[Article] Cars may be banned from Harcourt Street

Victor

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Cars to be banned from Harcourt St due to Luas
01/02/04 00:00
By Niamh Connolly

Private cars are to be banned from using Harcourt Street in Dublin to access St Stephen's Green, due to road space pressures arising from Luas, The Sunday Business Post has learned.

Plans are under way to allow only public transport - the Luas light rail system, buses and taxis - to access Saint Stephen's Green via Harcourt Street. The move will close an important access route into the city, causing major inconvenience to private cars travelling to the city centre from the south side.

The radical traffic restrictions planned by the Quality Bus Network are aimed at curbing bottlenecks west of Stephen's Green where the Sandyford line will terminate.

The Quality Bus Network (QBN) is responsible for planning new bus corridors in the capital.

It confirmed it would be submitting proposals to Dublin City Council over the next two months to limit access through Harcourt Street.

"The whole issue is that St Stephen's Green west has to be reduced to two general traffic lanes as a result of Luas. There's no point in feeding in any more traffic into a bottleneck by allowing more and more traffic come down Harcourt Street and into Stephen's Green," said QBN project manager Ciaran de Burca.

Vehicular traffic has been reduced on St Stephen's Green south in front of the Department of Foreign Affairs in order to reduce bottlenecks when Luas is operational. A new bus lane and traffic island has proven efficient in reducing traffic, according to de Burca.

Luas will run on dedicated track throughout the city, with the exception of three locations - Beresford Place, James's Street and Saint Stephen's Lane close to Heuston Station - where tracks will be partly shared with vehicular traffic. At Beresford Place and James's Street general traffic will run along the Luas track to cross junctions.

At St Stephen's Lane private motorists will cross the track to allow local access to St Patrick's Hospital, and to offices in the area, such as the Eastern Health Board.


€10m a year for Luas?

The Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) could earn as much as €10 million a year from advertising on the Luas trams and stations, writes Neil Callanan. Stuart Fogarty of AFA Advertising said if the state agency opts for a guaranteed revenue con- tract it could take in "e10 million per annum on a good day", but the likelihood was that the final figure would probably be closer to €7 million.

"It's a small market and it's soft at the moment," he said, adding that advertising on public transport was always a peripheral spend and demand varied depending on seasonality. The Luas trams will carry less advertising than the Dart because of their design. However, Fogarty said that, when the system finally gets up and running, there will be an initial surge for advertising space because of the system's novelty.

The RPA estimates the Luas will eventually cost €775 million, around €100 million of which will have been spent on land acquisition.