Fine Gael TD for Dublin Fingal, Alan Farrell held a public meeting in Swords yesterday evening (Thursday) focusing on ‘The Future of Public Transport for Swords’ with Tom Manning and Marchello Corsi from the Railway Procurement Agency.
“The north side of Dublin needs a high-frequency, fast, and reliable public transport option. As the list of 25 possible options has now been shortlisted to 6, and with a decision expected this year on which option will become the future of public transport serving Swords and Dublin Airport, I held a public meeting to discuss the possibilities with constituents and representatives from the Railway Procurement Agency.
“I was delighted to have Tom Manning and Marchello Corsi present from the Railway Procurement Agency to discuss the options related to their area of expertise, namely Metro North and the Luas line extension from Cabra to the Airport and Swords. The well attended meeting resulted in a very constructive discussion with several dozen contributions from those in attendance.
“It currently takes around 26 minutes to get from Malahide into the City Centre, with Swords being geographically closer, I see no reason why people should not be able to get from the town into the City in less than 30 minutes. With Census 2011 having identified Fingal as having a population growth rate almost four times greater than Dublin City, it is of the utmost importance that plans are put in place now for a long-term, sustainable public transport system, particularly given that a 10 year timeframe is needed for the planning of such a major project.
“I believe that a light-rail solution would be the most efficient in terms of catering for the increase in demand which the public transport system around the Airport and Swords is going to face. We can already see our roads getting busier and our journey times increasing, particularly at rush hour, with more people travelling into, and out of, the City. This will only be exacerbated as unemployment levels continue to drop.
“I am pleased that we are putting the plans in place now to allow for the development of a transport system to adequately cater for the projected population growth for the area in the coming years.”