Poolbeg transport links
Deputy Andrews warned that new housing in Poolbeg and surrounding areas is already causing severe congestion and said transport promises are lagging behind development. The Minister said the greater Dublin transport strategy is in consultation, while BusConnects, DART+ and metro are the immediate priorities.
As the Minister knows, 3,500 new homes are being planned for the Poolbeg Peninsula. We hear a lot of sound bites about the 15-minute city. That sounds great in theory but the reality is very different. As the Minister knows, you will not get up the Seán Moore Road in 15 minutes. Residents living in the new houses in Ringsend, as well as in homes in Irishtown and Sandymount, are already living in a car park, with traffic almost stationary for large parts of the day. The Government wants to kick the Luas out for another ten or 20 years. If the Government is serious about integrated transport and reducing cars on the road, it needs to offer alternatives. How can the Minister stand over the delay of ten years, and possibly more, for the Poolbeg Luas?
Comment on this
Poolbeg is a critical development for our constituency and the city and is a model of high-quality urban living.
The transport strategy for the greater Dublin area, which was published last week, is in the consultation phase, so the timing of any particular project is open to variation. The first obligation on us is to build the BusConnects, DART+ and metro projects, all of which must start quickly. We need to get them through Government in the coming weeks and months, get them through planning and get them built. There are other Luas lines to Finglas as well as two new proposals in the south east to Bray and possibly beyond. The ordering of those will depend on a variety of issues. Funding is one issue and there are real funding constraints because we must also invest in Cork, Galway, Waterford and Limerick. Another issue is our engineering capability and our ability to deliver numerous projects at the same time. The key signal is that it is public transport first and light rail as a major part of that.