Dublin Transport Authority

strassenwolf

Today's Business Post wrote:

Cullen to appoint new super-transport body

05 November 2006 By Niamh Connolly

Minister for Transport Martin Cullen said he will publish the report of an expert group on the establishment of the new super-transport authority to oversee Transport 21 this week.

Speaking to The Sunday Business Post, Cullen said he intended to make appointments to the board of the new transport body, the Dublin Transportation Authority (DTA), over the next two months.

One year after the launch of the government’s Transport 21 project to improve infrastructure in the country, Cullen said he was satisfied that the schedule for developments in public transport over the last year had been achieved, while the roads programme had exceeded its targets.

‘‘It is an extraordinarily ambitious programme, but if you look at the first year of Transport 21, we have done everything we said we would. In fact, we would be ahead of schedule in some areas. This year alone, we have trebled the amount of road starting, that would never have been possible without Transport 21.”

He said roads projects were not being accelerated at the expense of public transport, as the Green Party had claimed. ‘‘The opposite is the case - we will go to the pre-tendering process for Metro North before Christmas. That’s phenomenal within one year,” said Cullen.

‘‘We have the first station in Dublin in 115 years being built in the docklands well under way and doing very well. We have all the Luas projects in terms of orders for extensions that I’ve signed and the railway order for the four tracking in Kildare. Work on Metro North has been exceptional and has been greeted very well and we started the Western Rail Corridor as well.”

Responding to criticism over delays in establishing the new DTA to integrate all public transport, Cullen said the body would become relevant as new projects came on line.

‘‘The fact that it is not physically there is not a major concern to us because we have been having big discussions on its remit.

‘‘This is a body that needs to kick in for long-term delivery, whereas a lot of projects are going ahead in their own right,” he said.

‘‘I’m satisfied that we will be publishing the report this week. I want to make sure that the body is strong and that it works well with the agencies in terms of delivering the public transport on the ground.”

The DTA will be modelled on the British body, Transport for London, and will assume powers from the Department of Transport to issue licences to private coach operators and regulate the bus market.

Cullen plans to open up 15 per cent of the bus market in the greater Dublin area to competition. The Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) and CIE had objected to the level of powers to be transferred to the new body.

The transfer of staff from the Dublin Transportation Office to the new super body presented a further setback.

While Luas extensions to Spencer Dock, Cherrywood and Citywest are progressing under Transport 21, consensus has yet to be reached over the link-up of the two Luas lines in Dublin city centre.

The preferred route goes from St Stephen’s Greenvia Dawson Street, College Green and Westmoreland Street to link up with the Tallaght line at Abbey Street.

However, Dublin Bus, the RPA and Dublin City Council are at loggerheads over the route.

‘‘There are issues about the management of the bus market which are quite legitimate from the Dublin Bus point of view and then about the most appropriate way for joining the two Luas from the RPA’s point of view,” said Cullen.

‘‘In fairness to all sides, there has been good engagement on this and there have been strongly held views for good reason and that’s understandable.

“I don’t mind taking time to get it right.”

Asked whether Fianna Fail would be able to deal with the Greens on transport issues if they held the balance of power after the next election, Cullen said: ‘‘Provided they change their policies fundamentally.

“We had an out-of-date old road infrastructure so no party could turn around to Ireland and say there’ll be no roads. It’s so ludicrous as to be discounted.

‘‘Out of €34.4 billion, €16 billion is being spent on public transport and almost the entire spend in the capital is being spent on public transport.

“So I’d like to know from the Greens what is it outside of what we’re doing that they would propose we do.”

If the Prof. from TCD still to be the boss? No word here.

spacetweek

>“We had an out-of-date old road infrastructure so no party could turn around to Ireland and say there’ll be no roads. It’s so ludicrous as to be discounted."

True - it was Green stuff like that that put me off them. They're too extreme, it isn't road or rail, it's both. Look at countries with excellent rail infrastructure and you'll find excellent roads backing it up.

mackerski

Is Grand Canal Dock not in Dublin any more?

Dermot

markpb

I wish this guy would stop talking. Every time he opens his mouth, I foam at mine.

Minister for Transport Martin Cullen said he will publish the report of an expert group on the establishment of the new super-transport authority to oversee Transport 21 this week.

A report? Wonderful progress. Really! Didn't we have a plan about how to go about this months ago when T21 was launched?

It is an extraordinarily ambitious programme, but if you look at the first year of Transport 21, we have done everything we said we would. In fact, we would be ahead of schedule in some areas. This year alone, we have trebled the amount of road starting, that would never have been possible without Transport 21.

More likely it would never have been possible without an upcoming election, not T21. Why was it not possible for the last 10 years while they were in government, were they waiting for a suitably catchy name?

He said roads projects were not being accelerated at the expense of public transport, as the Green Party had claimed. ‘‘The opposite is the case - we will go to the pre-tendering process for Metro North before Christmas. That’s phenomenal within one year,” said Cullen.

True, it's phenomenal progress so far. It's even more phenomenal that it took 10 years for them to properly consider building a metro. Especially after they turned down at least one offer for the metro to be built for them by an outside company several years ago.

‘‘We have the first station in Dublin in 115 years being built in the docklands well under way and doing very well.

Bit revisionist there - what about Drumcondra or Grand Canal Dock? All those places the Luas stops at, are they not stations too? Or is Stephens Green not in the city centre either?

Responding to criticism over delays in establishing the new DTA to integrate all public transport, Cullen said the body would become relevant as new projects came on line.

It's good to know he thinks a DTA isn't relevant *right now*. We have such a well organised and integrated public transport network at the moment that we won't need a DTA till Metro North is built :rollseyes:

The DTA will be modelled on the British body, Transport for London, and will assume powers from the Department of Transport to issue licences to private coach operators and regulate the bus market.

"Modelled on" Presumably he means they'll take the bits they like and can make work without much effort. Will the DTA have the power to tell DCC, FCC and DLRDC where to put bus lanes, bus priority measures and road closures like TfL can? Will they control the taxis? Will they have a huge budget to properly implement route tendering? Will they do research on future improvements to public transport in Dublin? Can they change the ticketing system of Dart, Luas and Metro if they operate with seperate tickets as they would right now.

I'd love to think so but I have a feeling we'll be seeing a watered down body with tenuous links to P/T companies, no regulation authority (like Comreg) over private operators and no real budget.

In fairness to all sides, there has been good engagement on this and there have been strongly held views for good reason and that’s understandable.

It's *good* that semi-state companies can have strongly held views that hold up projects for everyone?

*bangs head*

Seth Brundle

markpb wrote:

Bit revisionist there - what about Drumcondra or Grand Canal Dock? All those places the Luas stops at, are they not stations too? Or is Stephens Green not in the city centre either?

Ignoring the Luas (as the minister is doing), I presume the two stations mentioned were not classed as new because they were existing stations renovated rather than newly built IIRC

Victor

kbannon wrote:

Ignoring the Luas (as the minister is doing), I presume the two stations mentioned were not classed as new because they were existing stations renovated rather than newly built IIRC

He's talking about "Dublin city centre", but forgot to mention that bit.

Luas has stop, not stations.

spacetweek

I'm pretty sure GCD was a totally new station.

He means terminal stations, like Heuston, etc.

Hecate

Wasn't a "Dublin Transport Authority" setup in the mid-late 1980s only to have the rug pulled out from under it?

robfitz

Hecate wrote:

Wasn't a "Dublin Transport Authority" setup in the mid-late 1980s only to have the rug pulled out from under it?

Yes.

Dublin Transport Authority Act, 1986
Dublin Transport Authority (Dissolution) Act, 1987

But I don't know why.

Propellerhead

Politics.

Fine Gael / Labour set up the DTA, only for Fianna Fail to abolish it on its return to power, along with the long fingered plans to build the DART to Tallaght.

Their solution? A busway to Tallaght via Mount Argus, which got built on before any plans could be made to build it.

Navan Junction

Chairwoman leaves Dublin transport role
Tim O'Brien
10/11/2006

Minister for Transport Martin Cullen is seeking a new transport expert to chair the interim Dublin Transport Authority after the Trinity College academic Prof Margaret O'Mahony withdrew her name yesterday.


Prof O'Mahony, who also chaired a project team set up to decide how the proposed new transport authority should operate, said she had accepted a chair of civil engineering in Trinity College.

She said that although a number of recommendations contained in the report of the project team had been rejected by the Government, she had not known of this until the report's launch yesterday. It had not been the cause of her decision to withdraw her name as chairwoman-designate of the authority.

Prof O'Mahony and her other project team members - assistant secretaries general at the Department of Transport John Lumsden and Pat Mangan, and Mr Cullen's special adviser Colin Hunt, submitted their report on the proposed authority to the Minister last March.

Among its recommendations on land use and planning was that local authorities in the greater Dublin area - Dublin City, Fingal, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, South Dublin, Meath, Kildare and Wicklow - should have their development plans subject to approval by the Dublin Transport Authority.

However, Mr Cullen said yesterday that this was rejected by the Government as it interfered "with the democratic principle" that local authorities had the right to draw up their own development plans.

Instead the Government decided that it would require all planning authorities to have regard to the Dublin Transport Authority strategy. It will be encouraged to make submissions to the drafting of development plans and this process is to be supervised by Minister for the Environment Dick Roche.

Asked what other recommendations she would like included, Prof O'Mahony said she wanted a greater urgency with the roll-out of bus priority lanes, real-time information at bus stops and greater responsiveness to incidents from traffic-control centres.

Following the publication of the project team report, Mr Cullen said he was still seeking views from interested parties on the views contained in the report and he said he would finalise his views and publish a Bill before Christmas.

He also proposes to appoint an interim authority which would become the statutory authority.

Referring to the withdrawal of Prof O'Mahony, Mr Cullen said he had become increasingly convinced that the authority required a chair who could devote virtually all of his or her time to the establishment of the authority.

Having discussed this with Prof O'Mahony, she had indicated that her work at Trinity would preclude her from taking up the post full time.

The withdrawal further complicates issues surrounding the authority for Mr Cullen.

Fine Gael's spokeswoman on transport Olivia Mitchell said it left him with no interim chair, no board and as yet no Bill to establish the authority. Ms Mitchell also pointed to the absence of any moves in yesterday's report to liberalise the bus market in Dublin.

"It shows policy is being made up as he goes along," she said.

MAIN RECOMMENDATIONS

• The geographical remit of the organisation should be the seven local authorities in the Greater Dublin Region - the four Dublin authorities with Meath, Kildare and Wicklow. However, the team also recommended that the authority should also consider longer commuting patterns from outside that area.

• That the authority have overall responsibility for surface transport in the Greater Dublin area.

• That the authority have responsibility for strategic transport planning; procurement of public transport infrastructure and services; regulation of fares; delivery of an integrated public transport system; traffic management; demand management and data collection and research.




© The Irish Times

DerekP11

The DTA may well be the benchmarker for this Governments terrible performance in relation to Dublin transport. The ghosts are coming back to haunt them.

They must've thought we all had bad memories. Can't believe the opposition aren't studying their history on this one. Its basic stuff.

Mid 80s, opposition Government set in motion a Dublin Transportation Authority.

FF lead Government scrap the idea of legislative powers.

It becomes the Dublin Transportation Office and talks the talk for years, resulting in "A Platform for Change". (merely a recommendation document)

Early 90s, CIE propose a light rail system (A watered down version of its original DART project) and opposition Government push ahead with it.

FF lead Government return to power in 97, just as the Luas project is ready to go to tender. They delay it on the basis of the "underground through the city centre" study. This study brings us right back to where we were. Two seperate lines are built on the understanding that the Green line would be converted to Metro and run under the city to the Airport. Few believe it. Construction begins, minus EU funding that was lost due to delay.

2000. FF lead Government announce a Metro system to be completed by 2008.Transport Act is ammended to create the RPA and it assumes responsibility for Luas and Metro (and believe it or not the Interconnector and the railway to Navan:eek: ) Apparently this aspect of the Act was changed, but Im open to correction. But it was the first signs of the Governments attempt to portray the RPA as a "type" of Dublin Transport Authority. The DTO talks some more and the new RPA head hunts in order to get going. (in what direction is not actually clear.)

2004. Luas finished. Still no DTA and still the DTO talk without any power to implement. Metro is still subject to studies, revisals etc.

2005. Transport 21 and all that baloney. Loads of promises and plans, including a DTA. A lot of it is already outdated and the poor DTO have had their grandeur Platform for Change document, torn asunder. Buses don't figure, despite the fact that the city has relied on them for 60 years. The Luas link up is mentioned just like the opposition Governments original plan. A metro is proposed but excludes the current Governments proposal to convert the luas Green line. Whoops! FF have done it again.(without Britneys short skirt)

2006. DTA announced, based on a professional recommendation. Planning control immediately rejected by FF lead Government. (no surprise there), but assimilation of RPA into DTA and responsibility of large projects such as Interconnector and Bus routes accepted.(we're heading full circle already) RPA react with disappointment to this. CIE remain silent. (whats new? 50 years is better than 6 right?) The whole thing is degenerating into farce as the FF lead Government (lets face it what the PD's have proposed transport wise is on the back of a cigarette packet somewhere causing more trouble to hard pressed commuters.)

It appears for reasons best known to FF that the concept of a proper DTA for Dublin is beyond them. They are setting out to make the same ill-conceived mistakes that they made in the 80s and as recent as 2000. In the process they are revealing a serious lack of ability to understand projects, just like the opposition.

This is how it should happen.

Large infrastructural projects in Dublin should be decided by a DTA. The RPA and CIE can build/implement them under supervision. Its not ideal, but at this point anymore dilution will kill off any chance of progress. FF have made a mess of it. Damage limitation ios called for. Furthermore, public transport users should have a place at the table.(not via the consultation process, but directly at the core) For too long they have been mis-represented. Time to take the power back and make it work.

However we continue to go round in circles as FF chase their tail in a vain attempt to understand it all. Or perhaps they just have a particular agenda.

Can somebody pass this post onto Olivia Mitchell, Roisin Shorthall and dear oul Eamo.

NOTE: I have no political allegiance. Just commenting on it as it has happened.

strassenwolf

Today's Independent wrote:

Attempt to scupper powerful agency for transport

RAILWAY chief Padraic White is to urge Transport Minister Martin Cullen to derail the Government's plans to create a new superagency for transportation in a crisis meeting this week.

The chairman of the Railway Procurement Agency has very serious misgivings about the Government's plans to create the powerful Dublin Transportation Authority (DTA) and fears it could lead to delays in the construction of the capital's new Metro system, a source close to agency said last night.

"He's very unhappy. There's a lot of disquiet and he fears it has the potential to delay the start-up of the Metro," the source said.

Meeting

He said Mr White would meet with the minister, probably today or tomorrow, in a bid to persuade him to rethink the plan. The DTA, announced by Mr Cullen last week, would mirror other agencies in major cities around the world, such as the Toronto Transit Commission in Canada and Transport for London in Britain.

Mr White said he opposed the plan because it would create unnecessary bureaucracy and duplication. "During the consultation period, I will be indicating why we don't believe that's a good option," he said. "We support the DTA where it adds value, but we're already down the tracks with Metro North. If they're doing what we're doing, where is the value in that?"

Allison Bray

I thought the whole idea of the DTA was that it would replace all the various agencies involved in transport in the Dublin area - was it something like 17 at the last count? In other words it would remove unnecessary bureaucracy and duplication, rather than create it, as Mr White seems to think.

bk

strassenwolf wrote:

I thought the whole idea of the DTA was that it would replace all the various agencies involved in transport in the Dublin area - was it something like 17 at the last count? In other words it would remove unnecessary bureaucracy and duplication, rather than create it, as Mr White seems to think.

Well that's his problem, he might be out of a job. In particular there would be absolutely no reason for the RPA and DB to continue to exist, all their projects completely exist under the DTA remit, so they should all be pulled into the DTA. IR at least will continue to have activities outside the DTA remit.

All the objections I've seen so far have been from people who's little empires maybe effected.