A RAPID-TRANSIT bus route is being proposed for south Dublin to link Sydney Parade Dart station and Sandyford Industrial Estate.

Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council proposes that the service would run from St. Vincents Hospital to the Sandyford Industrial Estate, they said at a media briefing yesterday. The ‘BlueLine‘ would cost €33 million and would stop at UCD, St. Vincent’s Hospital and the RTE campus.

Rapid transit bus services are popular all over Europe, with successful schemes currently in operation in Leeds, Stockholm and Helsinki.

The proposed service would carry 1000 passengers an hour, and would operate for 18 hours a day with one bus coming every six minutes. The total journey time would be 18 minutes by the council’s estimation.

Owen Keegan, county manager for Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, lauded BlueLine as an “exciting” development which would also be cost-effective.

”BlueLine is a very exciting development in public transport in Dublin. It can deliver a quality service, which is very close to that of light rail in terms of journey time, operating hours, frequency, reliability and comfort but at a significantly lower cost. A detailed assessment of the project shows that it can be built for around €33m and that it offers excellent ’value for money’ This makes it a very appropriate public investment in the current difficult economic climate.”