Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Graham and Mr. Creegan for being here once again. Much of what I would have liked to have said about the strategy I have told them in previous meetings. No doubt Deputy Lahart and Senator Seery Kearney have articulated very strongly the metro south west proposal which I have seen. I live in Dublin Rathdown. I have mentioned the upgrade of the existing green line Luas to our guests before, from Charlemont onwards, although it is not part of this strategy. I do not want to see it being shelved or relegated any further. I would like to see it come back at some point or other versions via UCD and potentially the eastern bypass corridor, which I will return to. In this strategy the NTA is talking about an extension of the green line to Bray. What is happening in Cherrywood and in Sandyford is very substantial. That line is under enormous pressure. I take on board all the points about increasing capacity, the length of carriages and increasing the frequency but the green line is a very popular line. All Luas lines are very popular. They are like magnets. They suck people in because they are so reliable that people are willing to walk or use other ways of getting to those lines because they know they do not have to worry about timetables or it being every half hour because it is just so frequent. They are brilliant but we do not want them to kill themselves by being so popular that they are impossible to use. There were people getting on at Dundrum, going up to Kilmacud to cross the tracks and come back into town because they just could not get on at Dundrum to head towards town prior to the pandemic. I know that happened and I am sure our guests did too. I do not want to see metro south west replace it. There is space for both metro south west and a green line upgrade or a version of the green line upgrade. In terms of the green line being extended to Bray, it is already under pressure. Cherrywood is only starting to take off and it is not remotely close to its capacity. Sandyford has endless amounts of potential. That is before we even mention Dundrum and all the places around it, including Goatstown and all the other areas. I could not sit here without mentioning that the green line needs attention, watching and managing. I accept people might look at this strategy and say it is 2022 to 2042 but we had a strategy from 2016 to 2035 six years ago. It is not that we lock this in now and we never touch it again until 2042. As was pointed out by the NTA, the strategy is a six-year rolling review. It is effectively a living document that gets tweaked and adjusted based on populations, growth, development plans and all the other things. That is important. People might say that we are stuck with this until 2042. Where will we all be, if we are lucky enough to be here at all, in 20 years' time?

I was at an event earlier in Cabinteely. I cycled out there and the whole way back in. Here I am now and I will cycle home later. I am doing my bit for active travel as best I can. I have the best, most secure car park in Ireland on this campus but I know that many people, particularly with the better bikes people have been getting on the cycle to work scheme and so on, are deterred from cycling by the uncertainty that if they lock their bike to a Sheffield stand, or other type of railing or fence, that it will be there when they come back. That is a huge problem. There is reference to secure parking but I do not know how that mechanism works. I do not know how it works in other countries. The weather is not the barrier for a lot of cyclists - it is not the barrier for me because it is not as wet as we might think - but rather if I go to the cinema or a meal will the bike still be there when I return. In many relatively safe places people's bikes go missing; they are stolen. Many more safer places are needed whether they are guarded, locked in a bike-locker type system or in car parks where a credit card or swipe card is needed to get in or out. It is really important that we give people fewer reasons to not use the bike. I probably went for 20 years without being on a bike but am back on one for the last ten. People will realise how quick it is to get into town or to go from A to B on a bike and that is before we even talk about electric bikes, which I kind of feel is slightly cheating but are a real solution for many people and which takes up much less road space than anything else.

Many people will have been to places such as Vienna or Prague where there are huge amounts of civic space. That is not entirely the NTA's remit but it has invested in improving the civic space and public realm generally. The more attractive it is made for cyclists then the more people will shift to it. That does not mean you need to make it less attractive for cars, although there is an element of that. They will move because it is good for their health and their pocket. As petrol gets more expensive, the less you have to buy the better. I am not asking people to cycle in from Maynooth, although I know some people do but there are many journeys that people make in the urban area. I was a councillor for Stillorgan for 12 and a half years and I know that many people make a lot of journeys that are less than 2 km or 3 km that they could probably do far more quickly cycling when you factor in getting to the car, congestion, parking and walking to where you are going. This is a strategy and it is a high-level document and I accept that. I accept many of the points that were made that the public submissions were more operational than strategy but you need to get the small stuff right and you need to have people on board. With BusConnects, people must understand it better. My part of south Dublin has not seen too much of it yet. I think people are willing to embrace it but they need to understand that it will not make their system worse and that it is designed to make their system better. People are fearful of change but then all of a sudden there is a sense that it is fine. There was a big hoo-ha about the number 10 bus being gone and becoming the number 39A. People moved on. There is fear of change so the communications strategy is important.

I mentioned the metro. I am sorry that the green line is being not moved on. I make the point again about the eastern bypass corridor. The proposal for the motorway is gone, that is understood - there is a very significant reservation that cannot be lost or built on because that will never come back - but whether it is a Luas, a linear park with a cycle way or whatever, there are lots of opportunities there. The trip generator is between Sandyford, Dundrum town centre, across to UCD, RTÉ, St. Vincent's hospital right down to the DART line. They are enormous trip generators. There should also be an off-road route. Other countries have done it and we are trying to do it with greenways, although they have been more tourism greenway.

I met people from Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council some weeks ago and I am not overly convinced that Mount Anville Road is the best road in the world to put a dedicated path on because the gradient is so steep. Maybe it will work for electric bikes but I know if I was going to go from UCD to Goatstown I would not climb Mount Anville Road to do it. I would go another way that would get me from A to B but without that gradient. There is an opportunity along that eastern bypass corridor with less of a gradient and I would like the NTA to talk to the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council about this. There is also the bit heading towards the city but the bit I am talking about is all in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. There is scope there for a very high-quality off-road linear park with a pedestrian walkway and a cycleway. There is so much traffic and trip generators, particularly to UCD. It is an enormous generator of traffic.

It is also an enormous generator of parking difficulties around the campus and on all of the neighbouring estates on every side of the campus, including the Blackrock, Clonskeagh and Roebuck Road sides, and even towards Donnybrook. Anything that could make it easier to get to those places must be done.

RTÉ is a very significant employer. There are around 20,000 students and 5,000 or 6,000 staff at UCD. We must make it easier to get to and from the campus and connect it up, mainly by cycling if that can be done. A bus corridor or Luas line would be a good idea. We have talked about that a little. There is scope for the green line extension to be brought up to the eastern bypass corridor and along the dual carriageway, up from the DART and on to Sandyford. Currently, the biggest generator of Luas traffic is Sandyford, as the witnesses will acknowledge. Cherrywood will be similar to Sandyford both in terms of residential population and business. It will create more traffic towards Bray. I was asked by councillors in south Dublin and Greystones about building a twin track on the line between Bray and Greystones. I spoke to Deputy Matthews about it, who said it was not possible from an engineering perspective. Maybe that is case, or maybe not. Councillor Jim Gildea contacted me about it and there was a meeting of the Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly yesterday to discuss the issue. I was the first chair of the assembly a long time ago, so I am familiar with the work it does on regional and spatial economic strategies. If there was a possibility to introduce a twin track on that line, it would be helpful. If not, the issue deserves attention. We are trying to get people to move from aviation travel to travelling by boat and using Rosslare Port. The better that railway line is and the greater the frequency of trains, the greater the modal shift will be.

I apologise for giving the witnesses a long spiel. I ask them to respond to the points I have made as best they can. The strategy is a 236-page document. There is a lot of good stuff in it. I believe there is a reference in it to the option of introducing metro south west or something else. I would prefer to see metro south west and something else. It looks like it is being presented as an "or" scenario. I would like to see all of the projects progressing, the extension of the green line in particular.