An Taisce – The National Trust for Ireland supports the sensible list of Public Transport projects in the draft Integrated Implementation Plan for the Greater Dublin Area, and the Bus Rapid Transit proposals. To help illustrate the benefits of the proposals An Taisce has published a schematic 'London Underground' style map of current transport proposals that might realistically happen. It includes the Red and Green Luas, the Phoenix Park Tunnel, Maynooth and Kildare line electrification, and the three Bus Rapid Transit Routes.

James Leahy, An Taisce’s Hon. Secretary, states: "These proposals are very exciting because they are affordable and can be quickly constructed using the local skills we have built up from building the Luas and Quality Bus corridors”.

It is apparent from the map that An Taisce has published, that for the first time Dublin could get sufficient transport services to provide us with an integrated network. This will allow people to get to many different places in the city by making only one or two transfers. Other cities have shown that there is a ‘network effect’ with public transport. Once you have a critical mass of integrated services, then public transport use grows much faster than it does for isolated projects.

Speaking on behalf of An Taisce, the leading environmental charity, James Leahy stated “If the plan works, as it has elsewhere, we will have a system that could be extended to cover the whole city to serve all. This can never happen with rail projects alone, in our sprawling low-density city. To compete with other European cities we need to provide a city that is attractive and liveable and this makes this possible."

An Taisce will be submitting detailed comments to the public consultation and encourage others to do the same.

ENDS

For further information, please call:

James Nix, Policy Director, An Taisce Tel: +353 86 8394129

Charles Stanley-Smith, Communications, An Taisce Tel: +353 87 2411995

email: [email protected]

An Taisce The National Trust for Ireland

www.antaisce.ie

Notes:

In 2013 the National Transport Authority published a Draft Integrated Implementation Plan 2013-2018 for the Greater Dublin Area. http://www.nationaltransport.ie/planning-policy/gda-transport-strategy-and-guidelines/

The implementation plan includes three Bus Rapid Transit routes. The National Transport Authority is now carrying out a public consultation on these three routes with a deadline of Friday 14th March 2014. http://www.nationaltransport.ie/bus-rapid-transit/

Large size version available here (2MB) Currently the public is invited to respond to the three Bus Rapid Transit routes proposed for Dublin and the closing day is Friday 14 March. http://www.nationaltransport.ie/bus-rapid-transit/