Luas link-up - Where would the buses go?

armada104 · 06-11-2007 6:05pm #1

This is currently being discussed in the Transport 21 thread. Much as I wish the two lines could be linked asap, I just do not see how it will work.

Presumably in this setup, track would not be shared with cars/buses, as letting trams sit in traffic on Dawson Street, Westmoreland Street, O Connell Bridge and O Connell Street would go above and beyond the joke that is the current city-centre red line, and would probably not be allowed for safety reasons anyway.

So if the trams have the streets to themselves, where in God's name will the buses go? The chosen route interferes with just about every bus route that touches the city centre, and would mean major reroutes for most of them. I cannot personally see any viable alternative to most of the current routes. It's no wonder Dublin Bus are kicking up a fuss about this.

bryanw · 06-11-2007 6:58pm

I suppose you have to ask why almost every route has to pass through O'Connell Street. Maybe allowing buses to terminate before their route would intersect the LUAS line might be a good idea where possible.

But I think the whole idea put forward by the city council regarding the pedestrianisation of that whole area may be the way forward...

We could allow only LUAS and some buses use the route.

Propellerhead · 06-11-2007 11:58pm

armada104 wrote: »

This is currently being discussed in the Transport 21 thread. Much as I wish the two lines could be linked asap, I just do not see how it will work.

Presumably in this setup, track would not be shared with cars/buses, as letting trams sit in traffic on Dawson Street, Westmoreland Street, O Connell Bridge and O Connell Street would go above and beyond the joke that is the current city-centre red line, and would probably not be allowed for safety reasons anyway.

So if the trams have the streets to themselves, where in God's name will the buses go? The chosen route interferes with just about every bus route that touches the city centre, and would mean major reroutes for most of them. I cannot personally see any viable alternative to most of the current routes. It's no wonder Dublin Bus are kicking up a fuss about this.

If it's such a rubbish deal for buses then why are the RPA bothering to promote the bizarre split routing north of the river?

Are DB doing anything at all to link the two existing lines? No.

gjim · 07-11-2007 12:47am

The preferred route absolutely stinks in every way. By the RPA's own estimates it will cost 65% more than the straight forward A option and I think that's being conservative. It will involve digging up 5 extra streets and it will involve introducing a new intersection and set of lights along the quays killing the already poor flow of traffic - public and private - through that section. It will introduce a new intersection with buses at the Pearse/d'Olier/Townsend St junction killing movements in every direction. It will involve building a new bridge at a section of the Liffey already cluttered with bridges. It will make the southbound route longer and add a couple of tight slow 90 degree turns which will increase the journey time. It will require building a couple of extra stops increasing the cost and making it more confusing for users. It's so stupid, I actually hope that it's a sneaky ploy on the part of the RPA in order to kill the project. If the RPA actually believe that this route is preferrable, then the future of trams and light rail in Dublin is bleak indeed.

Xylophonic · 07-11-2007 2:04am

Propellerhead wrote: »

Are DB doing anything at all to link the two existing lines? No.

Er, yes.

http://www.dublinbus.ie/news_centre/latest_news.asp?action=view&news_id=388

dRNk SAnTA · 07-11-2007 2:55am

I am happy to see this thread because I feel there really hasn't been enough discussion about a long term objective/utopian vision for bus routes in the city center.

For instance, the situation on O'Connell street is bad for many often-stated reasons. But if Dublin City Councils regeneration policies have any success at all, the city center will stretch from the Docklands to Heuston Station and in that scenario we will surely need to change how we run bus routes through the city center, i.e. some go through docks, some centrally (o'connell bridge) and others cross the liffey at a more westerly location.

If we tore up the bus network and started again what would people like to do? I would love to see some diagrams of plans/suggestions about how to de-clog the grafton st - o'connell street axis and more effectively serve the rest of the city center.

AlekSmart · 07-11-2007 3:12am

Its real nutty stuff ok :eek:
However I believe it`s a safe bet that this "Preferred" option will never see the light of day.
By the time 2009 comes around the availibility of funding will have been seriously compromised and a low key extended deferral will be quietly announced,probably over a Bank Holiday weekend.

The excuse will be that the Metro or some such will actually be doing the same job

and available funding will be diverted into more Metro friendly projects.....

There`s NOBODY in charge and the sooner we realise and get comfortable with that notion the better for our collective sanity....

Heart · 07-11-2007 10:25am

Apart from the fact that the Metro will follow the same route underground and give a link, how many people on the LUAS Green Line actually head towards O'Connell St.??? Have any surveys of passengers final destination been done?

H

paulm17781 · 07-11-2007 10:39am

Heart wrote: »

Apart from the fact that the Metro will follow the same route underground and give a link, how many people on the LUAS Green Line actually head towards O'Connell St.??? Have any surveys of passengers final destination been done?

Indeed, it is the determination to go to O'Connell st. that bothers / baffles me. Surely if they are going to insist on this link, they could take another route all together, via Temple Bar or some such and open more of the city to Luas.

loyatemu · 07-11-2007 11:41am

its nothing to do with O'Connell street as a final destination - its to allow Green line users to easily connect with other transport modes. The Eventual plan is to extend all the way to Liffey junction allowing interchange with the Red line, the maynooth line and numerous bus services (as well as access to Connolly). It also provides a useful local service within the city centre. Sure, the metro also does this but would involve 2 changes in most cases and a lot of walking\escalators.

However I don't think this will ever be built - as it duplicate the Metro to some extent, its dispensible and will probably be dropped to save money.

paulm17781 · 07-11-2007 11:46am

loyatemu wrote: »

its nothing to do with O'Connell street as a final destination - its to allow Green line users to easily connect with other transport modes. The Eventual plan is to extend all the way to Liffey junction allowing interchange with the Red line, the maynooth line and numerous bus services (as well as access to Connolly).

Are these the bus services that will have to move because of the Luas

That is an awful plan (I don't mean that against you) but they would be far better having it go somewhere useful within walking distance of other modes of Transport. With everything else T21 apparently delivers this should be possible. Alternatively a decent reshuffle of bus routes would do the same thing at lower cost.

AlekSmart · 07-11-2007 12:16pm

The entire thing is simply yet another excuse for some Gravy Training.... :rolleyes:

Already we have had surveys,geotechnical work,planning analysis and of course the ubquitous "Consultancy" work all fully tendered for and paid for.

The usual band of "Proffesionals",both individual and corporate have been nosing round the trough and at the end of the day it matters little if any work is actually carried out because these folks WILL be paid.

Essentially it`s a repeat ot the RPA`s "Integrated Ticketing" programme which if nothing else is proving how the RPA should be placed in charge of sourcing "Consultancy" work for EVERY project in the State..... :eek:

trellheim · 07-11-2007 12:19pm

Just a point ;

we've discussed this several times. Each time you get the LUAS moaners [ I want to go from Red-Green etc ] who don't take into account the massive disruption to all the other forms

Also RPA want to get as much mileage as they can before a DTA tells them to stop messing and play with the other children.

1: Red-Green link not needed as Metro North will duplicate it.

Consider the upheaval

1 surface tram as planned line will mess up every city centre bus route and all the cross-city centre routes. If it is given traffic priority [ there's another question... if all Westmoreland and College Green is public transport, why should the LUAS get any priority ] all the other buses will be messed up.

Consider the upheaval

1: Years of Dawson, Suffolk, Colllege Green & O Connell being ripped up just as it's been finished for ANOTHER tram

2: The Green, and all the other Metro North Stations being constructed will do the same for another number of years.

3: The Interconnector [ the one that is actually needed ] doing the same just even deeper [ not much overground ]

DO NOT GET ME WRONG - INTERCONNECT IS A GOOD THING. But the plan as put down by RPA is moronic.

Put the damn thing on stilts and run it as an 'El' or make the Metro North tunnels wider and run it beside the Metro North trains and bring it up at Dorset St.

murphaph · 07-11-2007 1:36pm

AlekSmart wrote: »

Its real nutty stuff ok :eek:
However I believe it`s a safe bet that this "Preferred" option will never see the light of day.
By the time 2009 comes around the availibility of funding will have been seriously compromised and a low key extended deferral will be quietly announced,probably over a Bank Holiday weekend.

The excuse will be that the Metro or some such will actually be doing the same job and available funding will be diverted into more Metro friendly projects.....

There`s NOBODY in charge and the sooner we realise and get comfortable with that notion the better for our collective sanity....

My sentiments exactly. Don't believe this link up will ever appear, certainly not in this format.

D.L.R. · 07-11-2007 4:38pm

At the risk of sounding logical, build the metro with an extra stop around trinity, and move the o'connell stop north (to actually CONNECT with the red line). The green line can be upgraded to metro at a later stage.

The College Green stop could also be integrated with the Lucan Luas terminus, if that route is selected.

strassenwolf · 07-11-2007 5:21pm

AlekSmart wrote: »

There`s NOBODY in charge and the sooner we realise and get comfortable with that notion the better for our collective sanity....

But Alek, from what I'm aware, there's a section of the Department of Transport called the Public Transport Planning Division.

My guess is that the staff therein busy themselves planning public transport.

Presumably, the boss of this division is in overall charge of our public transport plans, and he then makes recommendations to the Minister.

Or is this not how it works? Please forgive my naivety.

armada104 · 07-11-2007 7:17pm

Upheaval during the construction period is a non-argument as far as I'm concerned. It's hugely inconvenient but it's necessary.

What concerns me more is the gobbling up by Luas of the only sensible north-south spine that bus routes have.The proposed Luas route completely rules out Dawson Street and College Green for bus use, and would cause significant problems on Westmoreland St and O' Connell St. Not to mention the eradication of a bus terminus.It's all very well talking about a growing city centre and bus routes in the docklands, but at the end of the day, people want to get the bus to what is and will be the city centre for the forseeable future.

The argument for terminating buses before they interfere with Luas is ludicrous. Cross-city routes are extremely valuable - not everyone wants to go to the city centre. Even those routes that do terminate in the city centre should cross the river before doing so - not everyone from the northside works in the north city centre and vice versa. One tram line should not get priority over hundreds of buses daily.

On the other hand, the "don't worry - it won't happen" attitude is absolutely ridiculous. The green line should meet the red one - of course the green line should be part of Metro North, but realistically it never will be. Transferring to Metro North for one stop is not an acceptable means of interchange. A "sure it'll be grand" attitude won't change this.

Slice · 07-11-2007 7:26pm

Couldn't other routes in the city centre be prioritised for busses if cross city routes is the objective?

Heart · 07-11-2007 9:59pm

Why not send the line around by Merrion Sq./Westland Row across Pearse St. and cross the Liffey and join up along the extension to the Point, offering new links across the city to areas not served by the LUAS???

H

trellheim · 07-11-2007 11:20pm

I take your point completely. In the 10-50 year timeframe it won't matter regarding a construction upheaval if we have to effectively dig up the city centre for 8-10 years [ think Boston during the Big Dig, but with no cash for bypasses ]

why isn't it going around Pearse St ?
because the "Duh"-signers were told to skew it in favour of College Green.

Propellerhead · 08-11-2007 10:23am

Heart wrote: »

Why not send the line around by Merrion Sq./Westland Row across Pearse St. and cross the Liffey and join up along the extension to the Point, offering new links across the city to areas not served by the LUAS???

H

Round and round the houses. What would be the benefit? Certainly none for any meaningful integration. One of the options for the BX public consultation was going via Merrion Square and Westland Row and crossing the river north of Westland Row. Rightly, this was dismissed.

Propellerhead · 08-11-2007 10:26am

Xylophonic wrote: »

Er, yes.

http://www.dublinbus.ie/news_centre/latest_news.asp?action=view&news_id=388

You still have a five hundred metre walk from Westmorland Street to the Abbey Luas. Route 92 is not integration.

A single decker running from the Luas terminus to Abbey and Connolly on a five to ten minute headway would be.

trellheim · 08-11-2007 10:58am

You are correct PH : round the houses. It is the only overground way that doesn't interfere with the existing majority of public transport. [ and even then it would hurt the area ]

For one line just so the RPA can have a bigger trainset ?

... reality check needed.

Zoney · 08-11-2007 12:29pm

I cannot believe people are still suggesting the two Luas lines do not need connected. It is irrelevant that Metro will be "duplicating the route" (not that it exactly will - Stephen's Green to O'Connell St.) or that buses already do. Each form of transport needs its own network, yes with connections to allow multi-modal travel, but it is not sensible for many journeys to have people switch modes just for the last bit in the city centre; especially if they are going to travel onwards on some other mode.

Look at cities with sensible transport systems, and they usually have trunk sections in the city centre where you have the same route followed by bus, tram, underground, commuter rail and other heavy rail.

Of course we all know the chaos that might result from putting in the new Luas connection. But come on, this is not despite the evidence a nation of thickos with no money - it is not impossible to sort things out that one can have the two luas lines connected and still have bus services run as efficiently (of course, considering that a better concept of a hub is needed, and the buses *aren't* that efficient at present - surely it's the buses that most need to be rerouted?)

Calina · 08-11-2007 1:11pm

Zoney wrote: »

... Each form of transport needs its own network, yes with connections to allow multi-modal travel, but it is not sensible for many journeys to have people switch modes just for the last bit in the city centre; especially if they are going to travel onwards on some other mode.

I would have said there needs to be greater integration of the different modes something which is sadly lacking at the moment, and evidenced by this debate. Do we need duplication or near duplication along that route?

The issue that we have - compared to other cities - is that very little long term planning is done and when you have several agencies doing it separately then you wind up with a disparate and not well thought out system. I see no evidence of any improvement here. We are also hamstrung because there are things in the way we can't demolish - I mean, how much easier would our lives be if we could demolish Trinity College and build a brand new 18 platform mainline railway station lining up all the intercity services and make it served properly by DARTS, Luases and buses. I suppose we could get rid of the Bank of Ireland as well, that's in the way too.

Unfortunately...Really, they should have built the central sections of the Luas underground like a load of people said they should 10 years ago...routing a connection between them might have been easier.

Planning Luas connections needs to be looked at in tandem with other transport modes including moving traffic around the place. Unfortunately I don't get any feeling for it being done.

trellheim · 08-11-2007 3:51pm

And as usual people don't read what I said.

No one is suggesting integration is not needed.

Why should the minority - i.e. the LUAS get priority over the buses ?

Calina puts it better than I can.

Until a situation exists where CIE [ IE/BE/DB] and RPA can play together happily for the greater good then everyone wants their own trainset.

Nothing worthwhile going to happen without a DTA with balls [ these were excised by Cullen two years ago ]

bet : RPA will dig it up anyway and it will go ahead. Morons to the fore and we've wrecked the city for another 10-20 years.

Zoney · 08-11-2007 7:24pm

Calina wrote: »

I would have said there needs to be greater integration of the different modes something which is sadly lacking at the moment, and evidenced by this debate. Do we need duplication or near duplication along that route?

The point is that we need both. It's not sane to have a gap in the middle of the different transport modes that people are supposed to walk, hop on a bus, hop on a Metro for one stop, it's just not sensible.

By the logic some are expressing here, one would shelve the Interconnector just cause there's the Luas red line. The entire point of connecting up the heavy rail network in this instance is to make it simpler to *interconnect* with other transport links!!!

Have people engaging in this debate actually been to somewhere that has loads of interconnected different transport modes converging on the city centre? Munich for example? We're not even looking for a similar scale of interconnection here, we are just talking about joining up our two tram lines - something that should have been in place from the start!

Mightn't joining the two Luas lines mean that someone out on the Green Line could travel up to where it would meet the Red Line and catch one of northside buses to continue their journey?

trellheim · 08-11-2007 7:39pm

1. Even if the RPA builds the "preferred" line you will still need to change to go Green-Red or vice versa so that doesn't matter at all. There is no concept of Cherrywood-direct-Citywest to take an extreme case.

Zoney the argument was the opposite. Metro North will duplicate BX so why build it overground at all to get the same integration ?

Here is my argument succinctly : it makes no sense to link the LUAS lines via the surface in the city centre. The disruption to "non-tram" public transport to allow the minority be linked up is not worth it.

steve-o · 08-11-2007 8:04pm

trellheim wrote: »

Here is my argument succinctly : it makes no sense to link the LUAS lines via the surface in the city centre. The disruption to "non-tram" public transport to allow the minority be linked up is not worth it.

Spot on. Some people seem to be dismissing the importance of cross city buses in favour of an O'Connell St Luas. Where's the consistency? Why should the lines meet in the most congested part of town? If routing the cross-city bus routes away from O'Connell St makes apparent sense, why does the same logic not apply to Luas?

I don't understand the obsession people have with connecting the Green line to the Red Line. Routing the Green line extension to Heuston, Pearse, Tara St, or even heading down Baggot St to Lansdowne Road would seem to me to be just as useful and far less disruptive.

Propellerhead · 08-11-2007 11:38pm

steve-o wrote: »

--snip--

I don't understand the obsession people have with connecting the Green line to the Red Line. Routing the Green line extension to Heuston, Pearse, Tara St, or even heading down Baggot St to Lansdowne Road would seem to me to be just as useful and far less disruptive.

I don't understand why Mary O'Rourke and a PD thinktank decided that the Luas was to be cut in two and no city centre interconnection was to be constructed at the time. Cui Bono? Who benefitted? No-one did apart from a few anti-rail obsessives in high places and presumably a few contributors to FF and PD funds.

Why not build another river crossing for road traffic and buses? Why not prioritise trams in the O'Connell Street axis? I believe that we are so bereft of imagination that clogging Westmoreland Street with terminating buses and shift changing buses without upsetting DB's unions is more important than taking a fundamental look at how all of us move around the city.

God forbid that we do anything interesting and radical in Dublin, eh? Some vested interests may not like it. :rolleyes:

paulm17781 · 09-11-2007 10:53am

steve-o wrote: »

I don't understand the obsession people have with connecting the Green line to the Red Line. Routing the Green line extension to Heuston, Pearse, Tara St, or even heading down Baggot St to Lansdowne Road would seem to me to be just as useful and far less disruptive.

I couldn't agree more. It would make far more sense to route the Green line past a DART station than to send it the quickest way to a congested street.

Luas link-up - Where would the buses go?

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