Stop the lights! Dublin is slowest capital in Europe
NO, it doesn’t just feel that way... Dublin really is one of the worst cities in the world for traffic delays, an international study has revealed.
According to research on over 200 cities in 38 countries, the capital is the third worst city globally for time spent stuck in traffic.
The study, by traffic consultancy, INRIX, found that Dublin motorists spent 246 hours stuck in traffic last year. Only passengers in Bogotá, Colombia (272 hours) and Rome, Italy (254 hours) spent longer.
The report also noted that the capital had ‘the distinction of having the slowest city centre in all of Europe’, with speeds dropping as low as 9.65kph at times.
However, traffic is bad right across Europe, which had eight of the ten worst cities. European cities were among the slowest in the world, as most of Europe’s urban growth took place before car ownership became widespread – resulting in problems with road width and flow.
Globally, commuters spent on average half an hour commuting to or from work and on average said that they were unwilling to spend more than an hour of their day travelling to and from the office. On foot of the report, Labour spokesperson on Transport, Senator Kevin Humphreys said that the results were not surprising for anyone who had been paying attention to traffic flow in the city.
‘Ultimately, we need to get the maximum use out of the infrastructure we have, which can only be done by ensuring that traffic laws are enforced, such as keeping junctions, bus lanes and yellow boxes clear,’ he said.
He added that the situation was likely to worsen over the next year and that instead of longerterm projects like the BusConnects plan, a solution for ongoing traffic ‘chaos’ needed to be found. ‘Perhaps if Minister Ross was as focused on transport, as he is on legislation outside of his brief, we would have seen a more timely and concerted effort to tackle this issue,’ he said.
Senator Humphreys said he
Speeds as low as 9.65kph
wanted a return to Operation Freeflow. First introduced in 1996, the scheme aimed to ensure that traffic laws were enforced.
Although the amount of time wasted behind the wheel was higher in the higher-populated countries, the report also found that these motorists journeys were actually shorter as they were located closer to more amenities. Overall Dublin came 52nd in the INRIX 2018 Global Traffic Scorecard, which was topped by Moscow.