THE National Transport Authority (NTA) has issued a range of materials and resources to explain the proposed new services under the Dublin Area Bus Network Review plan.
The BusConnects plan will see the city intersected by nine major routes or ‘spines’ running north to south and named A to G.
Buses will run every four to eight minutes along each spine, meaning passengers will never be waiting long. The spines will be intersected by orbital and radial routes, which will replace some current services deemed to be inefficient.
The redesign will see long routes replaced by more frequent local routes feeding into a spine.
There has been some local concern that some current bus routes will be replaced by a service that involves a change of buses along the way but the NTA argue that journey times will still be faster under the new plan.
The public consultation process runs until September 14 and to try sell the idea new materials have been made available to explain the proposed new network.
There are six area-based information brochures and an online tool that shows where passengers can go in 30, 45 and 60 minutes using the new network.
There’s also a comparison table listing existing Dublin Bus routes and showing which new services replace them under the proposed plan.
The spine linking Finglas to the city is ‘F’, which effectively replaces the 40. This will have three services – F1, F2 and F3 – each running every 15 minutes at peak times.
They’ll start and finish at different points but follow a main route, which will have a bus every eight minutes during peak times because of the three services running along it.
The E spine will run every five minutes peak time from Ballymun to Deansgrange through the city centre along the Ballymun Road, and would split into branches north of Ballymun Civic Centre.
In Dublin 15 Blanchardstown Shopping Centre will be the primary point where all routes meet. From there, the B Spine, every 7.5 minutes all day and every five minutes at peak hours, extends directly to the city centre and UCD.
Areas that currently have infrequent direct service to the city centre will instead be served by more frequent local routes into Blanchardstown Centre.
The cost of travelling on the new network will be determined by time instead of distance, with 90-minute fares covering a journey using a combination of bus, DART and Luas.
A short distance fare will also be available.
Hugh Creegan, Deputy CEO of the NTA said the new materials are proving helpful in explaining to the public the actual changes that will come about under our proposals.
“When we were in Finglas, we met with several hundred people, including some who had presumed that under our proposals, that their services were going to be scrapped, or that their journeys would be more difficult,” he said.
More details on the proposed changes can be found online at busconnects.ie. The plan is open for public consultation until September 14.
Meanwhile, Minister for Transport, Shane Ross, has revealed that €19.7bn is to be spent on public transport and road networks over the next decade.
Some of the funding will be spent on new infrastructure projects in Dublin, including Metrolink and BusConnects under the ‘Linking People and Places’ investment plan.