Buslanes outside Dunshaughlin

_Kaiser_

Hey all,

Is there anything "special" about these rather car-friendly buslanes (given that they're only in operation as bus lanes for 3 hours a day) on either side of Dunshaughlin that noone seems to use them when the traffic is queued? (not even Bus Eireann buses!)

Do bus lanes operate differently in "the country", or is it just people can't read the signs?

gingerGiant

The bus lanes in Dunshaughlin are only Bus lanes for three hours a day, the rest of the day the revert to being hard shoulder, so basically you cant skip the queue, something i had being looking forward to doing for months as most people don't realise they can use them outside hours.

fletch

gingerGiant wrote:

The bus lanes in Dunshaughlin are only Bus lanes for three hours a day, the rest of the day they revert to being hard shoulder, so basically you cant skip the queue, something i had being looking forward to doing for months as most people don't realise they can use them outside hours.

A hard shoulder or a second lane for traffic to use? I know I use the bus lane outside restricted hours heading inbound through Lucan and it can save me at least ten minutes at peak times. It was my understanding that I was allowed to undertake when traffic is densely populated and slow moving???

_Kaiser_

fletch wrote:

A hard shoulder or a second lane for traffic to use? I know I use the bus lane outside restricted hours heading inbound through Lucan and it can save me at least ten minutes at peak times. It was my understanding that I was allowed to undertake when traffic is densely populated and slow moving???

Exactly.. I was under the assumption that it reverts to a standard lane outside of the hours of operation, like any other buslane I've seen. Is this setup "legal" then?

_Kaiser_

Had a closer look at the approach signs yesterday...

On the Dublin side it says "Hard shoulder suspended" and lists the hours of operation for the buslane. There's no dashed/solid yellow line at the edge of the road.

On the Navan side it says "Hard shoulder ends", different hours of operation (fair enough), and does have a solid yellow line at the edge of the road.

Looks to me like they don't know what they're doing to be honest :rolleyes: so should we just treat it as a regular buslane or what?

mackerski

IANAL, but consider it this way:

The paved area of a road consists of the carriageway (divided into lanes) and hard shoulders, designated by yellow lines. If the yellow lines are broken, you may cross them into the hard shoulder. If not (as on motorways) you may not. There is an offence related to driving on a part of the road "not a carriageway".

Anyway, consider these bus lanes. They are not marked off with yellow lines, meaning that they are part of the carriageway. This makes them normal traffic lanes that are only special because of the markings and signage that declares them to be bus lanes. And, as the elite among us are aware, bus lanes are only special during indicated bus lane hours, outside of which cars are not only permitted to use them, but obliged to unless overtaking (requirement to keep left).

Any suggestion that these new bus lanes revert to being hard shoulders is a nonsense - there is no precedent for this nor anything I've ever seen in the road traffic laws. Furthermore, the only real basis for such an assumption is that they used to be hard shoulders - which is something you can't really expect infrequent or new road users to know.

There is precedent for bus lanes created from former hard shoulders where it was decided to exclude non-bus traffic, essentially preserving the hard shoulder function. The N3 Blanchardstown bypass citybound, for instance. However, in cases like this, the bus lane is in effect 24 hours a day. Since Dunshaughlin's lanes clearly aren't, we have to conclude that they are fair game out of hours.