Leah Farrell via RollingNews.ie Leah Farrell via RollingNews.ie

THE NATIONAL TRANSPORT Authority and Dublin Bus will redirect a further 10 bus routes so that they will avoid driving through College Green in the city centre.

The NTA said these changes are in order to cater for an increase in the number of longer Luas trams that are coming on stream over the coming weeks and for the higher volume of pedestrians that will be present at College Green as tourist season kicks off.

The changes follow on from similar changes to 17 bus routes at the end of January that were undertaken to improve journey times in the city centre.

As of Monday 5 March the following changes will be implemented on routes that pass through the College Green/College Street area:

• Route 4 northbound to reroute via Tara Street Burgh Quay (AM Peak only)
• Route 7, 7b, 7d northbound to reroute via Tara Street Burgh Quay (AM Peak only)
• Route 145 northbound to reroute via Tara St to Heuston
• Route 84X northbound to reroute via Tara Street towards Eden Quay
• Route 116 northbound to reroute via Tara Street Burgh Quay
• Route 118 northbound to reroute via Tara Street towards Eden Quay
• Route 120 southbound to reroute Hawkins Street Townsend Street Merrion Square (Peak only)
• Route 44 southbound to reroute via Abbey Street Hawkins Street
• Route 51D southbound to reroute Hawkins Street Townsend Street Merrion Square
• Route 142 southbound to reroute Hawkins Street Townsend Street Merrion Square

“The changes will further reduce the volume of vehicles passing through this area and enable the traffic signalling system and junctions in the College Green area to operate more effectively,” the NTA said.

In a statement, Dublin Bus said that it would continue to work with Dublin City Council and the NTA on solutions to alleviate delays.

“Any further solutions proposed must involve all transport modes, which operate in the city centre and must have a balanced approach,” they said.

Luas 

There have been ongoing traffic issues in the city centre since the launch of the Luas Cross City, with commuters complaining of increased travel times.

Finna Fáil TDs held a press conference today raising the issues that have been present with the Luas and traffic issues in the city.

“The government is collectively responsible for the traffic chaos and traffic congestion in terms of the lack of coordination on it and the lack of joined up thinking on it,” said Dublin spokesperson John Lahart.

He said that the Luas Cross City had received a large number of complaints since it first started running.

“If you look at the Twitter feed since just the first of February, Luas has apologised already 70 times… for delays and for faults on the line,” he said.

There’s been real-time failures, there’s been ticketing failures, so it’s leading to a lot of frustration.

Lahart said that it was clear from ongoing traffic issues that “the transport map for Dublin needs to be redrawn”.

Read: Dublin Bus to change 17 bus routes over traffic problems in city centre

Read: Luas says it has fixed the broken real-time displays at all of its stops