Swiftway - Dublin's first bus rapid transit route - detailed plans released

LXFlyer · 15-10-2014 11:28am

I think it is a fair comment - many people did comment on it the first time around and may have expected some change - maybe a route variation.

The revised route across north Swords is even worse than the earlier version in terms of catchment.

Aard · 15-10-2014 11:36am

That I agree on. I actually though the the BRT-only lanes across Broadmeadow and Castlegrange were quite clever. Catchment might have extended as far south as Brackenstown Rd in that case.

Tarabuses · 15-10-2014 2:05pm

Yer Aul One wrote: »

I get a rotten feeling cycling through Lincoln place. I was hoping they would put in a cycle lane. No luck. Looks like they are reducing it to two lanes and putting in indented stop.

How are they going to get the BRT vehicles from Merrion Square into Clare Street and from Lincoln Place into Westland Row? Have they looked at the difficulties existing buses have at these points never mind the proposed vehicles?

It makes no sense to plan a route around such restricted junctions rather than find a more direct route.

LXFlyer · 15-10-2014 2:13pm

Tarabuses wrote: »

How are they going to get the BRT vehicles from Merrion Square into Clare Street and from Lincoln Place into Westland Row? Have they looked at the difficulties existing buses have at these points never mind the proposed vehicles?

It makes no sense to plan a route around such restricted junctions rather than find a more direct route.

At Merrion Square, the northbound lane will be much further from the current kerb - basically out at the current traffic island, thus allowing the BRT vehicles sufficient room to turn left.

Similarly in Lincoln Place, the bus lane will be much further out from the current kerb (a full lane width further out), and a retreated stop line put in place on Westland Row for southbound traffic.

AlekSmart · 15-10-2014 2:39pm

lxflyer wrote: »

Also, a park and ride facility was planned at Fosterstown (adjacent to Pinnock Hill) as part of the Metro North proposal, which would have facilitated many people. There are no park & ride proposals as part of Swiftway - this again is going to make it much harder for people from those large estates to avail of the service.

This,for me,represents a rather chilling example of just how difficult we Irish find it to PLAN stuff....

Large Scale P&R really needs to be viewed as an integral component of BRT in this scenario,whereas instead we appear to be heading for substantial arguements about how much Road Widening/Realignment will be required to accomodate current private motoring AND the new BRT.

I remain a proponent of BRT,particularly in our current fiscal situation,however the details of Swiftway now being revealed all point to a situation similar to Leapcard,whereby thos tasked with it's planning,development and commissioning,really don't appreciate it's capabilities as a Public Transport medium.

.

Carawaystick · 15-10-2014 2:46pm

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

cyclists are not subject to speed limits anyway so I'm not sure what the poitn here is supposed to be?

Because at the minute say on the r132n coming down Pinnock Hill, cyclists can travel at close to the speed limit that mechanically propelled vehicles can travel at. Mixing bikes at 60kmh with pedestrians is a crazy idea.
Creating a new system to slow bikes down is another crazy idea.

loyatemu · 15-10-2014 4:28pm

lxflyer wrote: »

At Merrion Square, the northbound lane will be much further from the current kerb - basically out at the current traffic island, thus allowing the BRT vehicles sufficient room to turn left.

Similarly in Lincoln Place, the bus lane will be much further out from the current kerb (a full lane width further out), and a retreated stop line put in place on Westland Row for southbound traffic.

I can't understand why they are persisting with that stupid arrangement at Lincoln Place - why not just route both directions along Merrions St Lwr?

Aard · 15-10-2014 5:12pm

I think the concerns at the Lincoln Place rotary is access to Trinity, private access onto Merrion Close, and the tight zig-zag between Westland Row and Merrion St Lwr. That said, I think the problems faced are hardly insurmountable. Were the BRT route to run straight through from Merrion Sq onto Merrion St then on to Westland Row, there'd be one less junction to navigate. Also, by straightening out the BRT route, the space for the proposed BRT lane on Clare Street could be turned over to a regular bus lane so that busses heading out of town from Nassau Street could go straight through Clare Street and onto Merrion Square. Huge opportunity lost for rationalisation IMO.

Dyr · 15-10-2014 6:03pm

lxflyer wrote: »

The road is to be realigned there - the whole road will slew to the right with bus lanes installed on both sides.

Are they slewing the bridge to the right too? :pac:

LXFlyer · 15-10-2014 6:23pm

Bambi wrote: »

Are they slewing the bridge to the right too? :pac:

Well if you look at the plans they say at the Tolka Bridge (which you presumably have done):

EXISTING BRIDGE WIDENED TO ACCOMMODATE MODIFIED ROAD LAYOUT

The road is being widened at the Cat and Cage regardless of BRT to accommodate an inbound and outbound bus lane.

monument · 15-10-2014 6:44pm

ardmacha wrote: »

One existing bad thing does not justify more bad things, better to remove the existing bad thing and not do it any more.
Pedestrians should be shown some consideration in this, if only because a person i a pedestrian when the get off the the bus.

I'm actually referring to the planned layout.

The current layout in some of those locations and other locations have less shared paths than planned.

bk · 15-10-2014 6:48pm

lxflyer wrote: »

The road is being widened at the Cat and Cage regardless of BRT to accommodate an inbound and outbound bus lane.

Yup, that work is clearly happening at the moment, along with the new building going up at St Pats.

And about time, it has been a real bottlekneck for years.

I have to say, cycle lanes aside, I really like what they are planning to do at Westmoreland St and D'Olier St. At the moment this are pretty terrible streets, massively wasteful, massively wide with little traffic on them, but what traffic is on them speeds up and are very difficult to cross.

The plans basically look like turning these into a big bus/brt/Luas station right at the heart of the city. A great idea and much better use of the road space IMO.

Shedite27 · 15-10-2014 7:53pm

I'm a big supporter of this. I commuted on a similar service in Vancouver (99 line) and it works very well.

A few questions that I may have missed:
How long are the busses? 140 capacity seems optimistic for a single level bus. I presume these have been tested that they fit around all the tight corners in the city centre
Are the busses electric or petrol?
Are there any areas where the BRT is completely segregated from traffic (including other busses and taxis)?

Cookie_Monster · 15-10-2014 9:04pm

Shedite27 wrote: »

Are the busses electric or petrol?

now there's an interesting question. If they are on fixed BRT routes why not look at making them trolleybuses while they're building the infrastructure

15-10-2014 11:07pm

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

now there's an interesting question. If they are on fixed BRT routes why not look at making them trolleybuses while they're building the infrastructure

Or even have the wheel run in grooves along the route...

stop · 15-10-2014 11:08pm

For northbound from Pearse Street, why not go via D'Olier St (contra flow) and then onto O'Connell Street?
Westmoreland street looks overcrowded in these diagrams, whereas D'Olier street has a weird island in the middle

mackerski · 15-10-2014 11:54pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Or even have the wheel run in grooves along the route...

Or on metal rails. A soup stone tram...

monument · 16-10-2014 12:21am

stop wrote: »

...whereas D'Olier street has a weird island in the middle

It's for bus stops and shelters for non-BRT buses.

bk · 16-10-2014 11:55am

monument wrote: »

It's for bus stops and shelters for non-BRT buses.

Which is a welcome improvement. Finally we will have bus shelters in the city center.

Tarabuses · 16-10-2014 1:48pm

Aard wrote: »

I think the concerns at the Lincoln Place rotary is access to Trinity, private access onto Merrion Close, and the tight zig-zag between Westland Row and Merrion St Lwr. That said, I think the problems faced are hardly insurmountable. Were the BRT route to run straight through from Merrion Sq onto Merrion St then on to Westland Row, there'd be one less junction to navigate. Also, by straightening out the BRT route, the space for the proposed BRT lane on Clare Street could be turned over to a regular bus lane so that busses heading out of town from Nassau Street could go straight through Clare Street and onto Merrion Square. Huge opportunity lost for rationalisation IMO.

My thoughts too when I saw the plans.

LXFlyer · 16-10-2014 2:02pm

bk wrote: »

Which is a welcome improvement. Finally we will have bus shelters in the city center.

I wouldn't be that sure about that.

The reason that there are virtually no bus shelters in the city centre is that Dublin City Council did not want Adshel (the company who provides the shelters) getting any advertising revenue from them. It wanted the revenue for itself.

Therefore it has steadfastly refused permission for shelters to be erected on most of the city streets.

Unless DCC have a radical change of thought then I can't see it happening.

Given that it was their decision that forced southbound 7 customers to have to wait on a windswept O'Connell Bridge rather than on O'Connell Street I will be surprised if they give in.

Alan_P · 16-10-2014 4:36pm

lxflyer wrote: »

I wouldn't be that sure about that.

The reason that there are virtually no bus shelters in the city centre is that Dublin City Council did not want Adshel (the company who provides the shelters) getting any advertising revenue from them. It wanted the revenue for itself.

Therefore it has steadfastly refused permission for shelters to be erected on most of the city streets.

Unless DCC have a radical change of thought then I can't see it happening.

Given that it was their decision that forced southbound 7 customers to have to wait on a windswept O'Connell Bridge rather than on O'Connell Street I will be surprised if they give in.

DCC aren't the ultimate authority on planning, they can be overruled by Bord Pleanala.

LXFlyer · 16-10-2014 4:48pm

Alan_P wrote: »

DCC aren't the ultimate authority on planning, they can be overruled by Bord Pleanala.

Well that as may be but that's the reason for the lack of shelters.

Muahahaha · 16-10-2014 6:23pm

lxflyer wrote: »

I wouldn't be that sure about that.

The reason that there are virtually no bus shelters in the city centre is that Dublin City Council did not want Adshel (the company who provides the shelters) getting any advertising revenue from them. It wanted the revenue for itself.

Therefore it has steadfastly refused permission for shelters to be erected on most of the city streets.

Unless DCC have a radical change of thought then I can't see it happening.

Given that it was their decision that forced southbound 7 customers to have to wait on a windswept O'Connell Bridge rather than on O'Connell Street I will be surprised if they give in.

I never knew that. Its insane to think that thousands of people have to stand in the winter wind and rain without shelter because DCC don't want Adshel advertising on the streets. If DCC want to take that position then they should be providing advertsing free shelters themselves instead of leaving people to get wet.

Dyr · 16-10-2014 6:31pm

Muahahaha wrote: »

If DCC want to take that position then they should be providing advertsing free shelters themselves instead of leaving people to get wet.

DCC didnt have a problem with the massive JCDecaux advertisement hoardings for dublin bikes

But why must bus shelters have to come with ads in the first place?

Pete_Cavan · 16-10-2014 10:09pm

Is there going to be any exclusive BRT space or is the best it gets a shared bus lane? Do they actually expect Swiftway to be faster than DB buses? O'Connell Street northbound will be a disaster with Swiftway, DB, Luas and general traffic, not to mention cyclists, sharing two lanes for half of it. A big opportunity is being missed by not making O'Connell Street public transport only. I genuinely cant see how this improves public transport at all, just another mode competing for the same space.

As usual, cycling is an afterthought with bits of tracks stuck on and the situation seems to be made worse in many cases.

AlekSmart · 16-10-2014 10:37pm

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Is there going to be any exclusive BRT space or is the best it gets a shared bus lane? Do they actually expect Swiftway to be faster than DB buses? O'Connell Street northbound will be a disaster with Swiftway, DB, Luas and general traffic, not to mention cyclists, sharing two lanes for half of it. A big opportunity is being missed by not making O'Connell Street public transport only. I genuinely cant see how this improves public transport at all, just another mode competing for the same space.

As usual, cycling is an afterthought with bits of tracks stuck on and the situation seems to be made worse in many cases.

MULTI-STORY CAR PARK ACCESS.

LXFlyer · 16-10-2014 10:40pm

Bambi wrote: »

DCC didnt have a problem with the massive JCDecaux advertisement hoardings for dublin bikes

But why must bus shelters have to come with ads in the first place?

Because someone has to pay for them.

Adshel provide them FOC and then get all the advertising revenue.

xper · 16-10-2014 10:44pm

cgcsb wrote: »

worth noting: The route proposes to use the central part of the Swords bypass, i.e. it is taking the proposed metro north route i.e. we're not getting metro north, at least on the route that already has planning permission.

Yeah, the first thing that jumped out at me is that there appears to be no effort whatsoever in the street layouts on the Swords bypass or in the city centre to accommodate Metro North. The treatment at Westmoreland Street and at the Malahide Road roundabout in particular clash completely with the proposed MN layout. This despite the initial blurb about the Swords BRT heavily emphasising that corridors' capacity demands would still require a future light rail service that the BRT would complement, not replace.

If it's not just PR guff and building MN is still a genuine goal at some point then surely we should be taking its known requirements into account.
I wonder how much extra it would cost now and save long term to build the Swords bypass section according to the MN alignment and run the BRT along the track reservation while figuring out a way to maintain a slightly degraded BRT service when it comes time to lay tracks?

AlekSmart wrote: »

This,for me,represents a rather chilling example of just how difficult we Irish find it to PLAN stuff....

Large Scale P&R really needs to be viewed as an integral component of BRT in this scenario...

Given the previous statements that this BRT, unlike MN, would not meet demand along this corridor, perhaps they have figured that capacity constraints preclude P&R services? Or perhaps they just forgot!

stop wrote: »

For northbound from Pearse Street, why not go via D'Olier St (contra flow) and then onto O'Connell Street?
Westmoreland street looks overcrowded in these diagrams, whereas D'Olier street has a weird island in the middle

That occurred to me too - make D'Olier St a two-way bus/BRT only route and leave Westmoreland St to Luas nth bound, cars and a cycle way. But then I don't think there's enough room on College St to get a nth bound bus from Dame Street to the south end of D'Olier St. That might be deal breaker.

Anyone surprised by the proposed 2.5 year construction period in the project time line? Seems a little long to me for what is considerably simpler than building a light rail route.

xper · 16-10-2014 11:38pm

One common feature of a properly designed QBC, let alone a BRT line, is that the reserved traffic lane runs right up to the stop line at junctions. And yet these plans still have BRT lanes transforming into left-turn filter lanes at traffic lights in the suburbs. Fail.

The amount of lanes shared with all other traffic in the city centre will destroy any hope of maintaining headway when there is any sort of traffic congestion and the reduction in general traffic lanes throughout would seem to make such congestion more likely.

Swiftway - Dublin's first bus rapid transit route - detailed plans released

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