It is hard to get past the magnitude of the new €80 million budget for the College Green Plaza. As with almost every other public infrastructure project undertaken in the State, if it had gone ahead when originally planned, it would have cost a fraction of the price.
When Dublin City Council submitted an application for the traffic-free civic space to An Bord Pleanála in 2017 it expected it to cost €10 million. The board in 2018 rejected the council’s plans, citing the potential “significantly negative impacts” on bus services.
The National Transport Authority (NTA) in September 2020 published its final plans for a redesigned bus network for the city. Under BusConnects, services would be routed away from College Green and east Dame Street.
Two months later the council published new plans to double the size of the traffic free plaza. Eliminating the conflict with bus services meant traffic could be banned from the area west of the Luas lines in front of Trinity College, as far as the junction with Dame Street and South Great George’s Street.
It took another two years for the council to announce that it was required under procurement rules to seek a new design team for the project due to increases in the scope of the scheme.
The council now says it hopes to have preliminary designs, based on the 2020 enlarged plaza area, prepared by the end of this summer. The council and the NTA expect the bus services will finally have been rerouted from the area by the end of next year. Work, the council hopes, will start on site by the end of the following year, and will be completed by the end of the decade, all within a much pricier new budget of €80 million.
That budget does include a surprisingly large 40 per cent contingency, but even if the council didn’t eat into that contingency sum at all, the cost of the scheme would still be close to touching €50 million. Given the transformative effect this project could have, finally creating a civic space in the heart of Dublin city, perhaps that budget is justifiable, and in building such a large contingency into the budget, maybe the council is just being responsible and realistic. It is, after all, a larger area than planned eight years ago.
All the same, the most significant benefits of the project would be realised anyway, even if the council was to spend little additional cash. Cars have already been banned from College Green, with buses to go by the end of next year. The area will, without the need for any other intervention, by default become the domain of pedestrians and cyclists. Some new paving and greenery, seating and toilets, would certainly improve it, but the heavy lifting of relocating the space from vehicles to people will have been achieved with minimal outlay. The detailed plans need to make a strong case if there is to be a further major expenditure.
