Luas Cross City (Line BX/D) [now open]

all this highlights to me, is the absolute farce of not putting it underground for the core city centre! the city centre looking a building site for years, trade lost, a fortune spent and this is the solution that we are going to get?

the dodder bridge is badly needed too!

spacetweek wrote: »

They were considered at the start of LCC and this is the compromise what was agreed to. I guess such a large amount of people are carried on Dublin's bus system that it was given equal weight through the central area.

That is just wrong.

Point me to the detailed plans that were published for the future of Dublin traffic flows and the detailed assessment of the impact of LUAS BXD on Dublin Bus and other bus services services that formed part of:

1) The assessment of the LUAS Cross City scheme by government for funding
2) The An Bord Pleanala planning hearings

If you look at the plans, and the indicative drawings, the plan was that buses would still use their existing routes and would be using College Green and Dame Street. The tracks have actually been laid in such a way to facilitate a right turn lane for buses outside Trinity College to head up Dame Street.

In the NTA/DCC City Centre Transport Study of 2015, this remained the case.

DCC first raised potential objections to the throughput of buses via that corridor only in April 2016 when the LUAS line was already under construction, proposing an alternative route for the buses from Georges Street looping via Dame Street, Parliament Street and the Quays to O'Connell Street, which is longer, and involves more junctions and traffic lights. Longer routings through the city for several routes via Pearse Street have already meant increasing the peak vehicle requirement (PVR) for bus routes to maintain the existing level of service (i.e. the maximum number of buses needed at any one time). That means buses that could be used elsewhere to deliver improvements on the network have had to be used to maintain the existing service levels due to longer running times.

They then reversed the proposed ban on taxis through the College Green area that was contained in that document, stating that they will wait to see how it all works in practice.

Are you seriously suggesting that is how major infrastructure projects such as this should be assessed and managed, particularly when the buses carry far more passengers through the city than either of the two LUAS lines can ever manage?

We then got individual separate plans for
1) College Green/Parliament Street,
2) The Quays and
3) Several attempts at the Liffey Cycle Scheme.

Each of these have contained direct contradictions of the others.

We are 6 months from the start of testing, and while these proposals regarding the Quays are welcome, they tell us nothing with regard to what has finally been decided is going to happen the individual bus routes. The Winetavern Street bus lane will facilitate inbound buses from Patrick Street and High Street, but where will the outbound buses go if they can't go via College Green or Parliament Street?

The proposals presented regarding College Green and Parliament Street are up in air as they will require a full EIS which will take months to complete and then go for consultation - so where are the buses from Georges Street going to go from August when testing begins? This proposal makes no mention of that.

The impact on the bus services (and I include Bus Eireann and the private operators) wasn't properly considered when this proposal was being considered either at Cabinet for funding or by the planning hearings. It was left to the end of the construction process.

The disjointed thinking in these plans with regard to the bus service, which is and will remain by a massive degree the major provider of public transport through the city centre is frankly pathetic.

How you arrive at the conclusion that the bus service is being treated equally is beyond me - to me the bus service has been treated as an afterthought and we are at a point where the plans appear to be being drawn up on the back of an envelope.

I have some sympathy for the DCC officials - they have been handed a poisoned chalice by the RPA and NTA that is the fact that they are now fast running out of time to come up with and implement the necessary proposals to ensure that the City Centre doesn't grind to a standstill.

It's frankly shambolic.

What is needed is one set of coherent plans that all correspond with one another without contradictions, and which deliver the fastest possible journey times for bus routes through the city centre. How can people judge this when the proposals are all disjointed?

lxflyer wrote: »

That is just wrong.


I have some sympathy for the DCC officials - they have been handed a poisoned chalice by the RPA and NTA that is the fact that they are now fast running out of time to come up with and implement the necessary proposals to ensure that the City Centre doesn't grind to a standstill.

It's frankly shambolic.

What is needed is one set of coherent plans that all correspond with one another without contradictions, and which deliver the fastest possible journey times for bus routes through the city centre. How can people judge this when the proposals are all disjointed?

I can only have limited sympathy for the dcc staff , they could have had their spoke to abp, or had some gumption and mentioned in the disjointed solutions that only a holistic bus solution would work, rather than the three or more plasters stuck on afterwards.
Any chartered engineers working for DCC have an overall ethical duty to do this, even to the detriment of their jobs.

An Bord Planála were too busy worrying their pretty little heads about an oppposite direction stop on Dawson st to worry about this either...

Are adjustments to the bus network planned as part of a new tram route?

By that I mean abolishing parallel bus routes?

Or rerouting bus routes to call at Broombridge tram station?

Geuze wrote: »

I read this week that trams with pax can't travel from existing line onto new line at OCS or Abbey street juctions.

I'm in shock.

Have we learned nothing?

The future network might need a route Heuston to SSG.

Oh come on - it's fair that the two lines not connecting up in the past was stupid, but having to walk a few metres to switch lines is not a problem. It's common on transport systems across the globe. The Luas will be able to combine its ticketing much more efficiently than between Luas and buses or DART, so you'll be able to buy a single ticket for a Heuston to SSG.

Geuze wrote: »

I read this week that trams with pax can't travel from existing line onto new line at OCS or Abbey street juctions.

Imagine you're standing in the freezing cold after a gig. You run to the Luas and see nope that's going to Broombridge, next one nope Bride's Glen, this next one surely nope Tallaght, Awh finally a Saggart tram

Chivito550 wrote: »

If cobblestoned sections are to indicate which parts of the track other traffic can't drive in, then why are there no cobblestones in the "Lána Tram" on Harcourt Street?

Also noticed that a lot of parts of the new on road tracks don't have cobblestones. They surely aren't going to allow private cars onto these sections at peak hour? That would defeat the purpose of the LUAS.

There are cobbles further up Harcourt St. Most likely what happened was a change in road usage after construction

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Geuze wrote: »

I read this week that trams with pax can't travel from existing line onto new line at OCS or Abbey street juctions.

I'm in shock.

Have we learned nothing?

The future network might need a route Heuston to SSG.

Indeed, it does seem like a wasted opportunity, especially as there will be a physical connection between the lines.  And it is indeed something that happens very widely in other cities, with sections of line being shared by several lines.  There are many advantages but, unfortunately, once again, Ireland has its own ideas.

For example, one might imagine that large volumes of DIT students would use the DART or the Hazelhatch line to get to their new place of study, in Grangegorman.  A direct Heuston-DIT or Connolly-DIT tram might be very useful for them, especially at certain times of the day, and would definitely make the tram a much more attractive option.  Such a service might be particularly suitable as it is being done by such people every weekday.

This is a complex network planning issue I think. As you say there advantages, but there are also disadvantages, which have been experienced close to home, with the sharing of DART line with intercity trains (and congestion). The adding additional throughput due to Phoenix Park tunnel.
Is there anything precluding people getting off the red line to walk to join the green line? I recall from London that there are fixed lines in the underground with adjacent stops that people can walk to / from... seems to work alright there, considering their throughput...

lxflyer wrote: »

Total and complete red herring.

The Green Line will operate at a peak frequency of every 3 minutes on the Sandyford-Parnell section with alternate trams serving Brides Glen and Broombridge. Where would you even fit extra trams into that mix? It's a nonsense.

Anyone wanting to go from Heuston to SSG can change between the Red and Green lines in the city centre at no extra charge - the tram stops are 2 minutes walk from one another.

Not even 2 minutes walk. There's roughly 80m between stops. Changing on the Tube is far longer than that. The fact that people seem to think the 2 lines should be connected shows that Irish people as a whole know f€ck all about public transport.

Mods, can we change the title of the thread to "Luas Cross City"?

"BXD" is a redundant term.

Mod: Done.

LeinsterDub wrote: »

You're arguing for a significant service reduction for the majority to serve a tiny minority all to save less than a 2 minute walk . It's this sort of thinking that led to Dublin Bus' meandering stop filled routes.



How many people do expect would stand around like fools waiting in the cold and rain for a direct occasional direct Luas while numerous non direct pass them by?

Haha yeh, you'd lose more time waiting for the occasional direct link than you would if you just got on the red line and then changed to green line. Such a daft suggestion.

strassenwo!f wrote: »

an occasional direct Connolly-Broadstone connection would reduce the number of changes by one for all such passengers and would thus be expected to increase the incentive to use public transport for these users.

You'd be some dose to get the dart to Connolly and get a tram from there to grangegorman via a sharp right turn at Abbey/O'Connell st. Your journey would be much faster if you got off the dart at Tara St and got on the luaus at Westmoreland stop. Made even faster by the proposed new St through the Hawkins house site.

strassenwo!f wrote: »

I note that you neglected to respond to a large portion of my earlier post, dealing with known facts about the impact the number of changes has on public transport uptake. Why was that?

Because it's nonsense, it's not the number of connections that affect peoples choices but the frequency and reliability of those connections

strassenwo!f wrote: »

You also appear to be in possession of passenger numbers for this route, around 9 months before it opens, when you talk about a 'tiny minority' who wish to make such a journey. ( A reminder: the example of Connolly-Broadstone was merely an illustration of what might be desirable in the fairly immediate future).

Never claimed to in possession of numbers nor do I need them. Because it's just common sense to assume a)these will be a minority of journeys and b) people aren't going wait 10 + minutes to avoid a less than 2 minute walk

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Maybe a better illustration would be this:it's absolutely not unreasonable to think about this BXD line being adapted, with an extension to Finglas (and maybe beyond) in the reasonably near future, especially when the undoubted success of the BXD line will have been noted almost immediately after opening.


Do you think then that there would be no clamour for a direct Finglas-IFSC tram to happen, using the available LUAS infrastructure?

Nope people will walk 2 minutes rather than wait 10 + minutes

strassenwo!f wrote: »

I obviously can't put a specific figure on it, but there would surely be plenty. They can talk on their phone, read a book, whatever, while they're waiting, and then when their tram comes they get on and go directly to their destination. Yes, plenty.

So in your world people are going to wait 10+ minutes to avoid a 2 minute walk?

cgcsb wrote: »

You'd be some dose to get the dart to Connolly and get a tram from there to grangegorman via a sharp right turn at Abbey/O'Connell st. Your journey would be much faster if you got off the dart at Tara St and got on the luaus at Westmoreland stop. Made even faster by the proposed new St through the Hawkins house site.

Have you got a draft map anywhere of this proposed new street? Would be interesting to see. Will it go through to D'Oilir St?

strassenwo!f wrote: »

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

As mentioned above, the DART/LUAS connection at Connolly is particularly poxy, and it would be interesting to look back at that decision and the options which were examined when it was designed.

But poor and all as it is, it's another 3 minutes (on the timetable) to Tara Street, then it's currently got to be another 5-6 minutes on foot, with a number of traffic lights, to Westmoreland Street. This will surely be shorter when/if a new street is built through the current Hawkins' House site: but that could be a few years yet, and the BXD line is happening this year.

Not clear at all that this would be a better option.

You realise that the Connolly dart platforms are some distance from the luas stop? You'd only be slightly longer walking from Tara st to Westmoreland st, its only an extra 3 mins to Tara st if you're coming from the north, its three minutes shorter coming from the south so its much of a muchness. There would be no point increasing peoples journey times with such a service.