The Green Party has criticised a new report on the Eastern bypass motorway as being out of touch and out of date.

The Report from the National Roads Authority costs the proposed motorway at €4 billion, and proposes the construction of a new bridge across Dublin Bay from the Dublin Port to Booterstown.

Green Party Transport Spokesperson Ciarán Cuffe TD said:

 "This report lacks any sense of vision for Dublin. Instead it simply throws out more roads as a solution. This approach was out-dated twenty years ago, and it beggars belief that such an approach can still hold currency today."

Local Green Party Councillor for Booterstown Ruairí Holohan stated:

“From reading the proposal it would appear that they see an opportunity to fill in the south-side of Dublin Bay in a Dutch-style land reclamation project.  Booterstown would be made into an 'exit off-ramp' for this new super carriageway and would bring volumes of traffic similar to Los Angeles. 

“The proposal to bore a tunnel like the Port Tunnel or Channel Tunnel is really not appropriate for the Merrion Strand or Booterstown.

“The NRA really should realise that the boom time road building bounty is over.  The financial resources of the country would be better spent on rail infrastructure than tarmacadam.

“It may be time to rename the NRA as the National Rail Authority and send the road engineers off to Dubai where they may fit in better.

“We need a definitive directive from the Transportation Minister that this project is dead.  No more public money should be spend on a hobby project of roads expects."

Deputy Cuffe went on to say:

"Instead of more roads in urban areas we must invest in public transport. The Metro-North project between the city centre to Swords and the rail inter connector between Connolly and Pearse station would allow more people the choice of using high quality public transport and would represent better use of public funds. The success of the two Luas lines shows that if high frequency public transport is provided, it will be well used.

"It is incredible that the NRA can produce a report almost one hundred pages long in 2009 with only a passing reference to climate change. The report also acknowledges that the Eastern Bypass may lead to the transfer of people from public transport into cars. How many more reports do we need to show that more roads are not the solution to transport issues in urban areas?

"This report deserves to be binned. I intend writing to my colleague Noel Dempsey, the Minister for Transport, and request him to look again at the terms of reference of the NRA so that this type of approach is not repeated. It is anachronistic that tax-payers money has been spent on such a document.

"Both the Labour Party and Fine Gael supported the Eastern bypass and inserted it into the Dublin City and Dún Laoghaire Rathdown development plans. As both of these plans are currently being reviewed I call on their councillors to reconsider their approach and back public transport instead." 

The NRA Eastern Bypass Feasibility Report can be foung here: www.nra.ie/News/NewsAnnouncements/htmltext,16121,en.html