Dublin closer to all purpose authority
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kGAINST a background of mounting bus losses, the chances of in all-purpose transport authority for Dublin improved after the )ublication of another consultants' report.
Coopers and Lybrand, under )rofessor Christopher Foster, ias recommended to Ireland's 4ational Economic and Social :ouncil that more bus priorties be created in Dublin, and hat a passenger transport .uthority be established.
At present, Dublin City Ser'ices are losing E12.8m a year — nearly a quarter of Coras ompair Eireann's 1979 deficit — and services are being trangled by undisciplined raffic congestion.
The report has also called or the Government to subsidse unprofitable services vhere these are socially desirble, and wants consideration o be given to the replacement f rail services with buses and oaches.
It describes the Expressway oach network as "wholly de-, irable and commendable": and recommends that these be extended in any case. Where they parallel railways, they provide a complementary service.
But Prof Foster says that Expressway should not be used to cut the £3.7m losses on provincial bus services. Most of these are incurred on Cork, Limerick, and Waterford city routes which, in his view, should be subsidised with public funds.
He has repeated the Government Oireachtas Cornmittee (CM December 22, 1979) call for some services to be handed over to private enterprise. The Oireachtas report was also in favour of a Dublin PTE, and a Consultative Transport Commission report on urban transport — due next month — is expected to repeat the call.
Dublin sources suggest that the Haughey Government may well act on these recommendations, as the establishment of a new authority could bring quick cosmetic changes to the city's choked transport system.
The Government has two years to run until the next election, and, with the biggest proportion of the voters being in the Dublin area, many improvements in city life are bound to have an impact.
CIE's 1979 loss was £57.4m.