Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

To follow on on the theme of transport, the BusConnects programme from the National Transport Authority is the subject of a major public consultation process and today is the last day for residents in Dublin to put in their observations on it. I want to make one comment of general, not local, application about that. There is a danger in putting traffic engineers in charge of a process who get it into their heads that bus transport in an urban area is the only solution and that other traffic such as lorries, vans and ordinary cars are somehow the problem. There is a simplistic notion that everybody's traffic needs are the same but they are not. If one has to bring one's children to a crèche or visit one's aged mother-in-law every day, buses may be completely useless for that. We can have buses flying in every direction and they are of absolutely no assistance to somebody whose daily existence requires car mobility. I want to put on the record of this House that we should never get involved in a process where the engineers come up with the idea that bus transport is the answer to everything. I am not saying it should not be radically improved but we should not get into a position where we have tunnel vision and the result is massive traffic congestion for all other forms of transport.