Motorists who have been using Dublin’s College Green during the evening peak traffic hours for the last two months, will have to find alternative routes from tonight, following the reinstatement of the “bus gate”.
Since last July, the bus gate has restricted traffic on College Green to public transport vehicles and cyclists from 7am to 10am and 4pm to 7pm, Monday to Friday.
However, the evening ban on cars passing through was lifted on November 18th, following pressure from city business interests who said they would lose money in the run-up to Christmas and during the January sales if shoppers were discouraged from driving into the city. The morning ban, however, remained in place.
The council said the restrictions would return tonight as planned, despite calls from Fianna Fáil TD Chris Andrews to delay the reintroduction of the bus gate to help traders who had experienced poor sales during the bad weather: “Retailers in Dublin city centre were hit exceptionally hard by the recent spate of bad weather which deterred people from shopping and socialising.”
In some cases, shops were forced to close their doors early to allow staff to travel home, he said, but now that there was an improvement in the weather businesses needed a chance to make up for the losses.
“The rush to reinstate the bus lane is unnecessary and short-sighted. I would ask that the council delay this move, and give businesses an opportunity to recoup some of the lost revenue of the past two weeks,” said Mr Andrews.
The effectiveness of the bus gate will be reviewed by the council next May.
However, it is unlikely that it will be scrapped or scaled back as restrictions on cars travelling through this part of the city centre will be necessary for planned public transport construction projects including Metro North.
