DUBLIN CITY COUNCIL has no plans to introduce congestion charges for cars entering the city centre, while charges for the highest emitting cars are being considered as part of a review by the Department of Transport.
Congestion charges and Low Emissions Zones (LEZs) are two forms of traffic management that are in place in cities across the world.
Congestion charges – which are in operation in the cities of London, Singapore, Stockholm and Milan, among many others – involve charging cars a daily rate for entering the city centre, with some cities charging more during peak traffic times or not charging during the weekends.
Certain cities then have an additional Low Emissions Zones (LEZ) or Ultra Low Emissions Zones (ULEZ), which charge the most polluting cars that enter them.
In London, which first introduced congestion charges in 2003, the daily rate is £15 (€17.50) for all vehicles without an exemption to drive in the congestion charge zone (CCZ). An additional charge of £12.50 (€14.60) a day applies to older petrol and diesel cars. Electric vehicles are currently exempt, though this is due to change.
City officials recently extended ULEZ to all London boroughs, despite some strong local opposition.
Negative effects of air pollution
There have been multiple calls from politicians and environmental advocates and experts for similar charges to be brought in in Ireland, particularly in Dublin City, to tackle high-level traffic and pollution.
Social Democrats TD for Dublin Central Gary Gannon told TheJournal that the introduction of a LEZ in Dublin city should be “considered strongly” for “reasons of basic health”.
“The north inner city has some of the highest levels of respiratory problems in the country,” he said.
“So I don’t think anybody has the right to pollute anybody else. I think we need to take practical solutions in terms of how we address that and Low Emissions Zones for me would be central to that. This is a matter of basic health.”
According to John Wenger, Professor of Physical and Environmental Chemistry at University College Cork, air pollution is “the largest environmental hazard that we experience, so reducing our exposure to that hazard is beneficial”.
Air pollution can have negative effects on people’s respiratory and cardiovascular health. The two main pollutants are nitrous oxide (NO2) and particulate matter. NO2 is associated mostly with emissions from vehicles, while particulate matter is associated with the burning of solid fuels.
“What we know about Nitrous Oxide in particular is that it does affect people with asthma, there is an increased incidence of asthma in places where there’s high levels of NO2,” he said.
We know that there is a connection between NO2 and asthma as well, and other negative health effects too.
Air quality in cities
The legal EU air quality limit for No2 in the atmosphere is an annual average of 40 µg/m3. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has monitoring stations set up across the country to ensure that levels of pollution aren’t exceeding the limits.
While certain monitoring stations have on occasion exceeded these limits (in 2019, St John’s Road West in Dublin near Heuston Station went above the threshold), in general the air quality in Ireland is marked by the EPA as good.
The most recent clean air report for Ireland, published last month, found that NO2 limits weren’t breached at 31 stations across the country. However, the report found a number of localised issues, including higher levels of NO2 as a result of traffic in bigger cities.
In these areas, while the legal N02 limit was not breached, the more stringent World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines of 10 µg/m3 were surpassed at a number of stations.
In its Clean Air Strategy, published earlier this year, the Government commits to moving towards meeting the WHO guidelines by 2040. Commenting last month, Dr Micheál Lehane, Director of the EPA’s Office of Radiation Protection & Environmental Monitoring, said meeting this commitment would be “challenging”.
“This highlights the immediate challenge to move towards the WHO air quality guidelines in the Clean Air Strategy,” he said.
While undoubtably challenging, the significantly positive impacts of clean air on health are clear and the report identifies some of the actions that are necessary to achieve the health-based air quality guidelines.
Meanwhile, other forms of monitoring show that the situation of NO2 pollution in Dublin city may be worse than the levels picked up by the EPA.
A recent joint initiative between Dublin City Council and Google’s Project Air View measured pollution in the city over a 16-month period. The results were published earlier this year.
In many areas, the level N02 in the atmosphere significantly exceeded legal limits. For example, at Doyle’s Corner in Phibsborough the level of NO2 was just over 55 µg/m3, with many other areas between the two canals in the city also exceeding the limits.
As well as this, as reported recently in IrishCycle.com, the National Transport Authority (NTA) published a number of environmental reports as part of its BusConnects plans, and found that NO2 limits went above the legal limits in a number of areas.
Doyle’s Corner
On rainy morning last week at Doyle’s Corner at about 8.30am, traffic pushed heavily from the North Circular Road towards the city centre and in the opposite direction towards Cabra.
Further down on Dorset Street, vehicles stretched all the way back down Drumcondra Road. An incident on Phibsborough Road had closed it off for the morning, and cars, vans and buses were bumper to bumper as they had to be diverted down Whitworth Road.
As the traffic snaked along slowly, people beeped from time to time and drivers sat in their cars – usually the sole occupant of the vehicle – and waited for the lights to change.
James Towell waited at traffic lights on his bike, cycling from to where he worked in Walkinstown, across the city. Towell said that most mornings he either drove to work on the M50 motorway, or cycled through the city centre.
“I would take public transport, but it’s very slow,” he said.
Taking a bus in is slow, but if there was a faster way to get into town, public transport would be better.
The M50 will take me about 40-50 minutes, but if I take a bus into town and a Luas out it will take me about and hour-and-a-half, so there’s no real incentive. I have no incentive for public transport.
Towell said he would support congestion charges in the city centre in general, as for most cars there should be “no need” to go into the city if they were are working elsewhere.
Government plans
In response to queries from TheJournal, a spokesperson for Dublin City Council said that congestion charges were not being considered as part of it plans to reduce traffic in the city centre, and that it did not have legal authority to introduce low emission zones.
“Dublin City is committed to reducing car use within the city by prioritising public transport walking and cycling,” they said.
“It has an ambitious City Centre plan out for consultation at the present whose aim is to deliver the changes in the city necessary to deliver this low traffic city.
Congestion charging is not currently being considered by Dublin City Council. DCC does not have the legal authority to introduce low emission zones.
Dublin City Council will fulfil the commitments made in the Dublin Region Air Quality Management plan which is envisaged will reduce air pollution levels to meet the proposed WHO standards.
A spokesperson for the Department of Transport said that it was currently working on a new National Demand Management Strategy with the aim of reducing congestion and freeing up roads.
Under the Climate Action Plan 2023, the department is committed to a 50% reduction in emissions from the transport sector and a 20% reduction in vehicle kilometres travelled by 2030.
“A wide-range of measures are being considered at this early stage to help achieve this ambition including, given the co-benefits for air quality and people, Clean Air Zones or Low Emissions Zones,” the department spokesperson said.
Implementation pathways, including the need for new or revised legislation, will also be considered as part of this process.
They also confirmed that any proposed measures will be contained in a draft strategy which will go out to a public consultation early next year, subject to government approval.
Any possible introduction of LEZs or congestion charges would likely be met with strong resistance from from a number of areas, including certain retail business owners in the city centre who state that the charges will damage their livelihoods.
According to John Wenger, however, reducing traffic going into city centres will be necessary to improve air quality and help Ireland meet its climate targets.
“All these controversial things that some people won’t like. But I think we’re at the stage where it’s not just also about the emissions that affect health, it’s the emissions that affect climate,” he said.
It’s a win win. If we reduce the number of car journeys, the number of cars, vehicles on the road, then we are going to reduce emissions to improve air quality, we’re also going to reduce emissions and help mitigate against climate change.
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