Cities around the world that are reducing car access

Yep, the same thing happens in many big cities (Paris, London, Milan) but I don't think we ought to be aspiring to do much more than remove the issue where possible. I'd say the M50 is on "maintenance" rather than "development" mode for the foreseeable future.

And it's discussed every day! Look, I'm probably out of my depth here. From what I can gather there's some professionals and experts on the thread. But to disregard or not allow talk about motorways like the M50 seems a bit odd considering the massive impact it has on the city however, I'll bow to the experts!

Without the M50 the city of Dublin would be much more congested in fairness. You could certainly make an argument that the M50 has too many junctions to truly be considered a "bypass" but to suggest that without it the city would be less congested is crazy talk.

Traffic doesn't get magically reduced when you take roads away, largely it just gets moved to another road. An outer ring road, beyond the M50, would make sense to seperate the traffic using the M50 as a distributor with the traffic that is using it as a bypass. You could further ensure this by only allowing traffic to enter and exit the outer ring road from the West, South and North

Its not an exact science and although less road space can disuade drivers, it wont stop them driving if they have to get somewhere. To work, for instance.

like removing all the jobs, hospitality, museums & theatres from the city centre?

I might be wrong, but it seems like you might be trying to suggest that people simply must drive cars, that there's no alternative to this other than to somehow destroy the city centre, and that modal shift is either impossible or doesn't exist.

Am I just misunderstanding what you're implying? In baby-language for me, are you saying something along the lines of "the current volume of cars need to be facilitated in the city or something bad will happen" ?

No, I am not aruging for cars to be prioritised over public transport.

Yet we still need to recognise a growing population and that all forms of transport are seeing volume growth as a result, including car travel, which is still the most popular mode of transport according to the NTA.

Prioritise public transport but dont become unaccommodating to cars at the same time.

We also need to be looking beyond bus travel in Dublin.

An intergrated underground system is the only real solution. Relying on road travel only, which will always be for the most part shared between bus and car, will eventually flatline our growth potential.

Multinationals have already called out our lack of infrastructure and ambition in planning and it has already cost us jobs.

10 years for our first underground metro line is a long way away and it is unlikely to be finished by then anyway, given past performance on infrastucture delivery.

Which is fine, as long as cars are stiill able to get to their destination also, even if it takes them longer.

All seems very reasonable and rational to me, thanks for having the patience to explain! I think within the Greater Dublin Area they're mostly focusing on distributor type road systems with just a few isolated large roads projects proposed. That's quite different to - for instance - GTS or CMATS where fairly significant roads investment is proposed. For better or for worse I believe their thinking is that "Dublin mostly has the National Roads infrastructure it requires".

As long as there's demand for employment in one area, housing access in another and no convenient public transport between the two people will drive, regardless of how good it bad the road is

Might be less distance travelled due to increased congestion also.

What you're saying is "people will always drive to a place if there's employment and no convenient public transport". That's not true. Around 18% of people in Dublin city do not commute using ANY vehicle. It's not public transport making the difference here, rather it's their choices of place to live and work. I can safely say this as someone who would earn more money if I commuted to other locations, and I have friends who do same on a much larger scale than I do.

If you make a lifestyle choice to live in location A and drive to B to earn more money, then that's your choice and it's fine. But nobody has a right to high-quality low-traffic roads everywhere they may desire to go and they particularly don't have that right in a highly congested space like a city. The idea that we would prioritise transport investment in those taking up large amounts of space and resources - by their choice - rather than encouraging settlement patterns with extremely low waste and high efficiency is….well it's quite backwards to be honest.

What you seem to be demanding is effectively that some people's unsustainable commute patterns should be subsidised to a larger degree. That seems incorrect. We should be encouraging better spatial development, ensuring that there are high quality jobs near where people live.

TLDR: surely most people on this forum agree that we shouldn't be designing a transport system to facilitate unsustainable commutes. Certainly the NTA and government policy agree that.

In fairness the M50 has a big impact on my driving commute as it's now the suburbs and any congestion on the M50 backs up into everywhere else. I could drive into the city but that's becoming unviable. It's too congested.

My way to avoid it is to get the train, or cycle or a combination of both. If I do that the M50 is irrelevant to my commute. Though I have to deal with over crowding on the Trains and poor cycling infrastructure.

I think anyone driving in the city should try going multimodal. Getting a train bus mixed with cycling opens up a lot of the city. It's a revelation.