A senior Dublin City Council official has said that the National Transport Authority has informed the council that buses will be removed from the Dame Street to College Green route by next summer, paving the way for a new College Green Plaza plan to be progressed.
Dublin City Council has said it wants to move faster on projects such as the plaza as part of the Dublin City Centre Transport Plan. The council has indicated that a rellocation of space on the street could happen ahead of a full redesign of the area.
Any changes are dependent on bus routes being moved out of the area from College Green to Dame Street as far as George’s Street. This is being done as part of the BusConnects rollout, which includes moving routes, but a shortage of mechanics and drivers has slowed that process.
In a debate mainly about the changes about making Parliament Street car-free and bus priority measures on Westland Row and Pearse Street, Cllr Claire Byrne (Green Party) said she also welcomed the plans for Parliament Street but asked for an update on College Green.
She said the Parliament changes are “a real statement in the progress we have made in making the city calmer and safer, as well as reducing our emissions.”
Cllr Claire Byrne (Green Party) said she also welcomed the plans for Parliament Street and thinks the local businesses will be really happy with the news. She said: “It’s a real statement in the progress we have made in making the city calmer and safer, as well as reducing our emissions.”
She highlighted how making Parliament Street traffic-free while rerouting buses elsewhere has meant one of the objections of the original College Green Plaza plan, that re-routed buses would use Parliament Street, no longer exists.
But she asked for an update of where the city council is with the discussion with the National Transport Authority (NTA) on the rerouting of buses from College Green going east-west. The north-south bus movements along the Luas line will continue.
Cllr Byrne said: “Can the manager outline exactly what discussions are taking place with the National Transport Authority in relation to the BusConnects network redesign and how as a city can we put pressure on them because we cannot have this project stalled — we’ve already been talking about it for 10 years, the people want it, we know this it makes sense.”
Brendan O’Brien, the head of the transport section of the council, said: “On College Green, the issue with the BusConnects redesign is, as everybody knows, it’s through a combination of driver shortages and various various other things that is not it’s not on the schedule as it as it should be.”
He added: “However, what the NTA have informed us is that by summer next year, the network redesign will be at a stage where the buses will be out of College Green to allow us to make movement in that area.”
IMAGE: An artist’s impression of a previous design for the plaza.