Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 3 June 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters

Accessibility in Planning and Delivery of Transport Projects: Discussion

Mr. Hugh Creegan:

Perhaps I will start as many of the questions are directed at the NTA. How many board members have a lived experience of dealing with disabilities? In terms of visible disabilities, we had one board member who was appointed by the previous Minister with responsibility for transport and who was visually impaired. He resigned to take up a post in the government sector a number of months ago. His post still has to be filled. He was part of the NTA board up until his resignation and there is now a vacancy to be filled.

In terms of members of the design team who have the same type of experiences, it is not possible for me to say that. There are, for instance, literally hundreds of people working on BusConnects in Dublin and in many counties as well. I cannot say that X number of employees fall into that category or not. It is the same with the MetroLink project, on which hundreds of people are also working. I certainly would not have the information to say how many of them fall into that category.

In terms of bus stops, it is frequently stated that we are replacing yellow poles with grey poles but what people omit to say are some of the other factors in that. At the moment, most of the bus stops around the country are actually very poor in terms of giving information to users. If the Deputy looks at most of the bus stops in her area, I am pretty sure they will not have any information on the heads of the poles telling people what bus stops there. If a person does not know about a service or does not know where it is going, it is not a very useful stop at the moment. Most of them do not have information carousels giving information on the timetables of the bus and the routings they travel. The programme on which we are engaged now is to actually roll out better bus stops, which give much more information to many more people.

There are approximately 12,000 bus stops across the country. They have not been very well maintained over the last number of decades. The Deputy will know that there are rusted poles and poles that are bent over in various places. We have opted for a stainless steel type pole, which is low maintenance. We recognise the need for visibility for the visually impaired, however. We have, therefore, put a very large flag at the top of the pole. By flag I mean a sign that is 400 mm wide and which, at the top, can be more than 1 m deep. That flag at the top of the pole is yellow and green, although mainly yellow, which provides a large amount of visibility just from that.

In addition, the carousel is the circular thing in the centre of the pole.

They have always supplied us with black carousels. We asked the manufacturer to give us yellow carousels. All the carousels we will be putting in place, which are about 800 m long along the central poles, are made from yellow plastic to make them more visible. We tried to balance the various competing demands between providing information to everybody and providing yellow parts of the apparatus, for example the flags and carousels, and ultimately providing information on how to use it. At the moment, a lot of it goes back to it not being available.

On the Deputy's question about Local Link services not accepting people with disabilities without a helper, I would like to check that one out before I give a response. I will write back to the committee, as I am not clear on that. In terms of changing places and the larger type of toilet facility, we have recently opened one in Connolly Station with Irish Rail and the intention is to roll out more as refurbishment happens. The next place is Dublin Heuston, which is obviously a big destination hub. Waterford's Plunkett Station is the third one, from memory.

On cycle lanes and concerns about people with visual impairments, I think the Deputy is referring to bus stops, how cycle lanes get around bus stops, and how the visually impaired are dealt with. We have had several conversations with disability groups and cyclists about this. Clearly, there is no perfect way of merging cyclists and pedestrians at bus stops. We have to balance various competing demands. However, where crossing of cycle tracks are required at busy bus stops, we are examining if we can put in a signalling arrangement for the visually impaired. It would provide an audible signal, as well as a red light for cyclists to stop in the cycle track. We are exploring whether we can and should do that in various places where there is significant pedestrian movement across cycle tracks. The Deputy mentioned consultation; we do a lot of consultation and involve disability groups. We do exactly what the Deputy suggested. It is not a “tick box” exercise for us. We take feedback on board and make changes. We are not able to satisfy everybody all the time but that is not unusual. I hope I answered all of the questions, but if I missed any by all means let me know.