‘ENNISKERRY WILL BE CUT OFF’
OUTLYING AREAS LEFT OUT OF BUS SERVICE PLANS
Residents of rural Enniskerry will lose bus access to the village, to Bray and to the city in planned changes to the Dublin Bus network.
A meeting will take place in the Powerscourt Arms this evening ( Wednesday) at 8 p.m. to dis- cuss the proposed changes. The planned changes will mean that the current 185 bus will no longer serve Palermo in Bray, Killgarron Hill or Shop River. The 185 and 44 routes will merge. The new 213 route will not serve the city centre or DCU. ‘You’re going back 40 years,’ said one concerned resident.
A rural Enniskerry community will be cut off completely if proposed changes to Dublin Bus proceed.
This is according to Enniskerry woman Patricia Hanway of Millfield.
A meeting will take place in the Powerscourt Arms this evening ( Wednesday) at 8 p.m., to discuss the proposed changes.
The planned changes will mean that the current 185 bus will no longer serve Palermo in Bray, Killgarron Hill or Shop River.
The 185 and 44 routes will merge. The new 213 route will not serve the city centre or DCU.
‘I would like to challenge whoever designed this to come out and walk up Kilgarron Hill with two bags of shopping,’ said Patricia.
‘You’re going back 40 years when there was no bus going up there. You’re not progressing, you’re regressing,’ she said. ‘ That’s a whole community cut off completely.
‘ There are people of all ages who rely on the service every day,’ she said, adding that students attend DCU and other colleges in the city.
‘If I wanted to go to Dublin City Centre, under these plans, I would get the new bus, the 213 to the Luas at Sandyford to go on. Even to go to Dundrum it will be two journeys there and two back. So Enniskerry is going to be completely cut off with no direct route to the city.’
She described a potential situation where you get a Luas from town to Sandyford, miss a bus by minutes, and face a long wait.
‘You try standing there. God knows when the next one will come. There’s no shelter and you’re standing out in the wilds’.
The traders in the village are annoyed, said Patricia. ‘We’re one of the most picturesque villages in the country. People come out all summer. People aren’t going to get two buses or make two journeys out and two journeys back,’ she said.
‘And do you know who lives over the road? Our Minister for Transport Shane Ross.’
Tonight’s meeting has been arranged by Enniskerry Community Alerts and Neighbourhood Watch.
Submissions on the plans can be made at busconnects.ie until September 28.
Also available at the site are information brochures, each covering a sector of the city, and other tools to find out how to use the proposed routes.
The ‘south’ brochure includes Bray, while ‘outer south’ includes Enniskerry, Greystones, Delgany and Kilmacanogue.
They include maps which show the routes and mid-day frequencies of the proposed new services, along with details of additional peak-only services.
The NTA will be distributing printed copies of these while we are out meeting communities over the coming weeks. They will hold an information session at Tesco on Vevay Road on Friday, September 7, from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.