Officials in City Hall have vowed to begin working on the Dublin Road bus corridor project immediately, despite its planning permission still being subject to potential judicial review.
An Coimisiún Pleanála has granted permission for almost 4km of continuous bus lanes from Moneenageisha crossroads, past ATU and Merlin Park Hospital, to the Doughiska junction on the R338 Old Dublin Road.
The highest planning authority in the State’s decision is not appealable, but the process it followed to make that decision may be subject to a High Court review if an application is made by December.
In October last year, the planning commission approved the Bus Cross-City Link project which will link University Road in the city centre with the Dublin Road, via a network of bus, cycling and pedestrian priority routes.
In response to questions from city councillors at their monthly meeting last week, the local authority’s senior active travel official gave a robust prognosis for the plan, which may involve a number of Compulsory Purchase Orders.
“We are in an eight-week standstill for judicial review applications, but we are going to go ahead, and go to detailed design stage now anyway, as with Cross-City Link and Bus Connects, we want to save a potential twelve-month delay,” said Derek Pender, Galway City Council’s Director of Services.
As part of its latest permission, Coimisiún Pleanála approved Galway City Council to compulsorily purchase a number of properties along the route. One residential property owner along the route told the Advertiser they had sought legal advice, but were not planning a judicial review at this time.
In a statement, city chief executive Leonard Cleary said his staff were linking together all the current transport projects across the city.
“Dublin Road will link into other completed and pending projects, including the Ballybane Road and Castlepark Road Cycle Network Scheme, the Doughiska Road South Cycle Network and the BusConnects Galway: Cross-City Link project,” he said.
However Cleary also demanded that the HSE must facilitate a bus route through University College Hospital in return for the city allowing it to take public parkland in Shantalla for a helicopter pad.
“The HSE has committed to community engagement on this topic, but there is no point us organising this if it has not yet produced a map of what [it proposes],” he said. “The Cross City Bus Connect goes through the hospital, or we will not be going through with parks issue,” he said.
Galway’s current transport strategy leans heavily on a city central road re-prioritisation – along almost 7 km of existing roadways – to form a central route for public transport, cyclists and pedestrians along an east-west corridor through the city from the University of Galway to the Doughiska.
It is envisaged that new infrastructure will allow selected bus routes to double their frequency, and ultimately run on a 24-hour basis.
This project is part-funded by the National Transport Authority.
