N/M11 Road Public Transport study welcome

I welcome the announcement that Public Transport improvements, including Bus Priority and Park n’ Ride are being considered. This will include an examination of interim options and hopefully will reduce the scale of the N11 works. This is being done by The National Transport Authority with the Council. Myself and many Councillors have been pushing for this to be done but I was not aware it was underway.

It does not mention the rail line which is virtually empty at rush hour with the least number of trains of any stations in the Greater Dublin Area. The rail service MUST be improved as part of this and I will be asking the NTA to include it.

Background

Wicklow is very underprovided with transport having 1 rail line & 1 motorway compared to Kildare which has 3 rail lines and 3 motorways. While Kildare has 50% more population, substantial rail & road investment has happened and is planned. No rail investment is planned in Wicklow, except to Bray 1km into the County. Thus the whole transport load falls on the N11.

It is essential that the rail line carries more traffic and an express bus service is provided on the N11 using bus lanes. This will reduce the scale of the N11 expansion needed. The Wicklow rail line is virtually empty at rush hour with only 2 peak period trains which are short, all other stations in the Greater Dublin Area having 3 or more services. In 2018 I prepared a plan to get it to work which is on my website. This provided for 3 rush hour diesel trains of 8 cars to Wicklow and a 20 min DART service to Greystones and this needs to be implemented.

Express buses are needed at rush hour together with Park n’ Ride including a means to get to the many jobs around the M50. Many more 133, Wexford Bus & 84x are needed as well as a route around the M50. The 133 needs to be made reliable.

There is also a need to develop more jobs locally, before more housing is developed, to reduce the dependence on commuting.