AA seeks proper bus corridors, not `glorified lanes'

The Automobile Association has urged Dublin's road users to demand proper Quality Bus Corridors, not "glorified bus lanes".

AA spokesman Mr Conor Faughnan said yesterday the Dublin Transportation Office and Dublin Corporation had failed to provide the park-and -ride facilities, integrated ticketing services and bus stop infrastructure essential to the success of QBCs.

A 1994 DTO report had described park-and-ride facilities as crucial to the success of QBCs but "lip-service" was being paid to their provision.

The AA had taken out media advertisements to "get the message to all road users about this. We are not anti-QBC but we want them to work properly."

Mr Faughnan claimed Dublin Corporation's own statistics showed the number of commuters using the Malahide road had dropped by 2,000 to 11,000 after the opening of a QBC last year.

He agreed the option of commuting by car is not sustainable in Dublin in the long run. While Dublin Bus was to be congratulated for the resources allocated to improving its services on the QBCs, the problem of what to do with people who commute by car but don't live along the QBCs remained. The AA wanted cars with more than two occupants to have access to the QBCs, and park-and-ride facilities on the QBC routes within six months.

However, Dublin's director of traffic, Mr Owen Keegan, said the QBCs were working well. People who had made choices to use public transport, in line with public policy, were entitled to better travel conditions. The fact that all the support services were not in place was no reason not to proceed with the QBCs. The critical QBC requirements - sufficient capacity, frequent service and good journey time - were there.

He denied any rowing back on the commitment to provide park-and-ride services. But it was not easy, given property prices, to "magic up" sites. A site in Finglas was "ready to go".

He was confident there would be park-and-ride services within a year. But this did not alter the fact that the outlook for private car commuting in Dublin "is pretty grim".

On the alleged decline in numbers using the Malahide road, Mr Keegan said this related to last November and he was confident updated figures, to be published shortly, would show higher numbers using the road.

The AA was entitled to represent the interests of motorists, he added. But the motoring lobby was a powerful group with "privileged access" to the media. Cyclists, pedestrians and bus users hadn't powerful lobby groups to advance their case.