Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 73: To ask the Minister for Transport the level of funding provided for quality bus corridors in 2006; the information available to his Department on the way in which this is spent; the amount and percentage of such funding drawn down in each of the past five years; the information available to his Department on the total number of bus lane kilometres in greater Dublin; the information available to his Department on the different splits between different QBCs and the number of pinch points for buses on each route; the total percentage of each route where a bus lane exists; if he is satisfied with the level of QBC provision in greater Dublin; and the legislative measures he proposes to speed up bus priority measures. [21968/06]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The development of Quality Bus Corridors in the Greater Dublin Area is funded through the Traffic Management Grants Scheme, administered by the Dublin Transportation Office, and implemented by the local authorities of the Greater Dublin Area through the Quality Bus Network Project Office. This year, I have made almost €38m available for QBC development, of which €24.7m has been allocated so far; details of projects and their costs are set out in Table 1, which is included with the hard copy of this reply.

Details of funding in over the past five years are as follows:

I am informed by the DTO that the current length of Quality Bus Corridors in the Greater Dublin Area comes to 139 km, of which 72.3 km comprises inbound bus lanes and 52.5 km, outbound lanes. There are also a further 20 km of non-QBC corridors with bus priority measures. There are 11 QBCs in operation in the GDA. Table 2 sets out the various details sought by the Deputy and is included with the official hard copy of this reply.

On the issue of pinch points, the annual monitoring exercise undertaken by the DTO shows where bus priority infrastructure continues to require an improvement in performance in terms of protecting bus operations from the effects of traffic congestion. The results of these monitoring exercises are used by the DTO to inform the development of the bus priority scheme programme. I am informed by the DTO that a significant portion of the Quality Bus Network Office's 2006 programme addresses urgent needs such as pinchpoints. The Deputy may care to examine the reports for Winter 2002, 2003 and 2004, whichare available on the DTO website at www.dto.ie/web2006/qbcmon.htm.

I am happy to see the continuing progress on developing a Quality Bus Network in the Greater Dublin Area. There is scope for further progress and therefore, under Transport 21, I have committed to doubling the Quality Bus Network by making €600m available to the Traffic Management Grants scheme over the period 2006 — 2015. I am not aware of any legislative measures being required to speed up bus priority matters.