Roads carry over 90 per cent of freight traffic and 96 per cent of passenger traffic in this country. However, these figures need to be seen in context. In the mainline rail corridors, the share of passenger and freight traffic carried by rail is significantly higher, while in Dublin rail carries 11 per cent of passengers crossing the inner cordon each morning. It is also important to realise that bus-based public transport depends on an efficient road network.
The community support frame work, which the Government successfully negotiated with the EC Commission last year, identified investment in access and internal transport as contributing to a reduction in the impact of peripherality and as supporting productive investment in the industrial and tourism sectors. Under the CSF, the EC Commission has committed 700 million ECU to transport investment, of which 580 million ECU will be devoted to roads. This reflects the reality that roads are and will continue to be the dominant mode of internal transport. Our high level of dependence on roads arises from our small size and population, our island status, the low level of urbanisation and the widely dispersed pattern of settlement.
