Joan Burton Public Transport Meeting - Tue 7 Nov, Littlepace

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.