A lost decade for Lucan Commuters
Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin Mid-West, John Curran has said that the National Development Plans, which were launched, last week blatantly ignore the critical need to improve major transport issues for hard pressed Lucan commuters. Deputy Curran commented; “The National Development Plan outright failed to provide for any upgrade to the already weak transport infrastructure along the N4 corridor and Lucan.
Dublin City will grind to a halt if Government plans go ahead as envisaged. Already crowded buses pass by waiting commuters in Lucan as early as 06.30am in the mornings, with no alternative to get to the City Centre for work. The Department of Transport’s analysis of the cost of congestion is now about €350 million per annum, in terms of lost productivity and time. By 2033 this could reach €2 billion.
“Lucan continues to lag way behind in terms of congestion and transport infrastructure in the City. Anyone living or working in Lucan can tell you that developing a light rail link such as Luas or making significant improvements to the bus corridor and adding additional buses to the fleet in Lucan would make complete sense. “There are significant gaps in existing services in Lucan; Dublin Bus routes are currently insufficient to deal with the growing population and traffic congestion remains a real issue for most.
Curran concluded, “It’s quite difficult to comprehend that in approving €7billion of taxpayer money to fund transport projects across Dublin; that the Lucan Luas project will not be operational until sometime after 2027 with no firm date set. At this rate of planning and strategic development it could well be 2040 before we see a Luas in Lucan and that is sole destroying.”
