NTA “not fit for purpose” says Gogarty

Southside TDs have said that more needs to be done to improve public transport on the Southside.

Last week, Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien introduced new legislation to the Dáil, which looked to expand the powers of the National Transport Authority as works on the Metrolink and BusConnects pick up steam.

Minister O’Brien’s legislation looks to expand on the Public Transport Regulation Act 2009, which created the NTA.

The NTA was established with the intention of turning it into a system similar to Transport for London, but TDs have become frustrated with the NTA being unanswerable to them on operational matters owing to its nature as a statutory non-commercial body. 

Minister O’Brien explained the purpose of his bill was to provide a “clear legislative framework to enable the National Transport Authority to undertake the construction of public transport infrastructure projects, such as BusConnects, in the State, as it currently does in the greater Dublin area.”

Fianna Fáil TD Cormac Devlin welcomed Minister O’Brien’s push to grant more powers to the NTA, but said that existing issues, such as ghost buses, continue to be an issue on the Southisde.

Devlin, TD for Dún Laoghaire, told the Dáil that cancellation rates on some routes have reached 8%. 

“Fines for public service operators are one thing, but the public simply requires dependability.”

While welcoming Minister O’Brien’s attempt to get the ghost bus issue under control, he said more needs to be done to address the issue.

“The underlying causes, that is, driver and mechanic shortages and the congestion that delays buses across the city, must be addressed.”

“The NTA’s contracts with operators must be tightened. Reliability must come before expansion. We also need increased frequency on Sundays, which I have raised on previous occasions in the House, and integrated ticketing.”

Devlin also said that more progress and “far greater urgency” was needed on rail and Luas services.

“The greater Dublin area transport strategy provides for the extension of the Luas green line from Bride’s Glen to Bray. That extension was identified as a priority more than a decade ago. The Bray Luas would serve Cherrywood, Old Connaught, Fassaroe and Bray DART station, and it would transform travel along the N11 corridor.”

He said that expanding the Green Line would relieve pressure on a road network that is “at breaking point” and capacity on the line “needs to increase.”

“Yet, the most recent projections push delivery of the expansion of the green line into the 2031-36 window and that is simply not good enough.”

“The people of north Wicklow and the area south of Dún Laoghaire have been waiting too long. The DART+ Coastal South to Wicklow, the Luas Finglas extension and the planned extension of the green line to Bray must all be advanced with urgency,” he said.

Fellow Dún Laoghaire TD Barry Ward said, “one would think a place like Dún Laoghaire benefits from a fine public transport system and, in many respects, that is true. Yet, as we replace the 46A with the E spine, E2 to Dún Laoghaire and the E1 to Bray, we have not had the reliable service we would expect.”

“I welcome the 24-hour nature of the service and it has hugely improved access to the city centre for people in my area, but unfortunately, people do not have confidence that the bus stated on the timetable will actually arrive.”

Ward told the Dáil that an intern working in his office had to endure an overheated bus to get into work, and had to “wait for a long time” for a replacement bus to come along.

“I receive emails over and over again from people in the local area who tell me about ghost buses, something I know the Minister is aware of. We cannot have a situation whereby people try to get a bus to work, but the bus which is supposed to bring them there does not come.”

“When a bus is on the timetable and the real-time information at the bus stop, but does not arrive, that is a disaster in many respects.”

He explained, “first, it contributes to a lack of faith in the reliability of the system. It causes people to be late. The next bus that comes is already full. The route is one bus short, and it means that the capacity of the route is diminished because at rush hour in the mornings, buses are full and can barely cope with what is there.”

“If one bus does not turn up, that creates huge stress on the line as a whole and a difficulty for people getting on the next bus that comes. It is the same at the next stop and the stop after that.”

He said as a result, it people are late for work, which in turn “compromises their faith in the system.”

“The DART is fantastic and is a wonderful service but it is not frequent enough. I know this is a complex problem and is not something that is easily solved. The frequency of the DART is hugely important.”

Ward contrasted Dublin’s public transport system with that of Paris, saying that getting around Paris is “incredibly easy,” as Paris has a metro system coupled with a hyper-localised bus system.

“It means you can reliably get to anywhere within Paris within half an hour; the same cannot be said of Dublin,” he remarked.

“I have been a long time champion of a proper underground metro system for Dublin. That has to be not just part of the plan but part of the implementation.”

“If we had started the metro for Dublin when we started talking about it, it would be built now and we would not be relying on buses, many of which do not operate on an electric basis and are still using diesel, clogging up traffic lanes and contributing to environmental pollution.”

“We need to move to a phase where we accept that underground metro transport is part and parcel of being a modern, European city,” Ward said.

Ward agreed with his constituency colleague Devlin that an extension the Luas green line was “hugely important.”

“The Luas does amazing work. It has been a lifeline for many communities, particularly in the south Dublin area, that were just that bit far away from the DART or might not have add access to corridors like the N11.”

He said the Luas has “worked really well” but it has the potential “to do so much more.”

He said it is a “missed opportunity” that cyclists cannot bring their bike onto the Luas.

“For that microtransport element, the idea is you cannot get on the Luas with your bike at Cherrywood, get the Luas to Ranelagh and then cycle to somewhere that might be adjacent to the Luas but is too far away to walk. We need to do more to allow people to carry bikes on public transport. The Luas has done really good work but it could do so much more,” he said.

Dublin Mid-West TD Paul Gogarty said that the vast nature of his constituency means that public transport is a necessity, yet public transport is not up to the task.

He said that the NTA is “not fit for purpose” in its current form.

“This is casting no aspersions on the staff working in the NTA, who I acknowledge are dedicated, but as an institution and organisation, the NTA is not fit for purpose,” he said.

“It is not fit for reflecting the views expressed to it by individuals collating all that information.”

The independent TD took aim at the controversial BusConnects service, which he said is discriminating against people with disabilities and older people with bus passes.

“They are the ones who are least able to hop on, hop off and use the apps. Maybe the hope is that by the time the whole thing rolls out they will have died out, which I think would be quite a cynical approach,” he remarked.

“If we look at people with disabilities for example, at the moment, usually only one wheelchair can fit on a bus. It is hugely discommoding for someone to have to get off a bus and try to get another wheelchair-accessible bus to get from A to B, when they were able to do that in one go originally.”

Gogarty said, “in essence, there is no response to the needs of users when they express their frustration at the bus service.”

“That is what I mean when I say the NTA is not fit for purpose. A directly elected mayor for the greater Dublin area or for Dublin could look at these issues, take on board what people are saying, respond and, if a mistake is made, adjust it again.”

“The NTA seems to be coming from a position of it knowing what is best. It does not, because if it did, people would not be cheesed off constantly,” he stated.