Strategic Infrastructure Act in tatters?

A big decision from An Bord Plenala as reported in Irish Times today http://tinyurl.com/39y2kmb. The Board have refused permission for a 50 acre expansion of Dublin Port and to add insult to injury have a look at the appendix to the decision! They're awarded costs of approx. €100k to themselves (on top of the €100k planning fee) and awared €9K each to the opposing groups. This is of course on top of the 100s of thousands the applicant will have spent on design and consultancy fees. The 2006 Strategic Infrastructure Act was designed to streamline and fastrack projects of national importance. So on a day when enquiries into the irish banking crisis round on the house of cards created around development speculation, a real project facilitating trade, construction jobs and investment is given the KO on the basis that the applicant did not “adequately establish that the proposal would not adversely affect both the integrity of this SPA and the natural heritage of Dublin Bay”. The decision does not even conclude that there would be a adverse impact. Just imagine this happening in Europort,NL? So how will we get Strategic Infrastructure for future Energy, Transport, communications,renewable power (something on the scale of the Spirit of Ireland project), that need to be the backbone of economic recovery? It seems that the Strategic Infrastructure Act isn't part of the equation.

The Vision Statement

I have issues... with the Vision Statement. It is the ubiquitous section of the Development or Local Area Plan where the planner utilises the time machine to construct a series of bullet points in the present tense, of the wonderful place the world turned out to be after all. I've written a few myself.

As far as I know, in Ireland, its something that we imported from UK planning consultants, which imported the thinking from business school mumbo jumbo.

The problem is that it typifies a focus on strategic level thinking that ignores the nitty gritty. It is the equivalent of the powerpoint slide of a nice street in Holland, which by virtue of existng as an image will transmutate into action on the ground. It doesn't.

I presume most people don't want their town to be a dowdy, unpopular, dangerous place where nobody wants to go; so do really need an visioning exercise to confirm this.

Following on the theme of autonomous action, and bottom-up planning, people do know what is needed or the gaps in society, economy and the built fabric. Where planning has a capacity to address that need, thats where the focus of plan should be. A planning authority isn't in the coffee shop businees (this is a symtom of good planning as car/ bus choked streets are a symtom of less than optimum planning) but it can influence the fabric and infrastructure of the town that attract people or not.

The question is what actions will be effected to encourage change to happen. If the vision can't be achieved, for whatever reason (recession, funding, talent, road engineers)why include misleading statements at the core of a plan? Are development plans the place for spin?

The costs of congestion

Streets Blog has reported on the report that New York City residents save at least $19 billion each year by driving less than other Americans http://bit.ly/b7AByO. The Report is by CEOs for cities at http://bit.ly/bAlH0g.

This is really interesting because it puts a cost on not doing things. For example the average New Yorker drives on average 9 miles a day instead of the American Average of 25. This equals a saving of €48 billion. Petrol saved = €2.4bn. These are staggering figures.

This is the type of analysis we need to make sensible decisions about cities and transport. Various associations can we quickly tell us about the costs of a traffic jam, but they equate this to a need to address that problem through good infrastructure.

This is particularly important for light rail/metro vs. bus arguments. This was highlighted at the Irish Planning Institute conference last week with regard to transport options for Belfast. The only figures presented are those of infrastructure cost. The bus is cheaper - go figure. But how many people does a bus get out of their cars, what is the cost of reserving that bus lane? Buses have very low capacity, and get stuck behing each other at bus stops. What about image and environment, and city competitiveness. Quality Bus Corridors are a great improvement, but the service is still a longway off rail.

If city streets are viewed as an asset, buses get to use that asset for a very low/ unquantified cost. In Dublin we have so many buses on street that I think they're having a negative impact on the main city thoroughfares.