Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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453. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the status of the bus connect network review report; when the report will be published; and when it will be open to public consultation. [53126/17]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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Following the mid-term review of the Capital Plan, Budget 2018 provided for an increase in the multi-annual capital investment for public transport with a four-year capital envelope of €2.7 billion over the period 2018-2021. The increased funding will allow rollout of a number of key programmes to address congestion and emerging capacity constraints on our public transport system across our cities.

This includes investment of over €770 million for the BusConnects programme to address growing congestion in the Dublin region in the short to medium term.

In June, the NTA launched the Dublin Area Bus Network Redesign Choices Report for online public consultation. The report reviewed the pattern of transport demand across the Dublin region and the structure of the existing bus network. It identified certain issues with the current bus system and proposed possible strategies that could address those deficiencies. The NTA sought the public’s view on the issues raised in the Choices Report and, in particular, on the possible strategies that could be implemented in the redesign of the bus network. The responses to the Choices Report survey will be used to inform the network redesign process.

Work is ongoing on the redesign of the bus services network and also on infrastructure proposals for core bus corridors which will be an integral part of the programme. When this work is completed the proposals will be launched for public consultation in the first half of next year. The results of the public consultation will inform the final decisions to be made on the network redesign and the core bus corridors.