Tendering for construction is expected later this month on the BusConnects ‘Ballymun / Finglas to City Centre Core Bus Corridor Scheme’.
The Ballymun / Finglas to City Centre route includes removing cycle lanes, narrowing footpaths in Phibsborough, and removing cycle lanes in locations such as Church Street to enable more continuous bus lanes.
Phibsborough is already a high-density area that is expected to see an increase in its population, and it serves as an urban centre for a wider area that is also experiencing an increase in population density.
Hugh Creegan, the National Transport Authority’s deputy chief executive, told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport that the authority was getting ready to go to tender on the route.
He was responding to a question from Meath TD Darren O’Rourke (Sinn Fein), who asked: “Eventually, my question on the matter of ensuring punctuality [of commuter bus routes to Meath] is this. These services are largely on the N2 or old N2 route or the M3 or old N3 route. Are there quality bus corridors? Are they part of BusConnects? You can get caught at Phibsborough or the Halfway House on the N3. Will they be resolved? What is the timeline for those? Are they factored into the Dublin BusConnects programme?”
Creegan said: “The Finglas scheme has planning consent and we will start tendering it for construction later this month. There are no legal challenges against it. The Blanchardstown scheme just received approval about one week ago. After receiving approval, there are two months in which people could challenge it.”
On timelines, he added: “Our target is to get contractors on the ground at the beginning of next year. It would be two to three years to build the whole corridor. Bits of it would obviously get done far earlier than that, so it is not a case of waiting until the end for something. It will come incrementally.”