Pointless Bus Lanes

keith16 · 22-01-2013 1:21am #1

Anyone know of any bus lanes that are just there for the sake of it?

Don't get me wrong, there are some great bus corridors in Dublin that are essential and work really well.

But there are some like the one on Mount Merrion Avenue that are just ridiculous to be honest. There is one bus (the 17) that goes roughly every half an hour, usually with about four people sitting on it.

Not justified IMO, that road can be ridiculously busy heading toward the N11 and to have one lane in that direction effectively closed is a bit of a waste.

Or maybe I'm just being stupid? As I have said, there are some great QBCs in Dublin but anyone have examples where it's just a bit overkill?

Cookie_Monster · 22-01-2013 1:25am

The one into Dunshaughlin

The Royal Scam · 22-01-2013 1:33am

The long mile road all the way down to the N7 at the Red Cow. I honestly have never seen a bus on it, well a Dublin Bus anyway. It's alway clear all the way down while traffic is always backed up on it and only about 10 cars get through the junction with the Kylmore Rd. It's a pox

coylemj · 22-01-2013 1:42am

keith16 wrote: »

But there are some like the one on Mount Merrion Avenue that are just ridiculous to be honest. There is one bus (the 17) that goes roughly every half an hour, usually with about four people sitting on it.

The locals campaigned relentlessly against that bus lane using the exact data you quote above but the anti-car people in Dun Laoghaire Co. Council went ahead with it anyway.

In fairness, there is plenty of room at the top of MMA between the end of the bus lane and the actual junction for the cars to break into two lanes, what screws things up is when some dozy git sitting in the single lane alongside the bus lane isn't quick enough off the mark when the lights change.

LoonyLovegood · 22-01-2013 2:13am

The one on the Ballyboggan road. There's not even a bus route that would use it!

Cookie_Monster · 22-01-2013 2:26am

also the ones on Ballinteer road and Wyckham way, have been there for years and still have the little orange signs saying not in use.

dfx- · 22-01-2013 3:06am

The Royal Scam wrote: »

The long mile road all the way down to the N7 at the Red Cow. I honestly have never seen a bus on it, well a Dublin Bus anyway. It's alway clear all the way down while traffic is always backed up on it and only about 10 cars get through the junction with the Kylmore Rd. It's a pox

56A and 18 use the Long Mile Rd bus lane to the old EP Mooney site. 151 continues on using it until the Esso garage.

The 13, 68, 69, 69N uses the bus lane from the Esso garage to the Red Cow. And get stuck using the inbound bus lane at the Kylemore Rd junction because of traffic. Great bus lane it is as a bus user..

The bus lane that the 151 goes onto towards Bawnogue was wasted until the 151 came into action, years later..

F1ngers · 22-01-2013 3:17am

Any of the weekend ones, especially the "sunday" ones.
Monday to friday, no problem.

BostonB · 22-01-2013 3:26am

24hr ones for the 24hr buses we dont have.

coylemj · 22-01-2013 3:44am

The bus lane on the N11 south of Foxrock church is 24 hours yet the only regular DB service on that road is the 145 Kilmacanogue service whereas on the busiest (measured by volume of bus journeys) stretch of the N11 between Stillorgan Cross and Foxrock Church (served by the 75, 145 and 46A), the bus lane is only effective from 7 to 7 Mon-Sat.

The Greystones Aircoach uses that road as well but it's down to hourly nowadays so hardly justifies a 24 hour bus lane.

seanmacc · 22-01-2013 10:32am

The one on the N32 from Clare Hall/Northern Cross to the M1/M50. Since the AerDart went kaput there hasn't been a bus using it. To be fair the bus lane signs are taken down and the road markings haven't been touched up (although not erased either) but the amount of people who treat it as a bus lane is ridiculous.

corktina · 22-01-2013 10:35am

Bus Lanes are also for taxis...

seamus · 22-01-2013 11:05am

There's a 24 hour bus lane along the entire length of the outer ring road in Dublin.

Afaik, there are still no busses using that road with the exception of the last 2km in Lucan.

GerardKeating · 22-01-2013 11:25am

BostonB wrote: »

24hr ones for the 24hr buses we dont have.

Is traffic that bad at 3am that it makes a difference?

Also, Bus Lanes are also for Taxi's that are 24hr.

The Royal Scam · 22-01-2013 11:29am

dfx- wrote: »

56A and 18 use the Long Mile Rd bus lane to the old EP Mooney site. 151 continues on using it until the Esso garage.

The 13, 68, 69, 69N uses the bus lane from the Esso garage to the Red Cow. And get stuck using the inbound bus lane at the Kylemore Rd junction because of traffic. Great bus lane it is as a bus user..

The bus lane that the 151 goes onto towards Bawnogue was wasted until the 151 came into action, years later..

I accept the 18 and 56 use it but I am only refering from the section from the Long Miler pub up to the esso. All other sections you are talking about I agree with. I have seen the 18 on it but they generally use the right hand lane early to make the right turn onto kylmore rd

Chris_5339762 · 22-01-2013 11:41am

This one - http://goo.gl/maps/5VTqA

Its just a dangerous, confusing mess because of how short it is and the amount of weaving traffic thrown in for good measure.

tubbs26 · 22-01-2013 11:45am

The flyover on the N4 at Woodies in Lucan has a bus lane heading in the direction of the Outer Ring Road. (The other direction is a different story, that side of the road is heavily used by buses)

I can't think of any bus route that goes that way. I think there may be a route from Blanch to Lucan but as far as I know its a very light service.

If the lane was opened to traffic I don't think it would make too much difference but it just seems strange having one there for no reason.

As one poster said though a lot of the outer ring road has unused bus lanes. Maybe its just future proofing if the areas population picks up

Wishbone Ash · 22-01-2013 11:47am

BostonB wrote: »

24hr ones for the 24hr buses we dont have.

Taxis, cyclists, private buses, Bus Eireann etc.

Bus lanes are not just for Dublin Bus.

monument · 22-01-2013 11:51am

It's worth stressing that all bus lanes are also for cyclists.

keith16 · 22-01-2013 12:59pm

monument wrote: »

It's worth stressing that all bus lanes are also for cyclists.

That's true monument, but there are also a lot of useless cycle paths around aswell. The ones up and around Carrickmines spring to mind.

It just feels like they have some sort of "quota" to fill in terms of kilometers of cycle / bus lanes and strategic thinking goes out the window at the expense of short term targets.

There is also a bus lane coming from Churchtown direction down toward Dundrum (before the Luas bridge). Again, I never ever see any buses using it and traffic can be quite bad there, particularly with cars waiting to turn into the right much further down that road up to the shopping centre which leads to the main road going straight getting blocked.

KD345 · 22-01-2013 2:06pm

keith16 wrote: »

But there are some like the one on Mount Merrion Avenue that are just ridiculous to be honest. There is one bus (the 17) that goes roughly every half an hour, usually with about four people sitting on it.

The 17 runs every 20 minutes at peak times. It only carries a few people at that point because the terminus is at the end of the road in Blackrock. However, if buses were to sit in a line of traffic on Mount Merrion Avenue it would have a knock on effect in its frequency further along the route.

The Royal Scam wrote: »

I accept the 18 and 56 use it but I am only refering from the section from the Long Miler pub up to the esso. All other sections you are talking about I agree with. I have seen the 18 on it but they generally use the right hand lane early to make the right turn onto kylmore rd

The 151 uses this stretch and runs every 15 minutes.

keith16 wrote: »

There is also a bus lane coming from Churchtown direction down toward Dundrum (before the Luas bridge). Again, I never ever see any buses using it and traffic can be quite bad there, particularly with cars waiting to turn into the right much further down that road up to the shopping centre which leads to the main road going straight getting blocked.

This is used by the 17, 61 and 161. If buses were forced into the line of traffic it would disrupt their timetable and cause delays.

dfx- · 22-01-2013 2:45pm

The Royal Scam wrote: »

I accept the 18 and 56 use it but I am only refering from the section from the Long Miler pub up to the esso. All other sections you are talking about I agree with. I have seen the 18 on it but they generally use the right hand lane early to make the right turn onto kylmore rd

The 151 uses that section. I can't believe you haven't seen a 151 use it in either direction. It's the most frequent of the three routes. Brand new buses, "Foxborough" on the front?

Tarabuses · 22-01-2013 2:47pm

monument wrote: »

It's worth stressing that all bus lanes are also for cyclists.

Even when there is a seperate cycle lane?

monument · 22-01-2013 2:51pm

Tarabuses wrote: »

Even when there is a seperate cycle lane?

Yes.

Mandtory use of cycle lanes is now revoked, and, to start with, it never applied to half of the cycle lanes or tracks inside bus lanes (wrong signs etc).

patrickbrophy18 · 22-01-2013 2:59pm

The stretch of Upper Glenageary Road adjacent to the old Dun Laoghaire Golf Course comes to mind. Aside from the infrequent 8 and almost non-existent 7D, no other service uses it. The Monkstown Ring Road is a close second and is only serviced by the 7B. Unless Dublin Bus are (very doubtfully) planning services with frequencies upwards of 30 minutes or better, there isn't much point in having this infrastructure in place.

KD345 · 22-01-2013 3:29pm

patrickbrophy18 wrote: »

The stretch of Upper Glenageary Road adjacent to the old Dun Laoghaire Golf Course comes to mind. Aside from the infrequent 8 and almost non-existent 7D, no other service uses it. The Monkstown Ring Road is a close second and is only serviced by the 7B. Unless Dublin Bus are (very doubtfully) planning services with frequencies upwards of 30 minutes or better, there isn't much point in having this infrastructure in place.

Admittedly, there are only three buses using this bit of road between 7 and 9am, but if that bus lane wasn't there it would greatly impact those services. I don't believe the frequency of a bus route should decide how much priority that bus should get. Those three buses have the potential to carry almost 300 people. It's similar with the 7B - those 5 buses in the morning, which carry good numbers, feed into the N11 QBC. It would be pointless for passengers to have to sit in traffic in order to get onto the QBC.

The idea that every bus lane will have a constant flow of buses is unrealistic. Remember, it used to be a big complaint of Dublin commuters that the bus was forever stuck in traffic. Thankfully, things have changed and passengers now feel the benefit of bus lanes. Whether you're using the high frequency 46A or the low frequency 8, you will be using bus lanes for most of the route. That makes using the bus attractive.

In fact, in the case of the posts on this thread, I'd like to think keith16 didn't see any buses on Lower Churchtown Road or Mount Merrion Avenue because the bus passes through these places quick enough without sitting in traffic to be spotted.

keith16 · 22-01-2013 4:09pm

KD345 wrote: »

Admittedly, there are only three buses using this bit of road between 7 and 9am, but if that bus lane wasn't there it would greatly impact those services. I don't believe the frequency of a bus route should decide how much priority that bus should get. Those three buses have the potential to carry almost 300 people. It's similar with the 7B - those 5 buses in the morning, which carry good numbers, feed into the N11 QBC. It would be pointless for passengers to have to sit in traffic in order to get onto the QBC.

The idea that every bus lane will have a constant flow of buses is unrealistic. Remember, it used to be a big complaint of Dublin commuters that the bus was forever stuck in traffic. Thankfully, things have changed and passengers now feel the benefit of bus lanes. Whether you're using the high frequency 46A or the low frequency 8, you will be using bus lanes for most of the route. That makes using the bus attractive.

In fact, in the case of the posts on this thread, I'd like to think keith16 didn't see any buses on Lower Churchtown Road or Mount Merrion Avenue because the bus passes through these places quick enough without sitting in traffic to be spotted.

I agree bus lanes are a good thing in general, but maybe there is some middle ground for the roads I mentioned? Less restrictive hours maybe? I don't know...

A couple of other considerations, I have used the 17 on a number of occasions. It still takes way too long to get from Blackrock to UCD, it takes me the same time to cycle. Dwell times need to be reduced, otherwise, isn't the benefit of having a bus lane slightly diminished?

Cookie_Monster · 22-01-2013 9:13pm

Aren't all new bus lanes made 24/7 for future proofing reasons, hence why the outer N11 stretch is 24/7 and the inner one not, it was built too early?!

Polar101 · 22-01-2013 9:31pm

If we removed all the 'pointless' bus lanes, there'd be another thread complaining why the bus was late (because it got stuck in traffic). If public transport improves, it helps motorists as well because there will be less cars on the roads.

keith16 · 22-01-2013 9:58pm

Polar101 wrote: »

If we removed all the 'pointless' bus lanes, there'd be another thread complaining why the bus was late (because it got stuck in traffic). If public transport improves, it helps motorists as well because there will be less cars on the roads.

But that's the thing, I would love to see data on "bus lane utilisation"

So you could take total seats available during the 7am to 8pm window, that's 13 hours. Let's say to keep things simple that a bus goes every half an hour and that the capacity per bus is 200 for the sake of argument.

That's two buses (400 PAX) per hour (13 hours) = 5,200 available capacity and then get the actual PAX to get a "load factor" per bus lane.

My point is that there is little in the way of these stats to prove the success or otherwise of bus lanes. Additionally, Dublin bus seem to be losing money hand over fist despite having all the necessary infrastructure in place.

Why is that? Do they look at passenger data in any meaningful way to tweak routes / schedules in order to minimise loss, or do they just take a stab in the dark with nothing more scientific than, "ah shure we'll throw a bus lane there"?

stop · 22-01-2013 10:06pm

keith16 wrote: »

A couple of other considerations, I have used the 17 on a number of occasions. It still takes way too long to get from Blackrock to UCD, it takes me the same time to cycle. Dwell times need to be reduced, otherwise, isn't the benefit of having a bus lane slightly diminished?

17 would benefit from being able to access ucd bus stops via Foster Ave all day. Going over mount anville to Dundrum instead of via Clonskeagh might also cut a bit of time off it.

Pointless Bus Lanes

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