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IF YOU WERE to take a walk down Home Farm Road in Dublin’s Glasnevin, you would probably notice something about most of the houses on the street.
In many of the front windows, the same, small blue and yellow poster can be seen. Each one has the same message written on it: ‘Save the 11 Bus’. Homes on adjacent streets have the same poster in their windows. In some cases, there are more than one.
Residents in the neighbourhood have been campaigning to keep the Dublin Bus route.
It has been operating since the 1970s and runs all the way across the city from Wadelai Park in Ballygall, north Dublin towards Sandyford Business District in south Dublin, for the last year.
But today, it is being replaced by the new No 19 route, which will run from Dublin Airport, through Ballymun, on to Wadelai, through Drumcondra and on to the centre of Dublin.
The 11 route will continue to run from Sandyford, but will be diverted at Parnell Square to run via Phibsborough and the North Circular Road to the Phoenix Park.
The plans form part of a roll-out of 13 new routes under the Bus Connects redesign, which includes two 24 hour ‘spines’ – the E1 and E2 – serving areas including Bray, the city centre, Ballymun and Santry.
Residents from the Glasnevin area told The Journal that they are waiting to see how the new route will compare, but they’re not convinced it will beat the old service.
David Rees lives in the area and uses the No 11 every day to take his daughter to and from school. He’s also part of the Wadelai/Hillcrest District Residents’ Association, and is one of over 150 people in a community WhatsApp group that were striving to save the bus route.
“We understand the principles of Bus Connect. We understand that it’s a far bigger programme than just serving our constituency, and we understand it’s not intended to have super long routes like the 11 is,” he told The Journal.
“But we felt that with the alternative, there was definitely a disconnection for us.”
Rees said that looking at it in isolation, it appears the area will have the use of more services – with the 19 and the new E1 and E2 ‘spines’ coming into operation from today. But that’s not exactly the case, he said.
“The reality is that the two buses that go through Drumcondra now – the 11 and the 13 – are both going and being replaced by one bus, which is the 19. The E1 and E2 spines are going through Phibsborough, so you’re not getting access to Drumcondra.
“There’s also bus lanes all the way through Drumcondra, but there isn’t in Phibsborough and it’s a delay then that you cause by going through that route.”
Bus Connects had planned to bring in the changes that would have replaced the No 11 bus with the new No 19 on 8 December, but this was deferred until 26 January.
The No 19 service was initially set to terminate at Parnell Square, something Rees described as “the key concern that we had” about the service.
“We didn’t feel that that was the true city centre. It broke our connection with the south side, it was an unsafe place to drop people, it was difficult for people with mobility issues,” he said.
We’ve got a huge elderly population in our area. It’s almost 25%, according to the census data, whereas the rest of Dublin is about 14%. So we were deeply concerned about that.
The National Transport Authority (NTA) has confirmed that the new route will now go as far as Merrion Square, meaning passengers won’t have to transfer to another bus to get to the south side of the city centre.
“The old services, including the 11, will run until Saturday, January 25, with the new services including the 19 commencing on Sunday 26 as part of Phase 6a of Bus Connects network redesign,” a spokesperson for NTA told The Journal.
“The 19 will run every 20 minutes for most of the day and every 10 minutes at peak times.”
From 26 January, the 19 will initially terminate in Parnell Square, with three week-day morning peak services running to Merrion Square and three evening peak services running from Merrion Square, the spokesperson said.
From April, an all-day service will run to and from Merrion Square. While residents welcomed the terminus change, they are nervous about whether it will become permanent.
“We’re apprehensive that that will be subject to driver availability. We haven’t got that in writing, and therefore it’s a potential that they renege on that, or delay that,” Rees said.
“Those initiatives are really focused around peak times, and with our elderly community primarily using the bus in the middle of the day, when they’re going to use the bus, they’re still going to be disconnected by terminating at Parnell Square until they make that change to Merrion Square in April.
“If that gets delayed, or we see some challenges with drivers on the service, or perhaps there’s less peak services, whatever it might be, we’d be ready to take direct action and protest again because we’re not ready to give up the fight.”
An NTA spokesperson told The Journal that Dublin Bus has operated an ‘always on’ driver recruitment campaign since 2022, which has recruited over a thousand drivers.
“This proactive approach to driver recruitment means we are confident the drivers required to provide this service will be in place,” the spokesperson said.
When the plans were initially proposed in 2020, the No 19 bus was only set to run between Glasnevin and Parnell Square every hour. The No 11 service runs every half hour.
The plans prompted residents in north Dublin to begin their campaign to try and preserve the No 11 route.
On 29 October last year, they held a public meeting in Ballygall community centre. It was attended by 150 residents and a number of local representatives, including Fianna Fáil TD Paul McAuliffe, Sinn Féin TD Dessie Ellis, People Before Profit TD Conor Reddy and former Social Democrats TD Róisín Shortall.
That same month, Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon started a petition to ‘Save the Number 11 Bus’ which has garnered over 2,300 signatures.
In the petition, Gannon said that “eliminating this service would effectively isolate significant parts of our community”. A petition started by the group themselves also received over 2,300 signatures.
Around 100 of the residents also held a protest outside the NTA offices in Smithfield on 27 November last year.
That month, the NTA agreed to operate the No 19 service every 20 minutes throughout the day and every 10 minutes during peak times.
“This is much better than what was originally proposed,” Green Party councillor for Glasnevin Feljin Jose told The Journal.
“Instead of stopping in Glasnevin, it will also serve Dublin Airport going up through Ballymun Road. There’s actually parts of Glasnevin and the Ballymun area that has no bus to the airport despite living beside it, so that was a big improvement.”
Jose, who has been engaging with the NTA and residents on this matter for the last couple of years, said the main issue for people was the fact that the bus was set to terminate at Parnell Square.
“It would make it quite difficult to get to the south side for people. You’re either having to get a second bus for two or three stops, or walk 10-15, minutes, and there were a lot of people commuting regularly into the Stephen’s Green area.”
However, he said that since the change in terminus was announced, he has received “really good feedback” from residents about it.
“I think what we’ve arrived at now is much, much better than what was originally proposed. There’s been a lot of back and forth with the NTA about this and there’s been a lot of good work done on it,” he added.
Kevina McGill, another Glasnevin resident who is involved with the residents association, uses the No 11 bus to get to work in Belfield.
She told The Journal that she, along with several other residents in her estate, are concerned about whether they will be able to get on the new No 19 route in the mornings as it will be coming from Dublin Airport.
“Naturally, people are going to arrive in Dublin Airport and see a bus going to the city centre. Obviously, if it’s full from the airport, it’s going to be full before it reaches Ballymun and before it reaches ourselves,” she said.
“People with buggies, people with walkers, people in wheelchairs won’t be able to get on the bus because naturally, people will have their luggage there.”
An NTA spokesperson confirmed to The Journal that the No 19 will operate with full seating and will not have a reduced capacity in order to accommodate a larger luggage rack.
McGill said residents can’t understand why the new E2 route – which will run from Harristown to Dún Laoghaire – can’t go to Dublin Airport. “That’s going a much more direct route along the main roads. It’s not going in around the estates, whereas the 19 will be. It would make more sense,” she said.
She also said that residents feel that the NTA’s consultation process wasn’t sufficient and didn’t engage well with them.
“They had a few meetings and briefings with our local politicians, but we haven’t been allowed to be present,” she said.
Information is only trickling back to the community. One person is saying one thing, another person is saying something else and people get very apprehensive.
She said it was difficult for residents to get confirmation of changes to the route.
“When we heard that the 19 route would be going to Merrion Square every day, we wanted to confirm that for our residents. We don’t have a contact name and there’s nobody to liaise with residents groups in the NTA. It would be very helpful if they did. We send emails. Sometimes we get a response. Sometimes we don’t.”
An NTA spokesperson told The Journal that they have had “ongoing engagement with public representatives in this area, who have very clearly articulated the issues and concerns raised locally”.
“Before implementation, there were three rounds of public consultation, including local public information events in Ballymun and Drumcondra, that were attended by a range of residents groups and members of the public. The BusConnects Network Redesign consultation process attracted submissions from over 70,000 people across the Dublin area,” the spokesperson said.
McGill said local representatives in the area have been “very supportive” of the campaign and the residents impacted by the route change.
Going forward, she said the residents group want to monitor the frequency and the capacity of the bus route in the coming months, as well as a set date where they can speak to someone from the NTA to assess how the change has gone.
“I don’t know whether we’ll be granted that or not.”
As the changes kick in today, Rees said the residents group is taking a “wait and see approach”.
I’m cautiously optimistic, but it really, really comes down to that follow through, and that will very quickly turn to being very unhappy if that doesn’t materialise.
“The vast majority of our community aren’t benefiting from the changes that have been made that are rolling out as of today. They don’t get the benefits to that until April.
“We’ll take it as a concession, a hard earned one, but it’s not first prize for us, and it’s not finished yet.”
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