4.2.2 | NIFTI Investment

4.2.2 | NIFTI Investment Priority: Protection and Renewal

To make our towns and cities more vibrant and sustainable places to live and work, a key outcome of the NPF is compact growth. Specifically, a target has been set that half of population growth in the next twenty years is accommodated in the five cities.

Given its extent and value, protecting and renewing the existing land transport network is a key priority for transport investment. This is consistent with the recommendations of the Public Investment Management Assessment carried out for Ireland by the International Monetary Fund in 2017.12

There are already acute congestion issues in certain parts of our cities today, and the modelling conducted as part of NIFTI supporting analysis indicates that these problems will considerably worsen in the 2040 Do-Minimum scenario. While the population can be assumed to live in certain locations for the purposes of modelling, in the presence of severe congestion and long journey times it is likely that our cities would continue to sprawl in reality. Given spatial constraints within our cities, it is essential that urban congestion is tackled through measures such as improved and expanded walking and cycling infrastructure and the provision of better and more comprehensive public transport services. These measures must be designed with the needs of a diverse range of users in mind so that sustainable mobility alternatives are accessible to all residents of urban areas.

Asset protection and renewal (or ‘steady state maintenance’ as it was previously referred to) was the highest priority identified by SIFLT. A more expansive description is used here to emphasise the fact that there are certain interventions that go beyond strictly maintaining the network in its present state but which are still foremost priorities. For example, safety and accessibility are regarded as fundamental performance standards that must be present for the relevant asset to be deemed fit for purpose. Accordingly, necessary improvements to ensure safety or increase accessibility are considered a form of asset protection and renewal.

Protecting and renewing existing infrastructure will help to meet many of the challenges identified in the supporting analysis. The renewal of public transport assets will assist with decarbonisation. Preservation of the interurban road and rail networks will ensure regional connectivity. Protecting and renewing the regional and local road network and lifeline infrastructure ensures rural accessibility and resilience, particularly in relation to climate change. Preserving key strategic links will help deliver the necessary capacity on surface access routes to ports and airports and promote balanced regional development.

While sustainable mobility supply side interventions can encourage some level of modal shift, demand side measures that reduce demand for travel and disincentivise private car use must also be considered, such as reducing the availability of parking in urban centres and congestion charging. Innovations such as shared mobility and mobility as a service are also likely to have an increasingly important role to play.

While the success of a transport project is always to some extent dependent on policy made outside the sector, robust planning and land use is particularly crucial to urban mobility. Transport should be a central consideration for future development, reducing the need for new

In general, timely asset protection and renewal is more cost effective than restoring degraded assets later. While there will be significant investment in asset protection and renewal in the coming years

National Investment Framework for Transport in Ireland |Project Ireland 2040

infrastructure and optimising existing transport capacity, mitigating the need to travel and ensuring that the most sustainable modes are encouraged. The sequencing of investment will also be important in certain instances, such as ensuring that the provision of public transport infrastructure such as train stations precedes residential development in a given location to facilitate transport-orientated development.

Enhancing connectivity supports regional and rural accessibility and a strong and balanced economy. By addressing priority bottlenecks where they exist on the land transport network, the value of the network can be optimised. The types of measures that might be supported under this Investment Priority are diverse and will depend on specific transport needs and local contexts, but could include the introduction of a regional bus service in an area poorly served by public transport or the realignment of a road to improve safety, journey speeds and reliability. The Connecting Ireland Rural Mobility Plan is an example of an ongoing public transport initiative in this area, increasing connectivity outside our towns and cities.

The principles of compact growth and improving sustainable urban mobility are not confined to the five cities. There are over 200 towns in Ireland, and a consistent focus of transport development in all of these settlements should be to provide high-quality alternatives to the private car wherever possible.13 Improvements to urban mobility in these smaller centres, in particular, will also be of benefit to people living in rural Ireland who depend on local towns to access certain goods and services.