Dáil debates
Wednesday, 13 December 2023
Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate
Bus Services
9:40 am
Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I thank the Minister of State for taking this question at the last minute. I do not think he is responsible for this area but he may well be familiar with it as a Minister of State from the Green Party who should and would, I think, have an interest in developing public transport systems to take cars off the road, to decarbonise our economy and to improve public transport. In general, then, I start by saying I am not opposed to the BusConnects system in principle. If it improves public transport and encourages people to get out of their cars, all the better. The problem we have is with the actual results of the new routes being implemented. This is not the revolution we were promised in bus transport. Unfortunately, I believe we are seeing negative aspects and impacts on passengers and on communities, particularly on vulnerable cohorts within those communities.
In the latest phase of BusConnects in my constituency, in Dublin 10 and Dublin 12, the old 17 and 18 bus routes have been scrapped. The Minister of State may have heard a discussion about this on the radio. They have been replaced with the S2 and the S4 and a new route 74. Like many other phases in the BusConnects plan, these routes are not exactly the same and people accept this. The claim made by the National Transport Authority and BusConnects, however, that these new routes will give people better and wider access to more locations and more frequency really must be challenged.
Some people will now have to transfer to a second or, sometimes, a third bus to make a journey they used to make on one bus, for example, to get from Ballyfermot to St. Louis High School in Rathmines. The 18 bus route used to take people there. The same issue arises with regard to going from parts of Crumlin to Sandymount or a job near Ballsbridge. People now have to make two or three connections. This would be fine if the theory that these buses would be more efficient and plentiful and the transfers would be easy, smooth and timely worked but this is not true. I wish it were true but it is not.
This is not just a teething problem that can be ironed out. Large numbers of people are being stranded and are facing longer delays and longer commutes. For children and elderly people this is particularly difficult. In Dublin 12 and Dublin 10 there is no direct link between Ballyfermot and Rathmines or between Crumlin and Ballyfermot. Schoolchildren, who cannot easily move from their schools, are being affected in particular. Some parents are writing to me in particular about St. Louis in Rathmines because the children have to try to get two buses or a combination of three buses. Whatever journeys they take, the times they have to travel have been dramatically increased under this new routing.
One of the great claims made by Jarrett Walker when he devised the BusConnects plan was that people would be able to access wider parts of the city than ever before. In theory this is true but what about people who need to go to the places they work or regularly travel to for education or other reasons and have been discombobulated by this? I have appealed time and again to the NTA to provide direct links, even on a periodic basis, to compensate the considerable number of people affected.
If we want to make changes in transport for our climate goals and making the city a better place to live through public transport, we cannot leave large numbers of people behind. It is very damaging to the idea that public transport is the alternative and the future for many people. We have seen it happen repeatedly in areas such as Chapelizod. It is a growing village with many more people moving into it but the services have been cut to bits. We are also seeing it happen in places such as Crumlin, Ballyfermot and Drimnagh.
9:50 am
Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I thank Deputy Smith for raising this issue, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Ryan. I want to clarify that the Minister for Transport has responsibility for policy and overall funding in relation to public transport but neither the Minister nor his officials are involved in the day-to-day operation of public transport services. The statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public passenger transport services nationally rests with the National Transport Authority. The NTA works with the public transport operators who deliver the services and who have responsibility for day-to-day operational matters.
That said, I reassure the Deputy that the Government is strongly committed to providing all citizens with reliable and realistic sustainable mobility options, and public transport plays a key role in the delivery of this goal. To support this objective, in budget 2023 the Department of Transport received €563 million of funding for public service obligation, PSO, and TFI Local Link services. This was an increase from €538 million in 2022. More recently, under the new budget for 2024, a funding package of €613 million has been secured for public service obligation and Local Link services. This includes funding for the continuation of the 20% fare reduction on PSO services, the young adult card on both PSO and commercial bus services, and the 90-minute fare until the end of 2024. Funding has also been secured to support new and enhanced bus and rail services next year.
As the Deputy is aware, the Government is committed to improving bus and rail public transport and is backing up this commitment with significant investments across the network. This includes the continued roll-out of BusConnects. The latest phase of the BusConnects network redesign in Dublin, phase 5B, commenced on 26 November and involved the introduction of new southern orbital, radial and local routes. The S2, 74 and L25 routes are operated by Dublin Bus and the S4, S6, S8, W2 and L55 routes are operated by Go-Ahead Ireland. Phase 5B represents an increase in service levels of approximately 80%, which makes it one of the most significant changes under the network redesign to date. With the introduction of these new services, as of 26 November, routes 17, 17D, 18, 61, 75, 75A, 76, 76A and 175 ceased operation. I understand that information booklets were delivered to households in the areas affected by the launch of this latest phase of the BusConnects programme and an extensive media and public relations campaign has begun.
With respect to the specific queries regarding issues with the new BusConnects services in Dublin 10 and Dublin 12, it is important to note that UCD will be served by the new orbital routes S4 and S6, which will run every ten minutes and every 15 minutes, respectively. Other existing routes, such as the 39A, 46A, 145 and 155, will continue to run. Route S4 provides a direct connection via Clonskeagh to Milltown for the Luas Green Line and then to Rathgar and Terenure for connections with high-frequency services on routes 14, 15, 15A, 15B and 16. These connections are either new or much more direct than the route 17, which looped southward between UCD and Terenure. Route S4 then continues via Crumlin to Ballyfermot and Liffey Valley. Route S6 continues to provide the connection to Dundrum, but at higher frequency than route 175, then onward via Rathfarnham to give new direct connections with Templeogue and Firhouse Road and on to Tallaght.
I reassure Deputy Smith that the Department of Transport, the NTA, and the operators are working to ensure the optimised deployment of resources across the public transport network to match changing passenger demand patterns.
Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The problem we have is that all of this sounds great on paper. The data may show things are improving and capacity is improving. I know, for example, the late-night buses are a big attraction and capacity on them has improved and people are taking them up. Some of the routes are definitely better. However we are still dealing with a lot of traffic congestion in the city. For example, yesterday evening I travelled to the Phoenix Park and it took me an hour and a half to go 5 km. I was going to the protest at the ambassador's residence. It was crazy and I should have walked. Nevertheless, this gives an example of how bad traffic congestion is. Buses get caught up in this because we have not seen the infrastructure and improvements in bus lanes required to make BusConnects the great success it is meant to be. It is like having trains without the train tracks. We have all these trains but no tracks to put them on. At present for many people it is a pure disaster, particularly for people doing regular journeys, as I said earlier, to school or to work or to access the village where they can shop or socialise.
I also have real concerns about the way the National Transport Authority effectively runs Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead Ireland and tracks their performance so it can produce all the data that looks good on paper. The reality and experience for the passengers is very different than the data produced by the NTA. Supposedly a bus is meant to operate every 12 minutes but, in reality, there are gaps of about an hour at peak times because of the issues I have just mentioned with the corridors and traffic congestion. Because of the NTA's key performance indicator when the driver comes along after people have been waiting for an hour instead of 12 minutes, he is expected to wait at every bus stop until exactly the time he is meant to leave. If this does not happen, Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead Ireland are fined very heavily by the NTA. Companies are running bus services but what they are really doing is watching the level of fines instead of looking at the service they should be delivering to the passengers waiting on the streets.
Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I thank Deputy Smith. Deputy Smith mentioned Jarrett Walker. I remember meeting him with other councillors back in 2016. There has been an extensive period of consultation to try to figure out how we make a better bus route. Many of the bus routes in Ireland are based on the original tram routes, and not electric trams but horse-drawn trams. They even have the same route numbers and stops. The stages on the bus routes were stages where the horses could get some water. We have a very traditional set of bus routes in Dublin which do not reflect population densities and the new communities that have grown up. We needed to organise the bus routes and Deputy Smith probably accepts this.
Deputy Smith understand that when we change around the bus routes, even when we add extra services, there will be people who are inconvenienced and who will not have a direct route where they had one before. We want to make sure does happen is that far more people get a better service. On orbital routes to and from UCD, the peak levels with routes 17 and 175 had five services an hour in each direction, but now, with the introduction of the S4 and the S6, these have doubled to approximately ten services per hour. It should also be noted that communities will benefit from a direct connection to UCD for the first time. With the S4 these include the Long Mile Road, Crumlin Hospital, Ballyfermot, Cherry Orchard, Rathgar and Milltown.
On the S6, these new communities include Firhouse Road, Cherryfield and Templeogue. Areas that up to now had a direct connection to UCD and will require an interchange from 26 November include Citywest, Ballyboden, Knocklyon and parts of Firhouse.
As the Deputy points out, there is a problem with traffic congestion and infrastructure changes, which are the second part of this project, are needed and certainly have to happen. The real-world performance of the project has to continue to be monitored. It is not enough to say there are so many services per hour on the timetable. They have only recently been deployed, but we need to watch their performance data to see that the services are delivering what they are meant to.
10:00 am
Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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They are not, however, and that is why I raised this as a Topical Issue.
Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Go raibh maith agaibh. Sin deireadh leis na Saincheisteanna Tráthúla agus is féidir linn bogadh ar aghaidh anois go dtí Gnó Comhaltaí Príomháideacha agus an tairiscint maidir le dífheistiú méadaithe breosla iontaise.