North Quays bus lane

markpb

So.... how did people fare this morning?

comer_97

It took about 6 minutes less than the normal quickest time on the 25X this morning. I think that was more down to the lack of traffic on the roads this morning.

The journey on the quays was maybe a minute quicker, the lanes were filled with buses so the buses didn't flow quickly, but it flowed.

If only they would take the cones of the bus lane at Ballyowen junction that might help too!

paulm17781

markpb wrote:

There's also a bus with decent frequencies on that route which helps a lot....

The decent frequency is in part due to the QBC.

BattlingCheese

67X user here and in work 20mins earlier then usual.
Quays seemed to work great although the traffic light outage at O'Connell bridge didn't help matters and there's still that big bottleneck where bus's, after stopping to let off passengers at Bachelors walk, need to merge out over two lanes to cross over O'Connell bridge.

Always seems to be the old rivalry with Morton's, Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann etc all trying to leap frog each other at that point and leave the merge till as late as possible.

GerardKeating

BattlingCheese wrote:

... and there's still that big bottleneck where bus's, after stopping to let off passengers at Bachelors walk, need to merge out over two lanes to cross over O'Connell bridge.

Maybe if they continued those routes down the north quays and crossed over the Matt Tabbot Bridge it would solve this. Would also allow those routes to service Tara Dart Station, before resuming the existing route. when they reach the southside of O'Connell Bridge.

KC61

bazzer wrote:

The 51B and 151 wouldn't benefit from this new arrangement at all - they go nowhere near the new set-up.

Other routes which will benefit, but which they haven't listed are:
39B, 39C (Ongar/Blanch)
66D (Leixlip)
68 (Newcastle)
70A, 70B (Dunboyne/Littlepace)
78 (N. Clondalkin)

Also, our friends in Dublin City Council omitted the following routes that benefit:
90 (Heuston/IFSC)
91 (Heuston/O'Connell Street)
92 (Heuston/St. Stephen's Green)
748 (Airlink)

As Bazzer points out the 51B and 151 do not benefit, nor do routes 38, 38A or BE route 105 as they route via Cabra Road and Phibsboro.

monument

Kaiser2000 wrote:

Am I the only one who thinks this idea is going to cause chaos in the morning?

I can't see a few extra bus lanes being enough to get people out of their cars. All this will mean is that rush hour will start even earlier than it already does, and affect traffic all over the city centre area as a result.

Victor wrote:

Appaently along the quays there are 5 times as many bus users as car users.

Kaiser2000, if the stat reported and repeated by Victor is even half correct then I cant see any validation in your complaint.

Wook

well i hate it , it adds up 15 minutes to my travel times

Car driver

krankykitty

I live in Chapelizod, and the bus journey into town used to take at most 20 minutes.

On Saturday, I was 50 MINUTES getting into town. In other words, as a bus passenger, supposedly benefitting from the new system, I was 30 minutes worse off.

The traffic was pushed back as far as Islandbridge and beyond, to where there isn't a bus lane.

Traffic is just being pushed further back. This city is a planning nightmare and these half arsed measures won't change anything.

Ironically, I find the traffic in the weekday mornings by car has actually lessened, lol

mickoneill30

Walking from Henry St. - Dame St. on Friday I saw this big empty bus lane going down to O'Connell St. The reason. A truck driver was coming out of one of the lanes between Henry St. and the quays and had decided to queue across the buslane. There were piles of busses on the other side of him waiting to get past.

As a bus user I see this piles of times. Can the car drivers either let the guy in or can the guy who's crossing the bus lane please not stop on it. It's crap that one idiotic driver can hold up hundreds of people.

_Kaiser_

As someone else has said, all these new buslanes do is push the congestion further back up the road.

The simple fact is that Irish people do not like Public Transport (including at planning level), and will only use it if they have no alternative. Everyone wants (and in most parts of this country I'd say needs) their own car. It's the same thing with housing. Irish people don't want to rent. Everyone wants to own their own house.

But for those who will dispute this, here's some reasons why I (and no doubt many others) will not be giving up my car any time soon. To put this in context, this is as a former bus/train user for 25+ years.


1. Public Transport is unreliable. Never mind about journey times. It's no good telling people it'll only take 20 minutes to get to town on the bus, if that bus is late, full, or doesn't show up in the first place.


2. It's uncomfortable. Far too many times will a person have to stand for most, if not all, of their journey. This could be anywhere up to an hour (or more on some routes), crushed against other people as they try to squeeze their way to the front of the bus.
Whatever genius decided single-door double deckers was the way forward should be fired.

They're also frequently dirty, wet and either too cold or too hot because presumably they don't come equipped with AC, or the drivers can't figure out how it works.

Add to this being generally knocked and bumped around because the bus lanes are in terrible condition, combined with the poorly maintained suspensions on a lot of the buses, speeding drivers, and you wonder why people don't want to subject themselves to it?


3. Antisocial behaviour. Who wants to be subjected to a bunch of scumbags smoking, fighting, shagging, etc?


4. It's inflexible and longwinded. Public transport must stick to a fixed route, regardless of traffic conditions (although in some rare instances I have seen buses rerouted) and because of the way it's planned, far too many journeys involve a side-trip into town first.


Now, compare all that to the car:

- You can leave when YOU want/need to, without having to wait maybe 20-30 mins first.

- It's dry, warm/cool and comfortable (you're guaranteed a seat).

- You don't have to let anyone into your car that you don't want there.

- You can alter your route according to traffic conditions/reports.

- You can take a direct route between A and B, without having to goto point C first.

Until Public Transport in Ireland can even begin to compete on these terms (and I accept it's not all up to CIE - the Councils and Politicians all have their part to play too) then people will continue to drive their own cars, and no amount of pro-public transport, enviornment, PC rubbish will change that.

paulm17781

Kaiser2000 wrote:

Until Public Transport in Ireland can even begin to compete on these terms (and I accept it's not all up to CIE - the Councils and Politicians all have their part to play too)

I'm no fan of CIE but I would say the majority of problems are at government level. Transport 21 could have been finished in 2010 (assuming it started in 2005) if the political will was there, instead it was spread out over 3 election terms.

Dublin bus need to get ministereal approval to increase the size of their fleet, note the whole PDs "300 private buses" thing that bus users are still suffering over. I don't blame the drivers for not wanting to stop scum bags fighting / smoking /shagging etc. It's not CIE's fault that the government don't provide a decent transport police.

Saying that, Dublin bus could make an effort to keep the buses cleaner, it is amazing how filthy some buses are in the mornings, most of which couldn't be the fault of morning commuters. There are a range of options they could take to improve public transport experience: live bus times at buses, ticket machines at stops instead of paying the driver, double door buses... :rolleyes:

Del2005

spacetweek wrote:

Oh and can we get decent bicycle lanes on the quays now??

Are the bus lanes not also cycle lanes?

paulm17781

Del2005 wrote:

Are the bus lanes not also cycle lanes?

And what a safe place they are. The smallest and largest of road vehicles on the same road space. :rolleyes:

spacetweek

Del2005 wrote:

Are the bus lanes not also cycle lanes?

The bus lane is arguably the least safe place on the road for the cyclist!

cyclopath2001

Del2005 wrote:

Are the bus lanes not also cycle lanes?

No, but cyclists are permitted to use them, as are taxis, really big, wide luxury coaches, hop-on/hop-off tour buses, security vans, motorcyclists (apparently) and anyone else who's prepared to pay the very occasional fine and who doesn't mind the bad karma.

There are some cycle tracks on the North quays, but they're not up to the legal spec and are marked as 'non-exclusive'. And, oh, they're only present on the wider stretches where they're not needed.

spacetweek

cyclopath2001 wrote:

And, oh, they're only present on the wider stretches where they're not needed.

This is something that has been bugging me for ages. The fundamental problem is that when the road is wide, you don't need a cycle lane but it's easy to provide one, and when the road is narrow, you need a cycle lane but it's hard to provide one. So what to do?

It would be great to find out what they do in other cities in this situation. In the case of some stretches of the quays, a draconian way to make the space would be to build boardwalks along the Liffey side and get rid of the narrow paths, shifting pedestrians off the road and onto the boardwalks. Then the space freed up could be reassigned to bicycles. But this idea would prolly be too expensive what with the amount of boardwalk you'd need. I'm referring particularly to the horrible stretches like Essex Quay and Ellis Quay.