School bus plan required for Dublin – O’Connell

Work should begin to examine the feasibility of rolling out a coherent school bus system across Dublin, a Fine Gael TD has said.

Deputy Maeve O’Connell said now is the time to examine establishing a potential dedicated school bus plan for the capital – as takes place in other cities across the world.

Deputy O’Connell said, “With schools closed for the summer, many commuters and workers will breathe a sigh of relief.

“Every summer, traffic in Dublin falls off a cliff and rush hours become far more bearable, as the morning school run stops.

“Reports have shown Dublin is one of the most congested cities in the world, and we need to examine if the lack of a dedicated school transport system is seriously contributing to this.

“Currently under the School Transport Scheme, school buses are provided when a child lives at least 3.2km from their nearest school. For many schools in Dublin, this rules out a dedicated service but forces families to drive to get their kids to school.

“Consideration must be given to reduce the nearest school rule, as proposed in the School Transport Review. The Programme for Government also commits to expanding the scheme, this would help children across Dublin be considered for school transport.

“We need to carry out research now on potential routes and what the cost may be, so that we can see how a dedicated school transport system in Dublin would be carried out.

“I fully accept our public transport infrastructure is not yet developed enough for students and families to fully rely on it to get to school.

“For some students, walking or cycling to school is an option.

“However, for many families, driving is the only option to get their children to school. This creates extra journeys, and extra traffic on our roads.

“Cities such as Belfast already have dedicated school buses, or look at London, where in lieu of a school bus system they created approximately 70 specialised bus routes which have been implemented to serve school routes and times.

Other examples include: Lisbon where a supervised public bus brings elementary school children between 5 and 11 years old to school, Rome where school buses are provided in zones where standard public transit is unavailable or deemed inadequate, and Ottawa where transportation is provided for elementary students who live more than 1.6 km from their school.

“So, let’s now get all stakeholders together and use the Summer period to examine how we could improve school transport in Dublin,” Deputy O’Connell concluded.