Pearse Street - What have they done??

tbh

Hi All -

Does anyone know what the craic is with Pearce st? It seems like they are widening the footpath (into the old buslane) and moving the buslane into what was the left-hand lane, to make it BL - outbound - inbound - BL. (between Macken St and Westland Row)

that couldn't be right, could it? Surely it'll just make things worse?

Bluetonic

http://www.dublincity.ie/shaping_the_city/infrastructure/quality_bus_network/schemes/dublin_city/pearse_street_bus_priority_scheme.asp

Pearse Street and Ringsend Road from Tara Street to South Lotts Road

Description:

Environmental Improvement and Bus Priority Scheme for Pearse Street and Ringsend Road. The scheme will involve architecturally designed environmental enhancements in the area as well as additional bus lanes and cycle lanes and the reduction of general traffic by one lane along most of the scheme. Entry treatments are proposed at all the minor side roads opening onto Pearse Street.

Public Consultation:

Public notice published on 18th March 2004. Drawings were on public display from 22nd March 2004 - 23rd April 2004. Scheme noted by Dublin City Council South East Area Committee on 10th May 2004.
Present Position:

Phase 1 (Ringsend Road) - work completed.
Phase 2 (Pearse Street between Westland Row and Sandwith Street). Work completed March 2006


Phase 3 (Pearse Street between Sandwith Street and McMahon Bridge). Works have commenced in June 2006 and should be complete by March 2007. This scheme involves the reduction of general traffic flow by one lane in each direction, the provision of bus lanes in each direction, the environmental improvement of the street including substantial footpath extensions at The Library, Pearse Park and St Andrews Resource Centre and upgrading of public lighting and traffic signals.

tbh

thanks BT.



I reckon it'll take at least 45 mins to get from one end to another now.

markpb

Bluetonic wrote:

Entry treatments are proposed at all the minor side roads opening onto Pearse Street.

What's an entry treatment when it's at home?

Bluetonic

markpb wrote:

What's an entry treatment when it's at home?

Those raised sections that have become very popular in Ireland at junctions.

A junction entry treatment is placed across the carriageway of the minor road at a road junction. The object is to show motorists that they are leaving a main road and entering a residential area and to raise the priority for pedestrians crossing the junction. This treatment often has a speed table, kerb build out and gateway features.

Marathon_Man

One of the worst streets in Dublin for traffic already. Let's chop a lane off and see how much worse we can make it.

Brillant from the corpo!

John R

tbh wrote:

Hi All -

Does anyone know what the craic is with Pearce st? It seems like they are widening the footpath (into the old buslane) and moving the buslane into what was the left-hand lane, to make it BL - outbound - inbound - BL. (between Macken St and Westland Row)

that couldn't be right, could it? Surely it'll just make things worse?

Worse for who?

Bus services from Ringsend have been badly hit by the traffic in this area for over a year now, the Tallaght routes that had been extended to Ringsend garage have been particularly effected. McMahon Bridge to Sandwith St inbound now regularly takes 30 mns plus for large chunks of the day, it can be walked in 10mns.

The route through Merrion gates/Ringsend village has been an extended rat run for outer suburb commuters for years. It is not a suitable road for this purpose, especially with the large number of new residential developments going up in the Ringsend area.

Hopefully the reduction in through capacity on this corridor will somewhat relieve the jams on the Pearse St-Tara St-South Quays/Beresford Place section which has become a significant blackspot recently.

Marathon_Man

John R wrote:

Worse for who?

the 20000 cars / vans / trucks that use it every day

markpb

It's a chicken and egg situation. A big argument against public transport (from drivers) is that it's unreliable but they use it if it was better. To make it better means car drivers must suffer a lower priority on the road. There's no other way, road space doesn't appear by magic in the city centre.

Road closures and restrictions to private vehicles in the city centre is the way Dublin has to go. You can accept it or you can complain, but it has to happen.

John R

Marathon_Man wrote:

the 20000 cars / vans / trucks that use it every day

I am going to type this in the simplest possible way as people don't seem to understand the fundamental issues.

TOO MANY vehicles are driving into the city centre every day.

There is not enough road space for all of them.

Reducing the capacity on access roads to the city will decrease the numbers of cars accessing the city.

Less vehicles in the city centre will mean less jams.

More and better bus priority measures will speed up bus journeys and provide more bus capacity.

People who don't cause traffic chaos by opting to use public transport or cycle will benefit.

This is an IMPROVEMENT for the city.

The only issue I have is that not enough of this is being done and much of the work is not to a high enough standard.

tbh

John R wrote:

Reducing the capacity on access roads to the city will decrease the numbers of cars accessing the city.

maybe in theory. In practice, I would suggest it'll just mean the same amount of cars in a smaller space, and so longer jams. As people have said, i would love to take the bus - sleep my way into work, or read a book or listen to music instead of getting stressed in a traffic jam. There is no bus service from my house to my work - not even close.

markpb

tbh wrote:

maybe in theory. In practice, I would suggest it'll just mean the same amount of cars in a smaller space, and so longer jams. As people have said, i would love to take the bus - sleep my way into work, or read a book or listen to music instead of getting stressed in a traffic jam. There is no bus service from my house to my work - not even close.

I had a big long argument to what you'd written but I decided it wasn't worth it. The argument that people will still drive is a silly one. You can choose to drive in those traffic jams if you want, people who chose to take the improved bus service will get there before you, even if they have to take two buses.

The city is growing and there simply isn't any other way of improving the throughput of our roads without giving priority (road space) to high occupancy vehicles. If you find a way to move more people around the roads of Dublin without bus lanes, I'd love to hear it. Several cities around the world would love to hear it in fact

RuggieBear

public transport ftw!

tbh

markpb wrote:

I had a big long argument to what you'd written but I decided it wasn't worth it. The argument that people will still drive is a silly one. You can choose to drive in those traffic jams if you want, people who chose to take the improved bus service will get there before you, even if they have to take two buses.

The city is growing and there simply isn't any other way of improving the throughput of our roads without giving priority (road space) to high occupancy vehicles. If you find a way to move more people around the roads of Dublin without bus lanes, I'd love to hear it. Several cities around the world would love to hear it in fact

I agree with what you are saying. However, this isn't a new bus lane, they've simply built a path where the old buslane was, and made the old left lane into a bus lane. So where there was BL+OUTBOUND+OUTBOUND, now there is PATH+BL+OUTBOUND.

So I don't really think it increases capacity for buses, it reduces it [or at least it remains the same, reduced for cars]

Look, I'm not looking to get into a whole public/private transport debate. If I could use public transport, I would. It's just not reliable enough at the moment. If this is the first step to improving the service, great. But I have to say I've been using the bus for 20 years (driving only for the last two) and in that time, it has gotten worse, not better, so you'll forgive me if I'm not as optimistic.

markpb

tbh wrote:

I agree with what you are saying. However, this isn't a new bus lane, they've simply built a path where the old buslane was, and made the old left lane into a bus lane. So where there was BL+OUTBOUND+OUTBOUND, now there is PATH+BL+OUTBOUND.

Without seeing the street, I'd hazard a guess (and a hope) that they are widening the existing bus lane. Quite a few bus lanes in Dublin are exactly the same width as a bus so if any car drifts onto the lane markings at all, the buses can't get past or have to crawl slowly past. Hopefully they're learning from their mistakes.

Look, I'm not looking to get into a whole public/private transport debate. If I could use public transport, I would. It's just not reliable enough at the moment. If this is the first step to improving the service, great. But I have to say I've been using the bus for 20 years (driving only for the last two) and in that time, it has gotten worse, not better, so you'll forgive me if I'm not as optimistic.

Point taken. It just really annoys me when people complain about public transport not being good enough and then get personally offended if their road is taken away to make space for a bus lane.

tbh

they could be widening it alright - and actually now that I think on it, I think the buses have to cross a lane to get into the bus lane after westland row, where the road goes from BL+OUT+OUT into BL+OUT - I can understand that. I just wish they would put a few guards along the road to catch those **** who cruise along the bus lane and then try to bully their way in at the top - different thread tho.

Slice

tbh: I agree with what you are saying. However, this isn't a new bus lane, they've simply built a path where the old buslane was, and made the old left lane into a bus lane.

And what is wrong with making the city centre more pedestrian friendly? Currently the city centre can be quite hostile to negotiate on foot because where there are many cars squeezing into too few lanes there are even more people competing for even less space on footpaths. College Green, Westmoreland St and O'Connell Bridge is a case in point. I don't use Pearse Street regularly but in my experience there is also quite serious congestion around the station at peak times so it's only natural that more space is given over to padestrians - to do otherwise would be negligent and even dangerous.

gurramok

John R wrote:

Hopefully the reduction in through capacity on this corridor will somewhat relieve the jams on the Pearse St-Tara St-South Quays/Beresford Place section which has become a significant blackspot recently.

Any news on the mysteriously proposed Macken Street bridge which could alleviate Pearse Street area alot?

skywalker_208

They seem to have turned the Bus lane into a wider footpath and removed one of the traffic lanes between macken street and sandwich street junctions! They have been working on this for months now! So no you have 2 lanes at the canel coming into one at Macken Street Junction and also Macken Street and the road opposite all pouring into a single lane on Pearse St.

This is causing traffic chaos in the area with traffic back to Irishtown on Monday! the other day there was a guard catching people driving down the bus lane and giving them tickets.. for the past 2 days the guards have been directing people down the bus lane!

Is there method to this madness? What possible advantage is there to creating a wider footpath while causing more problems on an already congested street!

Bluetonic

See here.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055015484

D'Peoples Voice

skywalker_208 wrote:

They seem to have turned the Bus lane into a wider footpath and removed one of the traffic lanes between macken street and sandwich street junctions!

It's obviously an Irish company with Irish workers undertaking the roadworks,
because on the junction of Pearse St & Erne St,
they have positioned a traffic light behind a lamppost.

Why can't we get French workers to come over here,
they would have positioned the traffic lights so that cars coming from the Ringsend direction can see the traffic lights!

Victor

Threads merged.

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

It's obviously an Irish company with Irish workers undertaking the roadworks, because on the junction of Pearse St & Erne St, they have positioned a traffic light behind a lamppost. Why can't we get French workers to come over here, they would have positioned the traffic lights so that cars coming from the Ringsend direction can see the traffic lights!

Please report this to Traffic Control 1800 293949

skywalker_208

If anything this seems to be causing more problems for buses. From what i can see traffic turning onto Pearse St are turning into the bus lane and stopping there to turn into the lane of traffic. which takes several minutes. There is room for 3 or 4 cars before the broken line appears where the lane turns into a bus lane...

And the fact the the Guards are advising motorists to use this bus lane for the past few evenings just prove this is a very bad idea for everyone involved...

AlekSmart

Quote: And the fact the the Guards are advising motorists to use this bus lane for the past few evenings just prove this is a very bad idea for everyone involved...


Ah here now M. Skywalker....It proves NOTHING of the sort.
You may well think that massive disruption of both private and public transport following on from these "Improvements" constitutes Proof.
Can you prove this ?

Huh..I thought as much ....Where`s the Beef then ??

The simple fact is that DCC,DTO,DoT and the other Professional agencies can PROVE that you are mistaken because they PAID somebody to do research on this stuff and the Consultant found that YOU are Imagining things...You are Hallucinating......

The situation you are describing simply does not exist or at least will cease to exist once the Port Access Tunnel/Navan Rail Link/Airport Metro/Dalkey Atmospheric Railway link-up is completed in time for the Christmas...

A lane is a lane is a lane.....Shame on you for such scaremongering Sir !!! :eek: