Taking traffic out of Dublin’s Parliament Street will not compromise plans for BusConnects or the creation of a Civic Plaza on College Green, city council engineers have said.
The council is considering three options to reduce or eliminate traffic in Parliament Street, following the successful removal of cars from Capel Street on the opposite side of the Liffey.
Two of these options would allow buses to stay on the street, but a third would make Parliament Street “traffic free”.
Councillors on Monday broadly welcomed plans to prevent cars from accessing Parliament Street, but several raised concerns at a Dublin City Council meeting about stopping buses from using the street.
Independent councillor Pat Dunne said the council needed to be “extremely careful” of any changes to Parliament Street that might have consequences for College Green, which the council plans to develop as a civic plaza.
Previous plans for the pedestrianisation of College Green “fell on the Dublin Bus opposition”, Mr Dunne said. “Parliament Street was to be the street that would take most of the buses southbound. I think we need to wait and see what comes of the College Green consultation before we make any decisions in relation to Parliament Street.”
Fine Gael councillor Paddy McCartan said removing buses from Parliament Street could be “problematic in term of implications for bus routes and the whole College Green project”.
The council’s senior executive engineer Claire French said revisions to the BusConnects project, the National Transport Authority plan to improve bus services in Irish cities, meant “Parliament Street is no longer going to be the alternative route for the busses in College Green” but would “only be a minor local route”.
The council would engage with the National Transport Authority on the proposals and on how buses could be redirected she said, “but it’s not going to interfere with any plans for College Green or BusConnects”.
The Parliament Street proposals will be released for public consultation in the new year. One option is to make the street “traffic-free”. It is likely that it would be done in two sections, one between the quays and Essex Street East, the only cross street though Parliament Street; and a second section between Essex Street East and City Hall.
A through route on Essex Street, from west to east, would be kept open to traffic to allow access to disabled bays, the District Court at Dolphin House, the Clarence Hotel, and for deliveries and resident access.
This option would be the most similar to Capel Street where the majority of the street is traffic-free, but it is bisected by the Luas line and traffic at Abbey Street and ends at Strand Street.
A second option would be to make Parliament Street a public-transport-only route: under this option private cars would be banned but buses, taxis and cycling would be permitted. Deliveries would be allowed up to 11am.
Another option would see the street reduced to one traffic lane: the footpath could be extended on each side by approximately one metre and the carriageway reduced to one lane, with some indented loading bays provided. This is seen as the least likely as the curvature of the road may mean it would not be suitable for a footpath extension without “significant civil works”, the council said.
