The current corridor plans of Bus Connects formulated by the NTA is due to close submissions by this Wednesday, December 16th, this must be extended says local Peter Dooley. He added “The most recent corridor phase has been symptomatic of the failure of Bus Connects. It is deeply flawed in its detail on proper traffic modelling and has demonstrated utter contempt, in particular, to the Dublin 12 community with the shocking lack of public engagement. The proposed plans are to create a bus corridor on the Lower Kimmage Road at Ravensdale Park where currently 18,000 vehicles per day use this road. A great deal of this traffic will be displaced throughout the residential roads of Kimmage and Crumlin causing serious environmental and social damage.”
“Bus Connects is estimated to cost €2.5bn plus of our public money also plans to, unbelievably in a climate emergency, destroy 3,000 trees. The NTA have also given 10% of our bus routes in Dublin to a private English company Go-Ahead. The proposed plans will have catastrophic impacts on the Dublin 6/12 community, the NTA are in clear breaches of the Aarhus Convention. The NTA carried out a very restrictive process which paid no regard to the overwhelming majority of people in the community, including very vulnerable and already marginalised groups, who will be hugely impacted.”
“I directly demand that the NTA consultation phase is extended beyond this date and I urge the Minister For Transport, Eamon Ryan to intervene now to push this beyond December 16th until everyone in the Dublin 6 and 12 community is properly informed and engaged with the proposed plans and all voices are really listened to. People, communities and our environment must come first. That means we should be investing in dramatically increasing the bus fleet to offer a free bus service, that has been hugely successful in Luxembourg, along with safe, segregated and joined-up cycleways. There needs to be real and sustainable solutions not the ideas of the NTA, an undemocratic quango who shamefully privatised 10% of our bus routes in Dublin and are now trying to run roughshod over communities.” concluded Peter Dooley.
