May 27th saw the Interactions team make a visit to our local town of Bray for the Southern & Eastern Regional Assembly's Conference on Promoting Sustainable Transport.
Well how things have changed over the last 5 years! It was a full house at the Mermaids Art Theatre with the audience ranging from business people to minisiters and council members, all eager to know more about sustainability and transport as opposed to the ghostly subject of property. With some senior national decision makers on the panel facing tough questions from the audience, it proved an extremely interesting forum to find out the future plans not only for the South Eastern region but for Ireland's transport system.
First up was Richard Bruton, Minister for Enterprise, Jobs & Innovation, talking 'positively' about his department's focus on financially facilitating the 'Life Sciences Industry' - products & services in the areas of health & food, sustainable transport and IT Applications. All good news. Now lets see the actual plan and if the banks can help!
Next came the shocking but invaluable news that petrol prices are predicted to rise to €2 per litre by 2013. Is this sustainable for our small island! According to James Nix, Transport & Planning co-ordinator for the Irish Environmental Network, it certainly is not and we really have to come up with a realistic framework in regards to planning across all sectors of the economy be it passenger and freight.
The National Transport Authority's CEO, Gerry Murphy, then spoke of prioritising areas for national transport planning i.e. city hubs and corresponding cuts for areas such as rural transport. Basically, rural transport will only get capital investment if any for items such as vehicles. Areas such as manpower, organisation and infrastructural improvements will have to be come from communities themselves.
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| Freight Transport - Utrecht Electric Goods Train |
The Minister for Enterprise and the NTA's CEO were kept on their toes with tough audience questions and statements. Many questions centred around what plans were in place to offset the rise in the petrol prices to encourage commercial enterprise in an already critical time of banking non-lending and contracted demand. It has to be said that the answers seemed rather vague!
Then came talk of the long awaited but high unlikely Smart Cities Programme. Developed under the former Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey, it was designed to create a number of sustainable transport hubs. Quite a large amount of Councils including Limerick (represented at the Conference) had submitted lengthy and costly bids for this. But with more than a years delay in announcing the chosen cities, we will have to see if the programme does go ahead at all. A more definitive Yes or No would allow Councils to exit limbo land, make use of their current vital data and take the next step of looking for alternatives for finance such as Europe or private financing as in the case of London. A lot can be done between now and 2013. The impact of €2 per litre combined with an outdated inefficient transport system ain't a pretty picture.
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| Leisure & Tourist Transport |
Obviously, small talk amongst the audience members produced some interesting opportunities on the horizon such as the area of Sustainable Leisure Transport e.g. tourist bike networks. Councils need to think sideways for financial investment when it comes to making their transport plans a reality. Funds and support are most definitely there, what with the EC's financial commitment to sustainable leisure transport via FP7, the Department of Enterprise's focus on Life Science and Tourism and of course ongoing co-operation from neighbouring Councils through the Inter regional Assembly.
A shining example is the 18km cycle/walk way created 2 years ago from the old railway line from Newport to Mulranny in Co. Mayo. Attracting huge numbers of people walking, running and cycling, this has been a big hit with both tourists, locals and the economy alike. To see just how good it is take a look here. http://www.mayowalks.ie/WalkingTrails/Greenway/Newport-MulrannyGreenway/
See you in Mayo!
written by Helen Mullarkey
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