CIE Don't Provide Bus Shelters?

Transport21 Fan

I never knew that CIE do not provide bus shelters and the 3 new ones in Knock (which are very nice too) were funded privately according to this article below. This brings up some interesting points. Will CIE prevent private bus operators from using these shelters which CIE did not pay for?

One more issue. There is no reason why Knock, a tiny village needs 3 bus shelters, 1 will do.

The reason from there being 3 shelters sums up the CIE psychology perfectly. It is because the three different BE routes into Knock DO NOT CONNECT DIRECTLY WITH EACH OTHER and this is how it always has been. I am serious. If you are going from say Sligo to Galway via Ballyhaunis the bus takes a hard right off the N17 right before the town so you have to get off the bus and walk 100 yards to go to Claremorris from that bus stop. So the purpose of the shelters to protect passengers is only half a solution as many bus passengers who change at Knock will still have to walk in the wind and rain anyways.

One central bus shelter could have been built in the carpark of the Marian Shine (similar to the set up at the Square in Tallaght) were all bus routes entering the town could serve and offer direct connections rather than the 200 yard walk between the 3 current ones.

What I find amazing is that never once did CIE, when they knew that funding for bus shelters in Knock was coming did it ever cross their minds to suggest the obvious - one central shelter, in the car park serving all routes into the town. Beleive it or not Knock is a major bus connection point in the West of Ireland as up to have the passengers on many of the service will change buses there. 60 years later and CIE still haven't a fecking clue what public transport actually is.

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Western People
Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Locals welcome new bus shelters in Knock
By: Cróna Esler

THE provision of three new bus shelters in Knock has been well received in the area, with locals and visitors wondering how they ever managed without them.

The three shelters, located on the Ballyhaunis Road, on the Claremorris Road and in the centre of the village, were provided for the community through a combined effort by the Knock Area Development Association, Mayo County Council, Kiltimagh IRD and the Knock House Hotel.

Locals had campaigned long and hard for the provision of the bus shelters which were seen as vital pieces of infrastructure for the Marian village. In particular, it was felt that the bus shelters would enhance the services available to the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who flock to the famous Knock shrine each year.

At this month’s Electoral Area Committee Meeting in Claremorris, Fianna Fáil Councillor for the area, Mr Michael Carty, paid tribute to the four groups who had assisted the people of the locality in their quest to have bus shelters erected in Knock.

“These three bus shelters were badly needed in Knock and are especially welcome at this time of year during the inclement weather conditions. Because CIE don’t provide the shelters, there was need to search for funding elsewhere and it’s wonderful to see the finished project,” said Cllr Carty.

Concluding, the Knock man thanked all who had helped make this a reality, paying special tribute to Tom Feerick and his team at Mayo County Council and also to John Rhattigan, the Chairman of the Knock Area Development Association.

strassenwolf

In Dublin, what usually happens is that Dublin Bus applies for the planning permission for the bus shelter. I suppose this is because in most cases the planning application involves annexing a piece of public property (the footpath) and a private company would normally not be allowed to do this. It used to be the case and may still be that the company which actually builds and maintains the bus shelters is a private company. Maybe that's the situation in Knock?

Transport21 Fan

From what I gather the shelters at Knock were sponsered by local businesses.

Now don't get me wrong I think they are great and I have seen people in that village huddled up against walls in the wind and rain waiting for a bus so this is a huge improvement in passenger comfort. But with a place like Knock with a lot of well-filled connecting BE buses coming in and out filled mainly with old folk on travel passes, how the leap could not be made to build a small bus station on the car park which has tons of room, is hardly ever filled and provides pleanty of space for all buses to come in and out of?

Where is the joined up thinking?

Answer with CIE these is none, as that company is about paying people to drive buses and trains and not provide public transport. This is why CIE declared war on and destroyed the Dublin United Tramway Company. It was one of the best and most praised public transport operators in the world with 50 million passengers a year usng it. CIE killed it, but kept rural junk like the Western Rail Corridor and the Ardee branch opened. This is CIE's heritage, roots and the ethos on which CIE from the rural rail anti-commuter mentality of the GWSR was founded, and continue to operate under till this day. The obliteration of the DUTC, to the 3 bus shelters when all it took was for all bus routes in to the town to serve one single bus depot in Knock today. CIE is a company at war with integrated public transport and are not a provider of it. They don't get it.

Bottom line: when the likes of Knock public transport upgrade happens in this day an age it should be more than just providing shelters at traditional bus stops - the whole set needs to be addressed and modernised and integrated. A real opertunity to do something great for public transport in the West of Ireland was lost here. This should not be happening in the 21st Century.

But CIE can't do otherwise so I am hoping against hope here.

shltter

Transport21 Fan wrote:

From what I gather the shelters at Knock were sponsered by local businesses.

Now don't get me wrong I think they are great and I have seen people in that village huddled up against walls in the wind and rain waiting for a bus so this is a huge improvement in passenger comfort. But with a place like Knock with a lot of well-filled connecting BE buses coming in and out filled mainly with old folk on travel passes, how the leap could not be made to build a small bus station on the car park which has tons of room, is hardly ever filled and provides pleanty of space for all buses to come in and out of?

Where is the joined up thinking?

Answer with CIE these is none, as that company is about paying people to drive buses and trains and not provide public transport. This is why CIE declared war on and destroyed the Dublin United Tramway Company. It was one of the best and most praised public transport operators in the world with 50 million passengers a year usng it. CIE killed it, but kept rural junk like the Western Rail Corridor and the Ardee branch opened. This is CIE's heritage, roots and the ethos on which CIE from the rural rail anti-commuter mentality of the GWSR was founded, and continue to operate under till this day. The obliteration of the DUTC, to the 3 bus shelters when all it took was for all bus routes in to the town to serve one single bus depot in Knock today. CIE is a company at war with integrated public transport and are not a provider of it. They don't get it.

Bottom line: when the likes of Knock public transport upgrade happens in this day an age it should be more than just providing shelters at traditional bus stops - the whole set needs to be addressed and modernised and integrated. A real opertunity to do something great for public transport in the West of Ireland was lost here. This should not be happening in the 21st Century.

But CIE can't do otherwise so I am hoping against hope here.

Please elaborate how did CIE declare war on the DUTC I would love to hear your reasoning behind this statement.


And please explain how CIE is responsible for the Bus shelters in Knock when the title of your thread is that CIE did not put them there and do not own them.

Transport21 Fan

Read Through Streets Broad and Narrow by Michael Cochrane (perhaps the most facinating and insightful book on Irish public transport ever) and see how CIE was formed with the intention of the DUTC management teaching the GSR gombeens and landed gentry how to run world class public transport. But alas the GSR managers did to the DUTC managers what they also did to the MGWR and DSER magangers and isolated them away from Hueston and from the decision making process.

The GSR and its bastard offspring CIE never did/understood commuter services and in particular intergration (still don't) only sleepy rural and inter-city stuff and therefore the DUTC methodology of zonal fares, integration and constant incremental moderisation (not a panic to replace clapped out buses and trains ervery 20 years) was completely alien to them. Hence no commuter services were expanded in Dublin and late night services and integration which the DUTC offered on their trams and buses were dropped in favour of the pastrol sleepy bus network for Dublin which served the city as if it were no more important than a rural country village...but by golly didn't GSR/CIE keep them 4 passengers a week rural rail branches open and used bus fare revenue/increases in Dublin, Cork and Limerick to subsidise them.

Read the book Shillter, it's all in there. Not the kind of borderline homo-erotic obsession with CIE one gets in the likes of the IRRS Journal, but a lot closer to the truth I suspect if the history of CIE in terms of customer service for the last 60 years is anything to go by.

If CIE were a real public transport operator they would suggested to the business groups in Knock that one shelter to serve all routes would have been a better and more intergrated idea, but alas no..."why change things for them new fangled integraaaaaaaation ideas...we at CIE are a traditional company and our members do not handle change well...no...no...NO! Sure poor Paddy who drives the Ballyhaunis bus has turned right at the roundabout for nigh on 20 years boyo and you can't expect the man to suddenly just start using a new centrally located bus depot! Sure he has trouble with his nerves...what next! The buses and trains to connect at Sligo station!!!!!...this is the race to the bottom which Tony Tobin and Brendan Ogle warns us about!"

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now approaching Hueston Station, please put your watches back 100 years."

Look around the internet or ask people who are not employed by CIE what they think of this appaling enitity. FFS, on the Sligo train last week I was served a cup of coffee from the trolley on the floor because the new 2900 railcars which are designed for commuter routes do not have any kind of table flip-down or otherwise on sme of the seating areas and CIE/IE are still telling us that we are travelling on state-of-the-art inter-city railcars with all the modern passenger requirement (just ignore the big COMMUTER sticker on the sides).

1.5 billion Euro later and CIE/Irish Rail are serving their Inter-City cups of coffee on the floor to seated passengers and some people have a problem with the RPA or more private bus operators!

Go on Shiller, I can't wait to hear you explain how wonderful CIE really is and it's all about lack of investment and privatisation and the race to the bottom. Go on, explain to us all how the Irish people are just a shower of ****ing ingrate morons who have no right to complain about 60 years of half-arsed public transport and CIE really are a world class public transport provider with a fantastic history of superb customer service in the field of intergrated public transport and how it the rest of us who are wrong. How dare we except a public transport operator to provide good service. Sure the squaky little speaker at Pease which you can't hear telling you yet again that the DART is late or 80% of the PIS systems on the new railcars which are switched off becuase the drivers are too lazy to flick a switch is all becaue of "lack of investment"

We wait with baited breath.

John R

what any of that historical guff has to do with a bus shelter in Knock is beyond me.


As for providing an interchange in Knock, the stops are 2 minutes walk from each other. For all buses to use the same stop would require many to do a detour from the direct route to double back on itself. Most of those buses are on long-distance express routes and there are enough delays in serving many of the now bypassed villages without having buses doing circuits of Knock.

The vast majority of passengers on all services through Knock stay on the bus. Why should people going from Limerick or Galway to Sligo, Donegal or Derry have to endure merry-go-round trips in every poxy little West of Ireland village with a public service victim complex?

dowlingm

is there advertising on the shelters? if so where does the money go?

John R

dowlingm wrote:

is there advertising on the shelters? if so where does the money go?

Whoever owns them one would have thought.

In Dublin the shelters are owned by Dublin Bus who contract out the maintenance and advertising.

Capt'n Midnight

AFAIK back of them has to be made of glass so it won't block the view.
Ads don't count :rolleyes:
and we've all seen bus shelters against a wall with broken glass.

Metrobest

The CIE group is guilty of horredous shelter design errors across all its modes. Dublin Bus shelters vary from acceptable to disgraceful. The "doubled-up" shelters - for example opposite Navan Road Garda Station - offer decent capacity and weather protection, but so many shelters offer little or no protection against rain. It is a most depressing sight to see dozens of bus passenger crowded under an inadequate bus shelter getting soaked. Who wants to stand around waiting for a bus that might never come, getting wet, when you could be ensconsed in your car? It's a powerful argument against buses. If CIE has any desire at all to attract people out of cars, it needs to do a radical overhaul of its shelters. It needn't reinvent the wheel: just modernise the shelter aesthetics (get rid of that cheap blue plastic); lengthen the shelters and ensure that rain is kept at bay.

On the rail network, the newer shelters along the Maynooth line have a steeply-angled roof offering poor protection against rain. Hardly an incentive to use trains.

Litcagral

Planning permission is required for bus shelters so perhaps this impacts on the size, shape or design.