Transport policy should tackle inequality, says Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin, in their recent submission on transport strategy to the Six-County Department for Regional Development (DRD), radically challenges the DRD's transport strategy proposals, which are still firmly rooted in British transport policy, with its almost exclusive reliance on cars.
The Sinn Féin proposals are a breath of fresh air, in several senses, especially if they get you out of the daily dose of carbon monoxide fumes from a couple of hours in the traffic gridlock. They pay serious regard to the Kyoto Protocol, which calls on the nations of the world to cut back their CO2 emissions.
``Transport planning,'' the submission says, ``has to break free of British policy which is geared to the motor car to the neglect of affordable and efficient public transport through community based taxis, buses and trains. The Good Friday Agreement calls for transport strategy to be 32-county. But the DRD takes no account of this framework. The absence of a rail link from Dublin to Derry, or Belfast to Galway, or Cork, is inexplicable when set against the needs of economic development and freedom of movement. We can no longer ignore freight, or the link between ports, for instance Larne or Roslare to airports like Shannon or Derry. How else can we begin to redress the unequal development and disadvantage between East and West in Ireland?''
Sinn Féin argues that the problems of rural transport, the fact that current motorways do not enter Derry, Fermanagh or Tyrone, have to be considered in the context of economic development but also of targeting social need. At present, the most disadvantaged sector, the non-car user, gets the least in terms of public spending. This is just reinforcing inequality and marginalisation.
``The equality agenda requires that the transport needs of all people, including the disabled, who are often isolated with no available transport at all, must be respected,'' says Sinn Féin.
The party advocates drawing up transport strategy through consultation with user groups, like those in schools, in workplaces, people in housing developments. Government and planning has to stop being top down. It needs to come from the people, whose quality of life is destroyed by bad transport policy, and whose freedom of movement is severely curtailed, by an uncaring attitude to those whose needs are greatest
Above all, profitability doesn't reflect social need. Transport should not be left to the private sector, but provided by government as a service for all if we are to combat social inequality in the new dispensation for Ireland.
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