MINISTER FOR Transport Noel Dempsey has voiced disapproval of Dublin City Council’s plans to scale back the College Green “bus gate” to appease city business interests.
Mr Dempsey yesterday said he did not want the council to end or curtail the restriction on private cars passing through the city centre, and rejected claims that retail sales were down because of the initiative.
The bus gate is a bus lane that operates from 7am to 10am and 4pm to 7pm, Monday to Friday, restricting traffic on College Green to public transport vehicles and cyclists.
City traders led by the Dublin City Business Association said the move had resulted in a 30 per cent drop in business since it was introduced in July, and have lobbied councillors to scrap the measure.
The bus gate is also the subject of a High Court action against the council by 12 plaintiffs, including Brown Thomas, Louis Copeland, Q-Park and other multistorey car-park operators.
City manager John Tierney is to present a report to councillors on Monday proposing the car ban be lifted during the evening peak hours for two months. The suspension would run from November 18th to January 15th, to cover the Christmas shopping period and January sales.
However, Mr Dempsey has said he is not happy with any curtailment of the bus gate. He had originally supported a 24-hour, seven-day ban on cars passing through College Green, but this was scaled back to the morning and evening peak restriction by a vote of the city councillors.
“The bus gate is working. It’s making a very real difference to city centre bus users, pedestrians and cyclists,” he said.
He criticised “negative commentary” by groups such as the business association which had conveyed the inaccurate message that the city centre was almost inaccessible.
“Why are they doing that? It’s self-defeating. Wouldn’t it make more sense to get the accurate message out there that Dublin city centre has never been more accessible?”
He said he could not accept that the bus gate was a major cause of a sales decline in the city centre.
Car park owners would be better served by dropping their “high prices” to encourage trade rather than challenging the traffic restriction, he said.
Dublin Bus has also criticised the council’s plans. One of the principal aims behind the restriction was to end the traffic bottleneck at College Green that made it impossible to run bus services to a reliable timetable.
“The bus gate has been a major success. Before it was introduced it could take up to 40 minutes to get to Parnell Square from College Green. Now it takes 10,” said a spokesperson.
“We have been able to bring consistency and reliability to the 93 million customers who pass through College Green each year and we are very disappointed with this change. It is imperative that there would be a full return of the bus gate in January.”
Minister for the Environment John Gormley also expressed concern over the council proposal to partially lift the restriction.
He said comments attributed to traders in relation to the bus gate were “outrageous and unacceptable”.
The council’s director of traffic, Michael Phillips, said he could not comment on the proposals or on Mr Dempsey’s comments until after the report had been discussed by the councillors on Monday.
He said he was not aware of any direct contact from Mr Dempsey in relation to the proposals.
The Dublin City Business Association said it could not make a spokesman available for comment yesterday.
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