Want to ease gridlock? ‘Use hard shoulder as bus lanes’
HARD shoulders should be turned into bus lanes to tackle traffic congestion on our motorways, a Government politician has said.
Senator Anthony Lawlor said they could be widened to take buses and coaches.
He argued that this would make environmental sense because cars would not be stalled in traffic as much and more people would use buses.
Senator Lawlor said he believes the National Transport Authority is set to investigate the idea with a feasibility study on the N4/M4 corridor out of Maynooth.
The NTA did not respond, before going to press last night, to a request from the Irish Daily Mail for a comment. However, when it was devising the Greater Dublin Area Transport Strategy, some bus companies appealed for buses to be allowed use the hard shoulders. Noel Matthews, of Matthews Coach Hire, asked for a ‘four-lane system, with a ‘dedicated public transport lane during peak times by using redesignated hard shoulder, as per Belfast’.
Senator Lawlor said the ‘recovering economy’ has resulted in increased levels of motorway traffic, which he experiences every day on the N7. ‘Encouraging the use of buses and coaches is good public policy, as it is both the right thing to do from an environmental perspective and it eases traffic congestion generally, for those who have to use cars for whatever reason.’
He said the situation along the M1 motorway to Belfast demonstrates the success of a hard shoulder bus lane and called for the NTA to implement a similar process here.
‘It would be important also that all future motorway projects should consider road width to ensure the hard shoulder could be used as a bus lane,’ he said.
‘Having been constructed many years ago, the hard shoulders on the M1 in Belfast are wider than more recently constructed motorways in this jurisdiction. So road widening may be needed here to allow buses travel safely,’ he said.
Hard-shoulder bus lanes have existed on sections of the M1 and M2 in Belfast for a number of years. Last year Northern transport authorities decided to increase the length of the corridors to encourage more people to use public transport. The work, which is due to be completed next month, allows coaches with 28 or more seats use the lanes between 7am and 7pm Monday-to-Friday at a top speed of 40mph (64kph).
Currently, driving on the hard shoulder in the Republic could result in penalty points and a fine of €80. The lanes are used by emergency services and parking spots after a breakdown.
Mr Lawlor’s proposal was cautiously welcomed by the
‘It would help the environment too’
‘Road widening may be needed’
Green Party last night. ‘I think any measure that will speed up buses and public transport is a good thing but there may be safety issues around this,’ spokesman on transport, Councillor Ciarán Cuffe said.
‘What we need are more bus lanes on the approaches to Dublin and in Dublin itself.’
He said the idea was ‘worth considering’ as ‘a lot more effort’ was needed to improve public transport. jane.fallon.griffin@dailymail.ie