Joan Burton Public Transport Meeting - Tue 7 Nov, Littlepace

daymobrew

I got a flier in the door about Joan Burton's (Labour) Public Transport Meeting on Tuesday 7 November in Dublin West. It will be in the "Paddocks" bar in Littlepace (between Blanch and Clonee).

Meeting Info wrote:

The line-up includes representatives of Dublin Bus, Irish Rail and the Dublin Transportation Office (DTO) who are attending, as they did last year, to discuss with residents what progress is being made to meet the demands of residents in Dublin 15.

/me has been asked to represent Dublin 15 Community Council and ask a few hard questions.
/me is dreading this and may find an excuse to be ill on the day

Nevyn

Where is the Paddocks ?
Hmmm that might be worth going to.

murphaph

I was at the last one of these in laurel lodge. They are interesting alright.

TempestSabre

Time to get those Flame proof shorts

daymobrew

Thaedydal wrote:

Where is the Paddocks ?

From looking at a MyHome.ie map, I think I found it.

murphaph wrote:

I was at the last one of these in laurel lodge. They are interesting alright.

Yes, it was interesting. Unfortunately some members of the audience were quite rude - some asked questions that were answered moments before and no one took any personal responsibility to help the traffic situation - it was all "what are you going to do for me?"
The DB and IR lads must have drawn a very short straw in the office to be the ones who had to go out to the meeting.

My favourite part was when someone suggested a multi storey car park at Coolmine train station. Someone else immediately stood up and strongly objected to the suggestion.

TempestSabre

IMO. The only thing that public meetings achieve is as an indicator of public opinion, and a token gesture of PR for whoever meeting with the public.

ciaran76

Thaedydal wrote:

Where is the Paddocks ?
Hmmm that might be worth going to.

The 270 bus route stops outside The Paddocks pub.

ongarite

Parking at Clonsilla train station would be nice and so would a pedestrain bridge so you don't have to risk life and limb walking from the station over the humpback bridge into oncoming traffic.
AND fix the 39 bus service, it has to be the longest bus route in the city. It takes and 1hr and half from Ongar terminus to Dame Street. Its spends an hour of that going around Blanch and the shopping centre.

TempestSabre

No matter what parking you have there, demand will exceed capacity. I think they should have a shuttle bus all over the area and a park and ride somewhere further out, feeding the trains, and feeding a shuttle bus to the bottom the quays. Most people would walk from the bottom of the quays or use the Luas if they could get at least that far.

Nevyn

They NEED to split up the 39 bus route.
There should be a 39 a b and at least.

TempestSabre

There used to be a 39, 39a, 39b and 39c a few years back. That was before the Blanch center though. :eek:

DerekP11

daymobrew wrote:

I got a flier in the door about Joan Burton's (Labour) Public Transport Meeting on Tuesday 7 November in Dublin West. It will be in the "Paddocks" bar in Littlepace (between Blanch and Clonee). /me has been asked to represent Dublin 15 Community Council and ask a few hard questions.
/me is dreading this and may find an excuse to be ill on the day

Ask what Fingal CC propose to do in relation to feeder bus services to local rail stations as current parking facilities cannot cope and only contribute to local congestion, which defeats the purpose of public transport.

Stand tall, believe in yourself and most importantly, don't feel afraid to vent your frustration in relation to ANY transport issue in the area. You could also highlight the fact that a lot of planning in Hansfield was dependent on the forthcoming rail connection from Clonsilla (to Dunboyne) but is woefully inadequate, without accompanying bus services and will actively contribute to local road traffic congestion in the absence of a well thought out "local transport strategy".

Ham'nd'egger

I really pity the reps from Public Transport companies at these meetings as they will get people giving them grief over the bleeding obvious, and quite often over stuff that patently is not even wrong.

In the Blanch area, one area the powers that be need to sort out is to allocate more feeder routes in D 15 to take pressure off the local roads, to lessen the crawling routes the 37, 38 and 39 need to serve the local areas and to alleviate space on city bound buses that short hop passengers require. Feeding to the train will also be a help. Building extra car parking spaces at Coolmine, Clonsilla and Castleknock will just add to the car traffic around these stations, as well as de facto encouraging overcrowding on already packed commuter services until additional services can be provided (Hurry up Spencer Dock!)

daymobrew

Thaedydal wrote:

They NEED to split up the 39 bus route.
There should be a 39 a b and at least.

We currently have the 39, 39A and 39C.

TempestSabre

I remember in the NY there were mini buses that you could hop and hop off and they would drive all over the area, basically you could ask them do go anywhere. You paid a flat fee of something like €1.50. Very handy.

daymobrew

DerekP11 wrote:

Ask what Fingal CC propose to do in relation to feeder bus services to local rail stations as current parking facilities cannot cope and only contribute to local congestion, which defeats the purpose of public transport.

Is it a FCC issue or DoT/DB issue? I would have expected DoT/DB to be the decision makers wrt feeder buses.

DerekP11 wrote:

Stand tall, believe in yourself and most importantly, don't feel afraid to vent your frustration in relation to ANY transport issue in the area. You could also highlight the fact that a lot of planning in Hansfield was dependent on the forthcoming rail connection from Clonsilla (to Dunboyne) but is woefully inadequate, without accompanying bus services and will actively contribute to local road traffic congestion in the absence of a well thought out "local transport strategy".

I plan to meet with the D15 Community Council chair (who gave me the list of questions) so that I am fully clear on the issues involved. As a cyclist (and sometimes pedestrian who is not afraid of a 25 min walk from Drumcondra train stn to East Point), most of the issues don't affect me. I also believe that some of the solutions lie with the individual.

Mimikyu

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daymobrew

Solitaryman666 wrote:

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As the reps who will be there on Tuesday are low on the chain, I highly recommend putting your views in writing to the Minister for Transport and the Dublin Bus Chief Executive.
I've had good written conversations with Richard Fearn, Chief Executive of Irish Rail.

Mimikyu

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DerekP11

daymobrew wrote:

Is it a FCC issue or DoT/DB issue? I would have expected DoT/DB to be the decision makers wrt feeder buses.

Its up to FCC to develop a coherent transport policy and then the DOT to assist in implementing it. The fundamental issue here, is the willingness of the DOT to subsidise a service, be it provided by CIE or a private operator.

IE run trains. They build car parks, Car parks get full, so they extend them and then they fill up beyond capacity again. Dublin Bus run buses along city centric routes. Bus feeder connections at local level, is a rather simple solution and should be the responsibility of a local council in terms of policy and implementation. Who runs them is irrelevent. The buck must stop with the council. They build roads and operate traffic lights, so they should face the music in terms of public transport.

Local connecting bus services are the only realistic way of feeding train stations. Park n Ride policies are failing left right and centre on our rail network, due to the retrograde nature of the improvements. Just judge Luas Park n Ride to any IE car park. A new build is easy, therefore traditional rail stations need an alternative method of connection.

Victor

Solitaryman666 wrote:

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I think try to bring an adult (parent?) with you and there shouldn't be a real problem. You are there for the public meeting - not boozing.

ciaran76

The 270,70x and 70 are a joke of a service. I often walk through to Hunstown to get a bus as its more reliable.

Nevyn

daymobrew wrote:

We currently have the 39, 39A and 39C.

Yes there is a handful of 39a going into the city in the morning and a handfull coming out of the city in the early evening it is not a serperate route.

Again the 39c like the 39 a skips part of the whole 39 route and is not a seperate route in it's own right.

The whole 39 route needs to be split up into spertate smaller routes like the 40a/b/c/d is in finglas.

Hopefully the added off and on ramps to the m50 ( when ever they get done :rolleyes: ) will stop the traffic as far back as the blanch shopping centre getting backed up due to the slow moving traffic on to and off the m50.

Navan Junction

www.unison.ie - Breaking News

11:48 Sunday November 5th 2006

The Labour party has strongly criticised the sustainability of the Government's long term transport strategy, complaining the plan suffers from a lack of detail.
Although the Government's Transport 21 plan delivered most of its undertaking on time and under budget, Labour's spokeswoman on finance, Joan Burton, questioned its ability to sustain the project in the future.

Critics of the €3.6 billion plan claim it is "high on aspiration, overambitious on targets, and in danger of falling behind in its delivery".

Joan Burton said future projects will take longer to tender and will end up more expensive and that it will be another decade at least before Ireland has a satisfactory transport system.

"My concern would be that although Transport 21 has a lot of ideas I would be thrilled to see happening in Dublin, the detail work to see this happen within a reasonable time frame simply isn't there," she said



http://www.unison.ie/breakingnews/?ca=39&si=100875&breakingnews=1

strassenwolf

Whoever was on duty at unison.ie yesterday needs to brush up on a number of things.

They had a report on Thomas "slab" Murphy and his dealings with the CAB. According to the report from the indo website, he earns some money from his farm, which is, apparently, "straddled by the border".

One would have thought that his farm was doing the "straddling", rather than the other way around.

Now we have this report. It has been fairly well publicised that the amount of money involved in T21 is 34.4 billion euro. Where this figure of 3.6 billion comes from is a mystery.

daymobrew

I went to the meeting last night. Maybe 60 or so people attended (maybe less).

Declan Murray, Divisional Mgr at Dublin Bus started by telling us of a new 'record' journey time for a 39 that morning. It left Ongar at 8:24 and arrived in town at 10:38!! The current average is 110mins.

• 10% (~100 buses) of the Dublin Bus fleet is in Dublin 15.
• DB have approval for 100 new buses (~28 for D15)
• DB have not had any new buses since 2000 (Govt fighting over privatisation).
• Mr Murray has a 4 yr plan to reduce time to town to 1 hour.
• DB/Fingal are working on N3 QBC at Snugborough Rd. The N3 bus lane is in legal limbo so Gardai cannot enforce it, this leads to bus delays.
• Need more bus priority in Blanch and at N3/M50 junction. Bus delays are because the buses are stuck in traffic with everyone else.
• NRA is also a blocker - DB cannot get any additional bus lanes without their approval.
• Need more direct routes that don't do scenic tours of D15.
• Need more local services similar to 237 etc as there is daytime demand.
• There are plans for a 70B route that will run from Ongar Road, through Littlepace, and onto N3. Should help those that see full 70 route buses pass them.

Michael Power, Service Planning Mgr for Northern/Western area, Irish Rail described the current situation and various plans.

• The new (Dec 2005) services, catering for 2000 passengers, are almost fully utilised.
• Docklands station to open 12 March 2007.
• 4 extra services to Docklands from Clonsilla in morning (arrive before 9:15am).
• 4 new services (Docklands to Clonsilla) leaving after 5pm.
• 20 minute journey time to/from Docklands.
• Hourly service off peak to/from Docklands.
• Initially Docklands service will be 2 or 4 carriages (because of lack of rolling stock).
• Docklands services will *not* take away from current services.
• Dublin Bus will provide bus link to Connolly/City Centre.
• New timetable mid January 2007 with extra off peak and late night service. The new timetable will have more Sunday trains too.
• Late in 2007 new rolling stock will arrive and be put in service. This will allow bumping 4 carriage services to 8 carriages.
• New rolling stock will result in additional services in Dec 2007 timetable update.
• The Clonsilla/Dunboyne/Pace spur will go for public consultation early 2007; works order/planning permission summer 2007; build start early 2008; open late 2009;
• Plan for peak services every 15 mins. Three stations on the line: Pace (adjacent to M3, will have a Park'n'Ride facility), Dunboyne and Hansfield. Next station is Clonsilla.

Lots of people were quite angry. Mr Murray was happy to agree with them that the services were poor. Later he told me that the traffic congestion was costing him a fortune - to provide very frequent services he has to throw loads of buses to D15. He compared the 46A QBC - it is 4 miles longer than 39 QBC but runs much better. Kieran of Dublin 15 Community Council (a speaker at the meeting so I didn't have to ask the questions on his behalf ) said that the 39 QBC only had 22% dedicated bus lane!!

Joan Burton told everyone to write to Bertie to tell him of the high demand for public transport in Dublin 15. Even 5 emails would make him think about the issues!

markpb

daymobrew wrote:

Declan Murray, Divisional Mgr at Dublin Bus started by telling us of a new 'record' journey time for a 39 that morning. It left Ongar at 8:24 and arrived in town at 10:38!! The current average is 110mins.

Wow. Baby Jesus cried.

I think at this time, people in Blanch should be investing in Push Me Pull Yous (http://homepage.mac.com/a.eppendahl/work/push-me-pull-you.gif) and using the train line to get into town.

Did the DTO guys show up or say anything?

daymobrew

markpb wrote:

I think at this time, people in Blanch should be investing in Push Me Pull Yous (http://homepage.mac.com/a.eppendahl/work/push-me-pull-you.gif) and using the train line to get into town.

Did the DTO guys show up or say anything?

DTO were invited but said that a rep was not available. As the DTO opposes Park'n'Ride facilities, their absense was probably wise . The DTO wants feeder buses bringing people to train stations, though Dublin Bus said that all of their DART feeders were removed because of under utilisation! The 39 route does bring 800 people to Clonsilla station each day!

For 110min journeys, one could cycle to town at a non-sweaty pace and still beat the bus. Even cycling to the train would be a good idea. Irish Rail are open to providing secure bike facilities (considerably cheaper than P'n'R facilities). It doesn't rain half as often as people think.

Of course, I think that flex time and 'work at home' schemes can also help the situation.

TempestSabre

A lot of the DART feeders are in areas where there are routes where there are good buslanes. So its actually as quick to get the bus instead of the DART, especially if the bus leaves you closer to your end destination.

The main problem in D.15 is that is bottled all along the route in places where theres no bus lanes. Unless that gets sorted the buses will always take ages. Has been the same for 20 yrs. I can walk to the train so its not something I'd be interested in. My problem with the train is that is dangerously overcrowded and the facilities are very poor at the stations. We should haver shelter from bad weather, a shop and properly maintained toliets etc. I've seen better train stations in third world countries.

mackerski

daymobrew wrote:

• Hourly service off peak to/from Docklands.

That's a real shame. It's probably down to rolling stock again, but you'll never get people to "think train" with a service that lean.

Dermot

Mimikyu

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daymobrew

mackerski wrote:

That's a real shame. It's probably down to rolling stock again, but you'll never get people to "think train" with a service that lean.

This is in addition to the services that go to Connolly and beyond. There are not a replacement. When these hourly services arrive, there will be off peak trains to the city every 30 mins (half to Docklands, half Connolly/etc).

Solitaryman666 wrote:

Any more details given on this bus (70B)? Skip blanch? Regular? Planned in the near future?

AFAIK it is planned to be introduced late November. Based on the description (Ongar/Littlepace/N3) I guess that it will bypass Blanch village. I don't know about timings.
Contact Declan Murray at Harristown Garage.

mackerski

daymobrew wrote:

This is in addition to the services that go to Connolly and beyond. There are not a replacement. When these hourly services arrive, there will be off peak trains to the city every 30 mins (half to Docklands, half Connolly/etc).

Sorry, sloppy quoting. I got the 1/2 hour aspect of it - to me, it's still not the kind of service that would allow me to do what I'd like, which is to favour the train in all cases. A 1/4 hour service (or even 20 minute) might allow that, since this gets you closer to a world where you don't need to think about the timetable before deciding.

Of course, a lot of my reasoning is based on the fact that I'm already a 20 minute walk from a station.

Dermot

pete

daymobrew wrote:

[*]There are plans for a 70B route that will run from Ongar Road, through Littlepace, and onto N3. Should help those that see full 70 route buses pass them.

Well the 70B service started yesterday. Needless to say, Dublin Bus didn't bother their holes telling anyone about it first, leading to much confusion and fun.

Here are the highlights:

There are a whole TWO of them. As in one each way. The first leaves Ongar at 7.20am, the other goes from Belfield at 4.50pm (leaves St. Stephens Green at 5.15).

The route is almost the same as the 70x, except for the fact that (at least on the return leg) it only goes as far as the Littlepace shops before looping back around at the school roundabout to head up to Ongar. In other words, it skips the stops at Hunters Run, Pheasants Run, Bramblefields, Deerhaven etc. I imagine it does much the same in the morning, picking up at the shops then heading into town, but since the timetable just says "All stops to Little Pace" we can but guess at this for now.

Yay for progress, eh? oh well. at least it means I can avoid sharing a bus with most of the mutton-headed loudmouth UCD students and their crummy headphones in the evening, if not the morning.

Zoney

I lived out in Pace for a while. What a joke. It's hellish. The endless fields (more like paddy-fields with the potential for flooding) of semis typify all that is wrong with planning in modern Ireland. The Blanchstown centre is another icon of the mess - even as a car-oriented centre it fails miserably. Not only is public transport to the area a joke (and that *with* frequent double decker buses and a rail line - the current offering, above average as it is, is a drop in the ocean towards the needs), but it's not exactly easy to fix. Heck, last time I was there they didn't even have school places to send kids to, and thousands of people had as a "town centre" a mini-mart with a Spar, pharmacy and offie. I think they were missing a church too.

The mind boggles at how messed up the Greater Dublin area will be after this housing and economic boom. It nearly doesn't matter if we have hundreds of new buses and railcars, and line to Navan. It's all still going to be a mess.

I was out on the Maynooth line last weekend. Friends of mine there can no longer take the train, because with high-density developments suddenly appearing (and remember, these developments are our friends compared to the likes of Pace) the stations/train services are woefully inadequate. Apparently one development area will have 40,000 people when its done. IÉ just can't ship enough 1000s of people in in the morning on this line. As for Northern line... well, it's notoriously over capacity.

Let's face it. Dublin's pretty doomed, and yet govt. policy is to encourage more development there and the regions can fend for themselves. I'm *SOOOoooo* glad I don't live in Dublin, but I'll be lucky to keep finding career-furthering and relevant jobs in Limerick.

Finally - I never ever in my life ever again want to have to walk 30 minutes, travel the 39 into the city centre on Friday afternoon and catch the 17:20 train from Heuston to Limerick (having started queueing far earlier). I still have nightmares... And the (17:00?) from Limerick on Sunday, lovely railcars all the way, stopping in darkness outside Portarlington to wait for slow train from Galway, stop again outside Heuston waiting for a platform, and 39 from the city with dodgy types out to Blanch was hellish too.

pete

Zoney wrote:

and 39 from the city with dodgy types out to Blanch was hellish too.

Dude, you're from Limerick.

Zoney

pete wrote:

Dude, you're from Limerick.

Yeah - but it would be like if to get to Castletroy (UL) I had to get on the same bus as all the people going to Moyross.

The northside of Dublin city centre is far more intimidating than the city centre of Limerick (I'll admit it'd be much the same if you got lost and say ended up in the Island). Heck, I ended up around St. Stephen's Green after dark (9pm?) one time, and that's on the southside, and it was as dodgy as Limerick city centre would be at say 2/3 am. It was like something out of American TV with all the dodgy sorts about - I was amazed at how unfazed the smart-suited businessmen were by it all. It really was like out of TV; very surreal.

I was astounded to meet people in Dublin who were *genuinely* afraid to visit Limerick at all at all. Talk about ignorance!

TempestSabre

Face it the whole country is getting worse.

Mimikyu

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daymobrew

Solitaryman666 wrote:

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Was it faster? Was it full?

hangover_ie_ie

Should be an Express from Either Littlepace or Ongar If your going to town your talkin sitting ON the bus for up to 1 hour 45 minutes while doing the Tour les blanch SURELY with amount of houses in clonee we can get a few express buses from here maybe starting in Dunboyne

daymobrew

hangover_ie_ie wrote:

Should be an Express from Either Littlepace or Ongar If your going to town your talkin sitting ON the bus for up to 1 hour 45 minutes while doing the Tour les blanch SURELY with amount of houses in clonee we can get a few express buses from here maybe starting in Dunboyne

What about the 70B and 70X routes. Both above the long "Tour les blanch". The timetables claim that it takes 90mins to get to Belfield.