91. Deputy Ciarán Ahern asked the Minister for Transport if his attention has been drawn to issues affecting commuters using the new F1 bus route in Dublin South-West; if it is acceptable in his view that workers using the bus to travel to Dublin city centre in the morning have had an additional 20 to 30 minutes added to their commute; the reason the peak-time, high-frequency timetable only applies to the northern part of the route; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16147/26]
Sentiment score: 0.11
Is the Minister aware of the issues affecting commuters using the new F1 bus route in Dublin South-West? Does he believe it is acceptable that workers who were using the bus to travel into the city centre every morning have had an additional 20 to 30 minutes added to their commute as a result of the changes to this bus route? What is the reason the peak-time, high-frequency timetable only applies to the northern part of the route? l ask the Minister to make a statement on the matter.
Sentiment score: 0.09
I have been very straight about my support for the BusConnects projects and the objective of the programme, which is to improve bus journey times, frequency, punctuality and reliability. That is off the bat. It is great obviously. The routes had to change because they have barely changed in the entire history of the city. When implementing any change to routes there will always be issues like this. Unfortunately, commuters coming from Tallaght, Knocklyon and Firhouse have not seen an improvement. The 49 bus route was a little more direct but the new service is bringing them down roads that do not have dedicated bus lanes and are clogged with traffic in the morning. We have seen issues with routes in some other parts of the city. We advocate that an additional route be implemented or that the 49 service be implemented alongside the F1 route, even during peak hours. People in Dublin South-West have not benefited from the increased frequency that people in other areas have.
Sentiment score: 0.09
That is exactly the point. It is about the interim measures. The roll-out of this programme is piecemeal, and I can understand why, but until we have all the infrastructure in place and all the routes perfectly link up, as per the overall plan, we are going to have issues like this. I ask again that the Minister talk to the NTA and suggest that it review this and maybe implement the 49 route again to run alongside the F1 route in the interim, while this is going on. We need measures like bus gates, priority traffic lights and all that kind of stuff. These are the technological measures we can take to give buses priority. In the meantime, however, an additional route to replicate the 49 route would be very helpful. The route change has left parts of the community isolated, where once there was a service. Older people in particular are having to walk 15 or 20 minutes to get to a bus stop, where they used to have one pretty close to them. There have also been issues with the reliability of buses. Because this is a cross-town route, people are getting caught in traffic coming from the northside and going to the southside. Some constituents have had to pay nearly €200 in taxis because buses are not showing up and have become increasingly unreliable, which is another problem. I ask again that the Minister talk to the NTA about it.
Sentiment score: 0.09