Ballymun to City Center CBC Has Been Approved by An Bord Pleanala !

BusConnects Ballymun/Finglas to City Center Core Bus Corridor application to An Bord Pleanala has been approved by An Bord Pleanala on March 13 2024

This CBC will have many impacts within our area. GADRA engaged significantly with the NTA over the various development phases and made a submission into the final consultation, seeking to minimise and mitigate any impacts arising.  We note that this consultation was run at the exactly same time as the consultation on the Metrolink, which also has material impacts on the same area – something we highlighted and sought to have changed, with no success.

Arising from the approved design, of specific note are the following

Traffic will no longer be able to travel north via Mobhi Road to Ballymun.  It will have to divert via the Old Finglas Road.  This is a diversion of over 2km for private cars.  The application does not give details of this diversion or the impacts of their plans for permanent removal of rights of vehicular traffic in an eastbound direction on Mobhi Drive and northbound traffic on Old Ballymun Road. 

Cars travelling south on the Ballymun Road will no longer be able to turn left on to Griffith Avenue, but instead will be diverted via the “gyratory” to turn right around the triangle – we still cannot work out the full implication on cars trying to access our area with the gyratory.  GADRA did ask for examples of a similar existing plan anywhere in Ireland UK or Europe, but the NTA did not supply one to us.

There is a loss of right of way on Mobhi Drive.  There will be a permanent loss of the access to East bound traffic – the impacts of this have not been included in the EIAR. 

The Old Ballymun Road beside the Met Office will be closed to through traffic completely – it will be access only.

Right of Way

The NTA state that there are only three losses of right of ways along the whole route – however, we note that two of them occur within our small area, as detailed above.

Footpath Issues

The footpath on sections of Mobhi Road will be reduced to 1.8 meters, which is below the recommended standard as confirmed by the NTA. 

The use of Island Bus Stops throughout this plan necessitates Bus passengers alighting from a bus will have to cross a cycle track to reach the footpath (Section 4.6.4.5.1).  We believe this to put undue danger of passengers with a disability .  Given the numbers of students alighting from buses at the same time and the gradient on Mobhi Road, we believe there are risks for both pedestrians, bus users and cyclists.  It is not clear that the NTA pedestrian priority crossing points address this safety issue.  We feel the project is flawed because of its heavy reliance on Island Bus Stops throughout, and we do not believe that NTA have shown in the EIAR how passengers with a disability will be able to alight a bus and access the footpath safely.  We are disappointed that this was not addressed before granting this order.

The NTA plan to remove the existing mature boundary conifers from the Na Fianna Boundary (shown below). We find this disappointing as this action is facilitate a Bus Lane that the NTA claim in their Metro submission only removes 4 seconds from a bus journey on Mobhi Road (Metrolink EIAR Volume 3 9.6.1.2.4). 

 Finally, we note that this submission was completed without access to independent expert advice which GADRA repeatedly have asked for given that two very significant the plans to put a CBC directly on top of a Metro.  GADRA requested adoption of a “Do Nothing Until Metrolink is Operational” approach from the outset, so that the positive impacts of Metrolink could be factored into any subsequent CBC proposal.  We remain disappointed that this proposal was ignored and that a project with such material implications for our area will progress. 

GADRA

March 2024

Please refer to the below document in order to review the related GADRA submission:-