Dublin 9th most congested city of 200

from the TomTom traffic index for 2025, it was widely reported, its the length and time of the commutes that puts Dublin at top of league. Indian cities might be highly congested but probably they not travelling far in those cities, and a huge amount more people and traffic need to traverse those cities compared to Dublin. Whatever about the survey it is what Conor Skeehan the former Dublin corporation manager revealed, that business and footfall in dublin city centre has fallen since 2019 but traffic congestion has increased and this is all designed congestion because of the decisions made since 2019 restricting traffic movement but not providing hard infrastructural alternatives like the most "progressive" cities do when they bring in such restrictions. Most of the decisions like cycle lanes and pedestrianised streets are "performative" and "theatrical" without consideration of the consequences on the overall movement of the city as that is always someone else's problem to deal with here.

Looking more at a specific intervention (which I do recognize can fall victim to selection bias), do you think the Parliament Street traffic free project was performative?

The council have data for footfall in the area from before and after the "theatrics" so that might offer some insight.

Is was bad in 2019 as well. It's always been bad.

"..Last year, a study by Dublin Chamber found that almost 75% of companies in the capital had experienced negative effects on their business due to traffic problems...."

would be curious to see the data behind the lower business activity though

The working from home phenomenon where alot of office workers are no longer in city 5 days a week, alot of civil servants traditionally worked in city centre and they have been most liberal in being allowed continue WFH.

Also the restrictions on car access during and since covid has reinforced the fall in business activity. They used the enforced fall in traffic during covid to bake in traffic restrictions pretending that this was the new normal. In reality it wasnt natural but enforced.

certain types of businesses are probably being outdone by online shops but i was in city centre today and it was absolutely rammed, nice weather helped. it's also amazing to see how little footpath is given to pedestrians on dame street and other areas given how much they outnumber cars and buses, it's mad they've kept it this way till now but i suppose the idea was to keep kicking the can of pedestrianisation of college green etc. down the road.