbound. The M50 is 8-10 lanes wide on this section.Compare that to MetroLink; itll have a maximum capacity of 20,000 passengers per hour in each direction during peak periods for two tracks. A lot of MetroLinks expense is that it will be mostly underground, while a missing link in Dublins orbital transport infrastructure, an orbital pre-metro, metro or suburban railway (Dart), does not have to be.Just like orbital routes can be key for motorway networks, an orbital rail link can be key for rail networks. This is because it would partly mirror the M50, or even more directly link many residential areas with employment areas. It could also provide a connection between the planned Dart+ network, MetroLink and the existing/planned Luas lineBut since Metro West was abandoned after the 2008 financial crisis, the idea of an orbital rail route was not even talked about much in policy terms for years. In the Greater Dublin Area Transport Strategy 2022-2042, the concept of an orbital metro is watered down to an orbital Luas.Theres likely a case to be made for more than one orbital rail solution for example, a Luas for more localised trips, with Dart or Metro line providing a faster, higher-capacity connection to main population centres while also connecting with MetroLink, Dart+, and Luas lines.Keyes says that the Red Cow is the bottleneck because its the crossroads of Ireland. But just as we have the ability to shift car trips in cities to walking, cycling, bus, Luas, Metro and rail, we can choose a different Ireland where rail transports more people on national and all-island trips between our cities. Rail is not suited for everything, but it is very well suited to intercity trips.When challenged after posting the article on LinkedIn, Keyes again conflates national and city transport. In every country in the world, from Switzerland to Japan to Denmark, cars have the biggest modal share. And as I showed, Dublins peer cities in Europe have far greater road capacity he said.But in his article, he mainly talked about city- and city-bound commuting trips (including the edge of the city), and, as covered above, not taking into account the motorway networks purpose in and around many of those cities, including a capacity for a mix of regional, national and even international trips. In his replies, Keyes also says both can be true: Dublin needs more rail and more motorways. But the problem with this is system and funding capacity, and the futility of building more urban motorways and expecting something different. He also mentions growth in both his article and replies, but cities around Europe have shown that areas can grow while reducing not just car modal share, but the actual number of cars.In Dublin, there is an argument that the M50 needs capacity for truck trips to the Port and other national and regional trips passenger rail might not be well suited for, but there are many local and regional commuters on the M50 making trips for example, between areas of west Dublin and between commuter counties and edge of Dublin sites that can be shifted from car to rail. Indeed, given that many motorists who are stuck using the M50 keep telling radio shows and posting online, etc, that theyd love other options, so why is there continually a pretence that many M50 trips cannot be shifted to public transport?That means pushing ahead with MetroLink, but also pushing ahead with the delayed Dart+ programme, building the Finglas Luas, and planning orbital rail now. We also need to build housing near stations and active travel networks to extend the reach of rail and make the connections more seamless.

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