Delays on the line: If you want to know why public transport is poor, look at Luas Finglas |
Commuters on the railway are well used to the automated voice telling them to “seachain an bhearna” – mind the gap – as they approach the next station. An announcement this week from the Minister for Transport, Darragh O’Brien, indicates that the Coalition needs a similar warning as it promises faster provision of big transport infrastructure.
No new fixed-line public transport has been opened to the public since the Luas cross-city and the extension to Broombridge opened in December 2017. The problem for the Coalition is that no more such projects will be in place before the next general election, due at the latest by January 2030. Apart from some new Dart carriages, all commuters will see over the next couple of years is disruption caused by building work. The gap between promising and delivery is, even if things are done efficiently, long enough.
The recent urgency in Cabinet to progress things is welcome, but the two big parties will be rueing their inaction during their last term in government. Had they moved more quickly, there could be a string of politically advantageous announcements; at it is, elbowing each other out of the way to get in the photos on the platform at Drogheda to welcome some new electric trains may be as good as it gets.
This week’s announcement from O’Brien referred to the Luas extension to Finglas, a project that had been due to start after 2030, but it is now brought forward to 2028. But the first tram will not head out from Broombridge, the current terminus, to Finglas Village and Charlestown until about 2031.
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