The sudden move to let taxis use Belfast’s bus lanes does not stack up. A 12-week trial, commencing this Monday, was announced last Thursday by the Department for Infrastructure.
This is likely to be the last decision for some time, if not forever, under Sinn Féin minister Chris Hazzard - and it contradicts the thrust of all his previous decisions. Hazzard had seemed genuinely committed to public transport and cycling and he has not been afraid to disappoint other interests.
The design of the trial is bizarre. There are 12 metro bus corridors into central Belfast, all with bus lanes along most of their length. Only two routes have been selected for the trial, through east and west Belfast, plus the city centre loop that connects them. This represents the network of the new Belfast Rapid Transit (BRT) system.
The whole point of BRT is to have dedicated lanes, superior to a metro route, otherwise the system is just a fleet of 30 bendy-buses. Making them compete for road space with over 4,000 taxis would render the project futile.
If the department wishes to gather evidence before BRT is introduced, as some sources are reporting, why have other metro routes not been included in the trial for comparison? It looks like the new system is being deliberately undermined from the start.
The victim of this is Translink, which has based its investment in BRT on the Department for Infrastructure’s promise of high quality routes - including an official assessment that taxis would compromise the system’s performance.
Translink is ultimately owned by the department, however, so it is not in a position to complain. Objections are instead being led by cyclists and the burgeoning greenways movement, two groups who had clearly been impressed by Hazzard up to now. It is believed their intervention had the trial period reduced to 12 weeks from six months.
The main concern of these organisations is safety - Translink drivers are salaried, timetabled employees who receive specific training on sharing bus lanes with cyclists. Taxi drivers are a more variable and less accountable quantity. There is also evident hostility between some cyclists and taxi drivers - and whoever is more to blame for that, only one side comes off worse in a collision.
The department acknowledged the safety issue in its announcement last Thursday, promising to: “assess the impact of the taxis on the operation of the bus lanes during the trial period. This will include the safety of bus lane users”.
Because those users have not been consulted, advised or given more than a few days’ warning, the implication of this extraordinary statement is that people are being thrown into an experiment to see if there is an increase in accidents and near-misses.
Greenway and cycling groups asked for the trial’s safety assessment criteria but officials refused to answer. The department has always previously recognised safety and perceptions of safety as key reasons to protect bus lanes.
Politicians do make u-turns, of course, and the last possible minute may be the best time for them. But to what end?
Sinn Féin has a long association with west Belfast’s black taxis. The west Belfast BRT route runs along the Falls, Andersonstown and Stewartstown roads. The choice of a bus-based system instead of a tram was taken by a previous Sinn Féin transport minister after meeting black taxi drivers. Yet any suspicion of favouring them this time would be mistaken. Black taxis already have access to all Belfast’s bus lanes, due to their classification as ‘taxi buses’. Letting other taxis into the lanes takes this advantage away - something black taxi drivers will not be happy about.
It is remarkable that Sinn Féin has done this at all, let alone two weeks before an election, in which it seems obsessed with every vote it might lose in west Belfast to People Before Profit.
If a favour has been granted, we are not entitled to know.
Sinn Féin’s assembly election manifesto promises a register of lobbyists and the publication of party political donations, as a response to the “corruption” alleged around RHI.
The DUP has said it would welcome this, with Arlene Foster adding “let’s see the contributions from America” (translation: let’s see the cheques from Noraid.)
It is all wearily similar to both party’s position on dealing with the past. Each tells us they want progress, safe in the knowledge that the other will block it and we will never call a taxi for either of them.
newton@irishnews.com
