A railway station, a funicular, driverless shuttles and a bridge connecting the East and West are just some of the proposals being mooted to transform Dublin's Phoenix Park into a world class tourist destination.
The Office of Public Works (OPW) has published a major report into how users experience the park in collaboration with Failte Ireland and The Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.
The document contains a number of radical proposals aimed at improving the 'visitor experience' and attracting more overseas tourists to the 1,750 acre park.
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These include introducing driverless shuttles and a railway station to cut down on vehicular traffic, developing a Visitor Centre at the Ashtown Demesne and dividing the Park into activity specific 'quarters'.
Other plans being mooted are the construction of a bridge between Conningham Road and the Northside of the Liffey and a funicular to take visitors to the top of the Magazine Fort.
Speaking on Newstalk's Pat Kenny Show this morning, the OPW's Rosemary Collier, who co-wrote the report, said getting around the park needs to be made easier for tourists and locals alike.
She told Pat: "Overseas visitors in particular but even visitors from outside the locale of the park, find it hard to read all the possibilities that are available.
"They’re not very familiar with the diversity of the locations and spaces."
Introducing public transport inside the park will help people to navigate their way around as well as cutting down on car use.
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Rosemary told Pat: "There has always been an ambition to tame that use of private car coming into the Phoenix Park.
"There are good public transport links on the extremities of the park put it's 4km long from Chapelizod to Chesterfield Ave and there is no form of transport through the park unless you hire a bicycle so that’s a challenge we have to look at.
"The provision of a shuttle would take out the need for people to use their own cars to move through the park."
She added: "There’s a lot of unregulated parking that happens at the moment and we would like to find ways to curb that - particularly the commuters that drive in and use the park to park and then commute on to work.
"There are a number of very good parking facilities and we encourage people to use the parking facilities that are already there."
The report has been on display at the Phoenix Park visitor centre for the past six weeks and can be viewed online Phoenix Park website.
Public observations are being accepted until tomorrow, Friday 26 April.
