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The proposed College Green Plaza looking from Trinity College. Dublin City Council

'Frankly ridiculous': Soc Dems leader objects to plans to stop buses going through College Green

Roisin Shortall is due to make an oral submission to the Bord Pleanála on Monday.

THE CO-LEADER of the Social Democrats is objecting to plans to pedestrianise College Green in Dublin city centre and to stop buses passing through.

Roisin Shortall is due to make an oral submission to a An Bord Pleanála hearing on the proposed plans for a new civic plaza at College Green, which will be held on Monday.

The proposed pedestrianisation of College Green – which currently acts as a very busy bus corridor through the city centre – has been met with a lot of resistance from local businesses and representatives.

Last November, An Bord Pleanála delivered something of a blow to the plaza by directing that the period of public consultation needed to be extended, while a public hearing regarding the proposed €10 million development was cancelled at the last-minute last month.

The hearing will now be held this Monday at 10.30am and will hear from public representatives and concerned bodies.

Ahead of the hearing, Shortall made a submission highly critical of the proposed plans.

The submission and presentation – seen by TheJournal.ie - outlines the issues with cutting off bus access to College Green.

“I believe that is nonsensical to close access to the main cross-city artery to the predominant form of public transport,” Shortall said.

The plans, while laudable in their vision to create a civic space in the city centre, simply do not reflect the reality of the severe constraints already on public transport in Dublin.

“Frankly ridiculous” 

Shortall said that Dublin currently relies heavily on buses as a form of public transport and would continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

And further diversions of buses would have a negative impact on the city, she said.

“When the sole means of public transport for an area such as this is bus, it is frankly, ridiculous that access to the core of the city centre would be curtailed in this manner,” she said.

She also said that the plans would disproportionately affect people coming from areas that had no access to other forms of public transport (like Luas or Irish Rail).

This includes her own constituency of Dublin North West.

“Simply put, College Green is central to the effective operation of the bus network in Dublin. The alternative routing plans are not realistic or feasible,” Shortall said.

The traffic area around College Green has already been in the news this year due to the chronic gridlock created following the launch of the new Luas cross city service.

In the aftermath, 17 bus services were rerouted around the city’s quays in order to ease the congestion seen at Trinity College.

With reporting from Cianan Brennan 

Read: Taxi drivers threaten protest over proposed College Green plaza

Read: ‘Possible increased fares’: Taxis won’t be allowed to use some College Green roads during rush hour

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    Mute Fintan O HEifernain
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:50 PM

    I wouldn’t put anything on Facebook that I wouldn’t be comfortable putting on a billboard in my home town. Seriously, some of the stuff some people put up you’d wonder about their sanity to be honest

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    Mute Kevin Hosford
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    Feb 16th 2013, 4:10 PM

    Some people share way to much info about their lives, kids, education even personal things like health and financial status it’s shocking! Websites like Facebook really need to educate people continually about the risks and precautions they need to know.

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    Mute Julie
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    Feb 16th 2013, 11:26 AM

    I don’t like the sound of this !

    http://youtu.be/OpIP71dDufw

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    Mute Kevin Hosford
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    Feb 16th 2013, 4:07 PM

    If you use either google or Facebook then your privacy is already gone.

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    Mute Julie
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    Feb 16th 2013, 5:25 PM

    That’s very true but this legislation in America is not good news

    http://youtu.be/VLVXUBEMD9w

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    Mute Jason O'Leary
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:35 PM

    Just in time for the new cyber security legislation, the how convenient is that.

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    Mute Julie
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:39 PM

    Nothing is convenient in American politics ( you could also say irish politics in some cases) everything is precisely planned with lots of support from all sectors, media etc

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    Mute John Gleeson
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:04 PM

    Got an email during the week from Facebook saying my account was accessed from Belarus. Am I alone?

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    Mute Jason Culligan
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:57 PM

    Had an email from Google telling me they blocked someone logging in on my gmail from Vietnam a while back. Just a strong reminder that you should change your passwords roughy every 6 months. Make complex passwords and change every 6 months so that, if someone is trying to crack your passwords, by the time they do you’ll have a completely different one.

    Internet safety cannot be preached enough really.

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    Mute Declan O'Neill
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    Feb 16th 2013, 4:31 PM

    @Jason, so true. Here’s a great page to tell you how strong a chosen password is and how long it would take to crack using brute force.
    https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm

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    Mute Carl Douglas
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:04 PM

    Just as Mitt Romney predicted.

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    Mute youdontknowme
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:12 PM

    China

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    Mute Daniel Murray
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:33 PM

    The Chinese? Ha ha ha! What a joke!

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    Mute Colm McDonagh
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:51 PM

    A great bunch of lads!

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