Comment & Analysis: To say I am angry at this is an understatement. BusConnects for Phibsborough was never a good idea. It condemns a neighbourhood that could be a destination into a traffic hole for years to come. The plan for the area is climate-denying, polluting, and urban design aberration.
IrishCycle.com reported this week that the National Transport Authority (NTA) plans later this month to tender for construction of the BusConnects ‘Ballymun / Finglas to City Centre Core Bus Corridor Scheme’, which includes Phibsborough. If all goes well with companies tendering for the project’s construction, work should start in 2025 and take two to three years.
Anyone who has ever walked in Phibsborough knows how narrow the footpaths are already, but the plan is to narrow them further.
This is part of the country’s most densely populated area, and its density is increasing. Cities thrive when footpaths are wide. In a climate crisis, reducing footpaths and removing cycle lanes so car traffic stays the same is incomprehensible.
At the moment, it is OKish to cycle from my shop on Phibsborough Road to the bottom of Church Street. After this plan, when I and the hundreds of people living on that stretch leave our place, we will be left to mix with buses.
The plan for people cycling through the area is to detour them away from the Phibsborough Road and along a parallel route via Royal Canal Bank with little direct access to the village. In the middle of a climate collapse, we are still proposing that people on bikes go around places while people in cars keep the privilege of going straight on a straight road while keeping private vehicle lanes intact.
We also still do not know how people on bikes are supposed to reach Constitution Hill via Royal Canal Bank or how people living on the east side are supposed to cross four lanes to get to it.
Not only is it the wrong choice to divert people who are cycling, but it’s also the expense choice not to inconvenience private cars. Instead of having a bus signalling system at each end of the village, which would have allowed for larger footpaths and cycle lanes, the engineers came up with digging up a tunnel underneath the North Circular Road and building another new bridge on the Royal Canal.
There is no public budget associated with this project, but the cost will be eye-watering for absolutely no reason other than keeping private cars on that road.
Local people also lack confidence that some of the positives will actually be implemented as part of the plan. Any ‘improvement’ in the plan—for example, there is supposed to be an extra pedestrian crossing in the village—could be dropped at any time.
Nearby on Dorset Street, An Bord Pleanála planning inspector said the BusConnects route’s planning conditions should include extra pedestrian crossings to comply with national guidelines. The planning board overruled their own inspector, calling the idea of crossings on four sides of a junction “unwarranted.”
For me, air quality is a big issue. In their environmental report, the Nationa Transport Authority’s own reports outline that the European air quality standards (for NO2 especially) are not being met. There are multiple breaches along the route, showing shocking levels of NO2.
The following is from the NTA’s reports:
As a reminder, NO2 provokes asthma and respiratory insufficiency, stunts children’s lungs and is linked with dementia. So, these levels are illegal already.
We are already breathing huge amounts of NO2, and a ‘sustainable transport’ project will make it worse for years to come (the NTA advances that it will be 2043 before things get better) in a very densely populated area that is getting denser.
So, more people will be exposed to those levels for years to come. The NTA writes this down, and then An Bord Pleanála approves the plan even if they know it is breaking the law and exposing thousands of people to poison. Words fail me.
There could also be an impact on businesses. We know that businesses thrive from calmer streets. I wish our local businesses had the money that the ones opposing the Dublin City Centre Transport Plan have. Would Dublin City Council’s chief executive have received us twice to ‘hear their concerns’?
BusConnects for Phibsborough is a farce. It is dangerous for people’s health. It will stunt the growth of an otherwise lovely area for years to come. It also reinforces the split between the wealthy part of the area and the rest (namely south of Doyle’s Corner), which is, as usual, treated like a traffic corridor and not a place where people live.
Anne Bedos runs the bicycle shop and social enterprise Rothar in Phibsborough.
