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

The maps indicate that road widening will have to happen at various locations along the route. I'm assuming everyone is looking at them?

I'm looking at the maps, it indicates 2 bus lanes and 2 other lanes outside the cat and cage, also leaving a path. Right now there is only room for 2 lanes outside the cat and cage, they seem to be reclaiming some path on the St pats side outbound for a bus lane, but there is no scope to fit in a bus lane inbound, unless they remove the cat and cage, or the new building that's being built in St Pats.

The whole planned cycling infrastructure in Swords is a joke.
The r132 has a 80 or 60 limit, which for cyclists means as fast as you can go, and they want to mix bikes with pedestrians?

A poster upthread said they wouldn't like their children to use shared bike/footpath and neither would I.

There appear to be no safe way for cyclists to turn right at the estuary road junction, the seatown junction, the Malahide junction.


As for the plan of re-routing cyclists off the swords bypass through swords village, with crossing traffic, parking cars increased risk of dooring and slower speed? And then are northbound cyclists supposed to magically safely turn right from North st onto the r125 to get to the r132?

monument wrote: »

Large amount of shared use paths in and around Whitehall, Coolock Lane, around Northwood, around Swords, etc.

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.

Aard wrote: »

Yes I understand that. But the poster said that the route choice was stupid...and just didn't elaborate. Hardly a persuasive argument. Metro North would have been equally non-serving of those areas too, for example.

Indeed Metro North would not have served those areas directly either, but the time differential would have made all the difference. For many taking a bus or walking to a Metro stop and then taking the Metro would have been faster than their current journey time. That isn't really the case for Swiftway for many of the areas that I quoted above (south of Rathbeale Road and west of Forest Road).


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.

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.

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 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.

.

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?

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)?

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 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.

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.

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.

Although I welcome it overall as a slight improvement, mostly for cyclists, as a bus service it isn't of any distinct value. A few upgrades of the existing service could achieve the same standard such as:

multi door use(already being rolled out, but non cooperation from drivers)
Of board ticketing (can be done anyway)
Traffic light priority, already put in place with cityswift but switched off to appease the motorist lobby.

overall we're not getting a substantial improvement in bus service for the money. The money would be better spent on any enabling works required for metro north.

I'm also a bit taken aback by the proposal to have the BRT lanes used as left turning lanes at junctions, that is just unacceptable really and another sop to car fetishists.

Shedite27 wrote: »

And I reckon we are gettign a substancial improvement. As someone who travels from Griffith Avenue to Harcourt Street for work each day, I expect this to knock 20/25mns off my journey each way based on offboard ticketing, junction prioritisation and the ability to pass slower busses.

and as I said, offboard ticketing can be achieved without brt, and traffic light prioritisation already exists but was turned off come election season, which can happen again just as easily.

Shedite27 wrote: »

Everyone in Ireland would like Metro North, but if we're not getting that well then this is at least a step up.

And I reckon we are gettign a substancial improvement. As someone who travels from Griffith Avenue to Harcourt Street for work each day, I expect this to knock 20/25mns off my journey each way based on offboard ticketing, junction prioritisation and the ability to pass slower busses.

Proper BRT doesnt have to pull out into a general traffic lane to pass other buses, it is ridiculous that we would expect them to. At peak times I dont think passing buses would faster than waiting behind the bus anyway, the BRT buses will be very long so not easy for them to find a gap in heavy traffic and may even have difficulty getting back to its own lane if there are several buses together in it. I doubt there will be any time savings between Griffith Ave and town due to the volume of buses which travel that route, BRT will not get a clear run. BRT buses will only be able to go as fast as the bus in front of it. The time saving from offboard ticketing will be cancelled out by sitting behind DB buses at stop while passengers fumble with change.