Bus Lanes - obstacle to meeting kyoto?

SkepticOne

I think the QBCs are a great idea and there should be more of them. For environmental and financial reasons I don't drive a car. I live in the Stillorgan area of Dublin and the bus gets me into town in around 20-30 minutes along the QBC.

The suggestion by the OP that bus lanes should be open to cars at peak times makes no sense to me. It is surely at peak times that the bus lanes are most necessary! That is why on the normal bus lanes we allow traffic only on the weekends and evenings.

Looking at the bigger picture, we need to stop seeing traffic problems as problems facing the private car but rather as problems caused by the private car. There simply isn't the capacity on the streets for unlimited growth in private car usage. Further growth is only possible with the expansion of public transport.

A few years ago there were plans to open up the Dublin bus routes to competing bids. What happened to those? We need to bring an end to unions dictating how our transport system should be run.

Victor

Tea drinker wrote: »

I just heard on the radio that some guy is sitting in traffic on the blackrock road (new bus lane) and 2 buses passed by in an hour! Hard to believe that but...

And how many DARTs?

seamus wrote: »

I would support initiatives which increased usage of the bus lanes without causing them to become packed. Car pooling is the most obvious - that anyone carrying at least two other adult passengers can use the bus lane.

Car pooling merely cannibalises would be bus passengers. Its not a solution in Ireland.

egan007 wrote: »

Buslanes are a great idea. However they are a waste of money of there is no busses in them.

Fitting a bus lane to an existing road is very cheap. If you want to consider waste of money, look at the cost of cars the fuel they use and the accidents they cause.

It's not the lane that is the problem. There should be a bus at every stop every 5 minutes.

That isn't necessarily necessary or practical. Are you saying if only 10 buses an hour are required, then there shoul be no bus lane?

Saruman wrote: »

Also, there is no reason the Bus service could not be changed over to Biofuel as they are big dirty vehicles.

I'm not saying don't look at buses, but look at cars first.

egan007 wrote: »

The obvious answer to this is to have competition

This is a discussion on bus lanes. Competition needs to be on service (and cost), not infrastructure.

SkepticOne wrote: »

A few years ago there were plans to open up the Dublin bus routes to competing bids. What happened to those? We need to bring an end to unions dictating how our transport system should be run.

The delay is with the department of transport and the private operators. While the unions grumbled when Luas was given tot he private sector, they got on with life. Many Luas staff are SIPTU members.

Tea drinker wrote: »

But this negates the points everyone else made that the buses "whiz by" all the cars! And this proves they are not fit for purpose - they simply don't work when they are most needed.

Those points don't work, because the cars are left into what should be bus lanes.

I have no problems with a good transport system, we don't have that and people are being genuinely inconvenienced to support a monopoly, of the service and infrastrucure.

Can you expand your point here? What is a "monopoly of .... infeastructure"?

In most situations people have no realistic alternative but to drive to work, and this should be facilitated. Like it or not, car drivers are the primary users of the roads, with even cyclists probably making better utilisation of the available infrastructure.

700,000+ public transport journeys in Dublin every day, add cyclists, pedestrians and people who work from home. The car isn't the only option.

mickoneill30

How many taxis passed him by too in the bus lane while he was sitting in Blackrock?

How many emergency vehicles? Probably not many of those but if I ever get trapped in some accident I'ld like to think that the emergency services weren't sitting in traffic because somebody thought it was a good idea to get rid of bus lanes.

How many ministers too?
I think our politicians should be forced to use the same lanes as us. We might actually see them trying to fix the problem of Dublin traffic if they had to spend hours going nowhere like the rest of us.

markpb

Tea drinker wrote: »

But this negates the points everyone else made that the buses "whiz by" all the cars! And this proves they are not fit for purpose - they simply don't work when they are most needed.

Bad bus lanes does not mean bus lanes are bad. In the main, our bus lanes could be vastly improved by making a few small changes to the junctions. This is happening but very slowly.

Bee

DadaKopf wrote: »

Simple fact is, if those lanes weren't there, they'd be clogged up with traffic anyway. Bizarrely, the whole reason for introducing QBCs was to take buses out of the traffic jams. That way, the routes could operate efficiently. Without QBCs, buses would be stuck in traffic like any other vehicle.

And how on earth are QBCs contributing to carbon emissions? Firstly, carbon emissions per head plummet when travelling by bus (or other public transport). Secondly, QBCs are an incentive for people to get out of their cars.

Sure, the system needs to improve, but removing QBCs is stupid.

Bus pollution is a serious issue, I shudder to think what the air quality levels are on bus congested O'Connell St. So called acceptable levels areconstatly breached in College Green.

There is little valid research on bus pollution in Ireland but there is some good info from the UK

The National Environment Technology Centre in the UK has shown that a single diesel bus produces as much particulate pollution as 128 petrol cars, and NOx emissions equivalent to 39 cars.

Not one of the diesel buses in London, or elsewhere, carries anything like 100 car-driving passengers, and many operate way below capacity. Meanwhile, taxis often need to return empty from dropping a single passenger - the ultimate in waste - but are encouraged by permission to use bus lanes!

Scientists have found one of the most carcinogenic chemicals known to man (3-nitrobenzanthrone) in diesel bus exhausts when the engine is under load, i.e. when pulling away from any High Street bus stop.

The thing that contributes a lot of serious pollution from a diesel bus is its frequent stopping and starting at Bus stop. To move away the engine has to operate at full load thus producing increased pollution.

Bee

Victor wrote: »

The cars aren't moving because of choke points (for example where a road becomes 1 lane either way instead of 2 lanes either way), not because of the bus lane.

The traffic engineering is dreadful in Dublin, run by amateurs for amateurs.


Bus lanes in general are a waste

They increase journey times unnecessarily.

They turn dual carriageways into single track roads with no passing places forcing every vehicle to travel at the speed of the slowest.

They create traffic jams where there were previously none.

They create bottlenecks at the start of the bus lane, delaying buses as well as other traffic.

They create hazardous situations where vehicles wish to turn left and are lethal to cyclists

They enthuse some bus drivers to drive aggressively by encouraging them to think they have more right to be on the road than anyone else and cyclists suffer disproportionally.

They encourage bus drivers to drive at normal speed past queues of stationary traffic, often without sufficient regard to pedestrians mothers with prams etc , trying to cross between traffic that may be obscuring them from the bus driver's view.

They inspire traffic to divert onto other roads, often residential side roads.

They make it more difficult for pedestrians to cross the road by removing the natural gaps that appear in free flowing traffic.

They generate contempt for the law.

They divert police resources away from dealing with criminals.

They incite road rage.

They are usually counter-productive in terms of improving the bus service.

Tea drinker

djpbarry wrote: »

Dublin Bus is not a monopoly - there is at least one (probably more) other urban private bus company operating in the city.
Please...
.

Yes please!... there is SFA competition to Dublin Bus!

djpbarry wrote: »

What infrastructure is there available for cyclists apart from a smattering of “lanes” painted on the road? .

I didn't attempt to describe the infrastructure, you did, I merely said they make better use of the AVAILABLE infrastructure. They have a very small footprint and there is a serious amount of people cycling these days. Yes we should spend more here, public and private investment is needed for end to end service.

djpbarry wrote: »

Case in point: the Westlink Toll Bridge. Capacity was doubled - virtually no effect on traffic congestion.

Case against Blackrock at a standstill after QBC, or any QBC really.

djpbarry wrote: »

Possibly because the bulk of funding for infrastructure goes into the road network (presumably to satisfy individuals such as yourself) rather than public transport.

Well, we all use it! regardless of whther we ever take a car journey or not, all the vans trucks etc that service our shops etc with goods have to use them. When you put up simple barriers to this, you decrease efficiency and push up costs (and emmissions). I don't think Dublin bus will allow bread deliveries on their beautiful machines. LOL

snickerpuss

I am glad that most people in this thread think this is a mad idea. If there were no bus lanes people would drive, the reason I would never drive over to UCD is cos I'd be stuck in traffic instead of whizzing past it in the bus lane.

The Malahide Rd QBC is fine the large majority of that road but it narrows at Donnycarney and the buses have to merge with the cars. Again, it's a choke point not really a bus lane fault.

seamus

snickerpuss wrote: »

I am glad that most people in this thread think this is a mad idea. If there were no bus lanes people would drive, the reason I would never drive over to UCD is cos I'd be stuck in traffic instead of whizzing past it in the bus lane.

If there were no bus lanes, people wouldn't have a choice. Busses would be slower than cars.

Fact of the matter is if you remove bus lanes, the cars will fill up the space. Let's say thirty busses use a QBC in the space of an hour. That's one every two minutes, which would appear like an "empty" lane to the car drivers. If the busses carry 150 people each, and we remove the bus lanes, let's say that 100 people from each bus will switch to their cars. That's 3000 extra cars on that road for that hour each morning. If each cars is 2.5 meters long, and occupies an extra 1.25 metres front and back, then the total road space required each morning for that hour, is 15km.

Now, that would be a pretty busy lane, but the less busy lanes are shorter. Probably no more than 500m. Even if ten busses use that lane and you remove the lane, you require ten times more roadspace than you have made available.

mickoneill30

I don't know what the statistics were for 2007 but for 2006

Dublin bus had 1028 buses which travelled 60m Km and carried 146m passengers.
Lets get rid of the bus lanes and see how those 146m passengers work out in cars.
Lets see how Kyoto managed with that. 1028 buses. 146m passengers. How many cars would be needed for that amount of passengers.

http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/transport/current/transport.pdf

That's not counting Bus Eireann or any of the private operators.

For the guy complaining about 2 buses passing him by in an hour I agree it's a disgrace. I don't use the Blackrock route but I use Swords - City every day. The buses go along at a fairly consistant rate until they get to Whitehall. Then they have to queue there for 15 - 20 mins for the couple of hundred metres where there's no bus lane and when we eventually get in you get a few buses at once. I'm sure the people up ahead in cars look at that empty bus lane and think it's a disgrace the buses aren't in it. What they really need to do is join up the bus lane so the buses aren't held up. That way you'd get to see them go by every few minutes.
Everybody would be happy. People in the buses get into the city quicker and the people in the cars can be satisfied that the bus lanes aren't being wasted.

markpb

snickerpuss wrote: »

The Malahide Rd QBC is fine the large majority of that road but it narrows at Donnycarney and the buses have to merge with the cars. Again, it's a choke point not really a bus lane fault.

It's entirely due to lazy bus lane planning. They have junctions in other cities (abroad, obviously) and yet they manage to let buses flow through. Solutions have been found, Dublin continues to ignore them.

djpbarry

Bee wrote: »

Bus pollution is a serious issue, I shudder to think what the air quality levels are on bus congested O'Connell St.

You think air quality would improve if all buses were removed and people were forced to use cars instead?

Bee wrote: »

The National Environment Technology Centre in the UK has shown that a single diesel bus produces as much particulate pollution as 128 petrol cars, and NOx emissions equivalent to 39 cars.

Have you got a source for this? NETCEN has not existed for some time so I'd be surprised if this study was up-to-date.

Bee wrote: »

They increase journey times unnecessarily.

How do bus lanes increase journey times for buses?

Bee wrote: »

They create traffic jams where there were previously none.

This is generally not true. Bus lanes are often created because of traffic jams hindering the progress of the bus.

Bee wrote: »

They create hazardous situations where vehicles wish to turn left and are lethal to cyclists

How would this change if bus lanes were removed?

Bee wrote: »

They enthuse some bus drivers to drive aggressively by encouraging them to think they have more right to be on the road than anyone else and cyclists suffer disproportionally.

:rolleyes:
I cycle all the time and never have any problems with bus drivers. It's taxis and delivery vans who constantly try to mow me down!

Bee wrote: »

They encourage bus drivers to drive at normal speed past queues of stationary traffic, often without sufficient regard to pedestrians mothers with prams etc

I see. Exactly how many mother and child couples have been savagely run down by buses in Dublin?

Bee wrote: »

They make it more difficult for pedestrians to cross the road by removing the natural gaps that appear in free flowing traffic.

You’re getting desperate now.

Bee wrote: »

They generate contempt for the law.

I see. So we should stop making new laws so that criminals don't feel so restrained?

Bee wrote: »

They divert police resources away from dealing with criminals.

How? Bus lanes are monitored by the traffic corps.

Bee wrote: »

They incite road rage.

Clutching at straws.

Bee wrote: »

They are usually counter-productive in terms of improving the bus service.

Again, how is this true exactly? Have you ever actually taken a bus anywhere?

Tea drinker wrote: »

Yes please!... there is SFA competition to Dublin Bus!

Then set up your own bus company if you feel that strongly about it.

Tea drinker wrote: »

They have a very small footprint and there is a serious amount of people cycling these days.

Actually, the number of people cycling in Dublin has decreased from about 30,000 in 1996 to about 21,000 in 2006.

Tea drinker wrote: »

Case against Blackrock at a standstill after QBC, or any QBC really.

That is your opinion. Unless you can come up with some solid evidence then it will remain as such.

Gobán Saor

There is an unedifying whiff of burning martyr about some of the pro-public transport, anti-car brigade. Yes of course cars have a downside and yes of course we should have a better public transport system. However lets not forget that the widespread availability of the motor car has been one of the great personal liberating forces of the twentieth century. It has given individuals choices about how and where they spend their lives and opened up a vast range of activities and options for ordinary people. It is a choice and availability of choice is a good thing.

All too often, the transport debate (of which the bus-lane issue is a small but typical example) is ruthlessly shoehorned into an either-or debate. Either you're for bus lanes - lots of them, the more the merrier - or you're an anti-social, uncaring, gas-guzzling, planet destroying yob. Perhaps it's a deep-seated requirement of human nature to practise rituals of piety that were once a feature of organised religions and have now resurfaced, stronger than ever, with a secular face. And just like the state once supported the church and persecuted non-believers, so now the new orthodoxy is imposed with the full moral authority of the politically correct right-on "people like us."

My policy on bus lanes is very simple. Any day I'm in my car they are the spawn of Satan, an inefficient, wasteful emanation of a nanny-knows-best state gone mad. For those days when I'm on the bus, they are a sensible, necessary and minimalist step to sorting out our traffic chaos. Simple, eh?:D

In other words, its a practical issue not a moral one. Bus users AND car users both deserve consideration. Not all bus lanes are good. Some are badly thought out and appear to be knee jerk attempts at traffic management.
On those rare, occasional days when bus lanes are opened up to regular traffic - for whatever reason - it is remarkable how much better traffic flows. All traffic, including buses.

djpbarry

Gobán Saor wrote: »

On those rare, occasional days when bus lanes are opened up to regular traffic - for whatever reason - it is remarkable how much better traffic flows. All traffic, including buses.

You mean Sundays?

seamus

Gobán Saor wrote: »

On those rare, occasional days when bus lanes are opened up to regular traffic - for whatever reason - it is remarkable how much better traffic flows. All traffic, including buses.

Well, to be fair, bus lanes are opened only when the traffic is by nature less heavy. So of course the traffic will flow better - there's less of it.

Although interestingly enough, where a bus lane exists, people are reluctant to use it even when they can. Go into Dublin City centre during periods when the lanes are open and you'll see hundreds of people happily queueing in the normal lanes while the bus lanes sit empty.

As you quite rightly point out though, yes plenty of bus lanes are a mess. They randomly merge back into traffic flow (often at the worse point), where simply continuing them on or having them bypass the traffic lights would solve everyone's headaches.

The N4 will be a good example of bad bus lane planning when it's done. Coming up to the M50, the busses will have to drive in the bus lanes, up to the last stop at Liffey Valley. Then they'll have to pull out, cross one lane of traffic and disrupt another to drive towards the city. It would have made more sense to have the bus lane as the second lane of four (with an island bus stop), and let the M50 northbound traffic continue on uninterrupted.

But by the same virtue - that QBC is a godsend for those who use the busses in the area, it only has a few small bottlenecks.

Gobán Saor

djpbarry wrote: »

You mean Sundays?

No, I mean those few occasions on which there's some exceptional reason for doing so and the Gardai announce that bus lanes are open to all traffic. It happened when the farmers "tractorcade" converged on the Dail, when there was a partial bus strike/work to rule and one ot two exceptionally bad weather days.

Stark

A day isn't enough time to affect traffic trends. You're spreaing the same amount of traffic over twice the road space so you get a once off improvement in traffic flow (for cars anyway, I'm not sure how you make that judgement for buses unless you're actually on the bus). However, like previous posters have said, if you opened the bus lane permanently, traffic on the road would eventually double and you would have lost the benefits that the bus lane provided.

Victor

Gobán Saor wrote: »

No, I mean those few occasions on which there's some exceptional reason for doing so and the Gardai announce that bus lanes are open to all traffic. It happened when the farmers "tractorcade" converged on the Dail, when there was a partial bus strike/work to rule and one ot two exceptionally bad weather days.

You need to take into account that on such days, people tend to alter their travel patterns, either travelling earlier / later or not travelling at all.

neilled

egan007 wrote: »

The obvious answer to this is to have competition, drivers may be more likely to work private.
Of course there's always the robots.....

Sorry to break the news to you but competition isn't the panacea to all ills. In fact in a number of places (i'm thinking uk in particular) all that has resulted from so called competition is that local monopolies have been granted to private operators for a number of years, after which a franchise can be reviewed. In the meantime routes can be slashed so only the most profitable ones remain, staff find wages cut, passengers find increasing fares and the only one laughing are the board of directors of the various private monopolies that have one the right to operate the routes and their shareholders. Of course they get subsidy's to buy buses etc so how that would solve problems boggles me.

Some good points have been made in this discussion, in particular to the note of poorly designed bus lanes and the fact that some of them end at various chokepoints around the city.

Its rare enough that I'm on a bus these days, I cycle pretty much everywhere .

MCMLXXXIII

neilled wrote: »

Sorry to break the news to you but competition isn't the panacea to all ills. In fact in a number of places (i'm thinking uk in particular) all that has resulted from so called competition is that local monopolies have been granted to private operators for a number of years, after which a franchise can be reviewed. In the meantime routes can be slashed so only the most profitable ones remain, staff find wages cut, passengers find increasing fares and the only one laughing are the board of directors of the various private monopolies that have one the right to operate the routes and their shareholders. Of course they get subsidy's to buy buses etc so how that would solve problems boggles me.

Some good points have been made in this discussion, in particular to the note of poorly designed bus lanes and the fact that some of them end at various chokepoints around the city.

Its rare enough that I'm on a bus these days, I cycle pretty much everywhere .

You are so right it's not even funny. Everyone can see what happens when we privatize things (anyone remember Enron?).

But seriously, back to the beginning statement:

Tea drinker wrote: »

If we had a nice integrated public transport system we could argue that a well populated bus lane feeding into that would be useful - but we don't.

...Therein lies the problem. You aren't going to have a "nice integrated public transport system" until it is utilized by the public and has enough funding. People don't like taxes, so the funding will come from bus fares. Higher bus fares make less people ride. The only thing to engourage more ridership is to designate lanes for bus-only use. That way, when you are sitting in traffic and see a bus fly by you might consider it the next time you take that route. They aren't going to buy more busses until the current busses are at or near capacity. They try to maximize the usage and money from fares by running the busses during the busiest times. If the bus is only half full, why would they run another?

As for that pollution statistic - the busses are running whether people are using them or not. The 28 cars worth of pollution doesn't change if one person is riding or 60. For every extra passenger, that's one more polluting car off the road with the same exhaust the bus has always put out. However, I would like to thank you for not blaming the passenger auto industry for being the world's only downfall.

BoatMad

I've lurked on this , but I have to say I agree with teh few posters who agree against mindless expansion of buslanes

nobody argues that buslanes are intrinsically bad, My argument is the way to solve dublins problems is not just make car journeys increasing difficult as if somehow you "force" people to change. There is no evidence that the major introduction of bus lanes has resulted in significant trend towards buses. In fact the LUAS shows that bus passangers will decant from busses at the first opportunity so the conclusion is that people suffer buses but dont like them.

Secondly the construction of bus lanes has become a political statement not a pragmatic one. Take for example the Nangor road bus lane, There isnt actually a bus service along the length of teh bus lane!!. Where there is is a very sparse service and this is definitely a waste of road space.

The poster "seamus" gives his take on statistics if you do away with buslanes, but of course like a lot of this he takes worse and best case figures to justify it. Try running his figures on the Nangor road QBC!!

I fully supported LUAS , because it construted its own travel space, rather then in the main taking over existing road space. The RPA in fact sees that future LUAS should in general be segregated from other transport.

Bus lanes are not a solution, no matter what you do , outside creating completely seperate road space, it will be intermixed with other road users and hence its throughput reduces. Dublin Bus figures show that while specific journey times for parts of routes have improved, overall bus travel time sin Dublin are along with other road users , is increasing , ie traffic including buses is getter slower. ( I think we are now below calcutta)

It assumes me hear people rabbit on about European cities as model of public transport. Almost all European cities have very very good road infrastructures, I have driven through the centre of at least a dozen european and scandavian cities by car. Most european cities has at least 2 lane roads for car through them, ie Helsingborg, Stuttgart, Munich,etc

The problem in ireland is the issue gets "hijacked" by typically left leaning socialists who implement policy for political reasons.

As an example I live in Bray , i work in Parkwest near the red cow. No current public transport system can get me there in anything like the time a car can. in fact outside rush hour the car will beat public transport times any time ( ie door to door)

i have LUAS near me ( well about 1/2 mile away). Today I wanted to be at a meeting in geogres st at 1:15 pm, It took me 22 mins by car, there is no way any public transport could beat that. just face it cars are efficient ( door to door)

We must deal with traffic issues pragmatically , not politically or by attempting to force "social" change. People will leave their cars at home when it is more convienent ( ie faster, more comfortable, etc) to travel by public transport, until that exists the usage of teh car will grow, dispite the conjestion.

The solution to Dublins transport system is to add capacity by adding alternative "extra" capacity not playing with existing infrastructure. Buslanes are a joke currently, No real attempt is made to engineer a consistant end to end solution, most are merely a white line painting excercise. ( like cycle lanes)

By the way the pollution issue is really a red herring, over the next 20 years motor manufacturers will eventually deliver virtually non-polluting cars. Its funny that the anti-car lobby uses pollution as an argument,. The fact is people like personal transport, as long as they do car companies will give them a car. So even if in 20 years time we will still have loads of cars and car conjestion ( I also suspect that cars will get bigger even when powered by other means then petrol)


So lets summarise

(a) Car ownership will grow

(b) People like cars, cars are getting more comfortable and reliable

(c) Door to Door they are efficient

(d) High quality alternatives ( such as LUAS) actually tend to attract people away from busses rather then anything else, a fact Garret Fitzgerald has constantly pointed out

(e) Cars will ultimately be pollution free, but to teh chargrin of teh tree-huggers, they will get bigger,more comfortable and still be desireable. ( I hope to see in my lifetime that electric powered, 20 foot long 0-60 in 4 secs , 150mph top speed electric 4x4!, and I'll buy it too)

(f) hence from (e) above they must be facilitated, its what peole want.


(g) Commutes are likely to get longer, with teh opening of teh motorway system, people will realise that places like Athlone , waterford are not far away from Dublin and will commute.

(h) The focus seems to be on inner Dublin conjestion, but anyone will tell you that the worst conjestion in Dublin is on the outskirts, where public transport simply cannot help the issue


Therefore teh solution is

(a) Only develop transports systems that add to teh total available transport infrastruture. Build new dedicated bus lanes, build luas, metro.

(b) Leave the existing road infrastructure to mixed use

(c) Face facts and build urban dual roads like those in Europe. Dublin has a pathetic car infrastructure and this is the primarily cause of the problem

( The M50 was planned in a time where there wasnt even an offical designation of what a motorway was in ireland, the statistics where proved wrong within 6 months and the junctions were engineered by a child of 3)

(d) Stop politics entering the process. Leave teh socilaist arguments at home.

Victor

BoatMad wrote: »

nobody argues that buslanes are intrinsically bad, My argument is the way to solve dublins problems is not just make car journeys increasing difficult as if somehow you "force" people to change.

Its more about making bus journeys easier than making car journeys harder.

There is no evidence that the major introduction of bus lanes has resulted in significant trend towards buses.

Bus usage trippled when the Stillorgan QBC was introduced. Over the last 10 years, bus usage into the city centre has increased, car usage has dropped.

In fact the LUAS shows that bus passangers will decant from busses at the first opportunity so the conclusion is that people suffer buses but dont like them.

And they will move ftom cars also. The 44s and 48A didn't have much priority, of course people used Luas. Likewise the 77 through Greenhills and Walkinstown. The system with prioity won. Give buses priority and they will win.

Secondly the construction of bus lanes has become a political statement not a pragmatic one. Take for example the Nangor road bus lane, There isnt actually a bus service along the length of teh bus lane!!.

You are just uninformed on that http://www.dublinbus.ie/your_journey/viewer.asp?route=151 A bus runs about every 10 - 11 minutes from 0715 until 1854. Thats on top of the nearby Luas (with shuttle bus connection) and trains.

The poster "seamus" gives his take on statistics if you do away with buslanes, but of course like a lot of this he takes worse and best case figures to justify it. Try running his figures on the Nangor road QBC!!

**cough** See above.

I fully supported LUAS , because it construted its own travel space, rather then in the main taking over existing road space. The RPA in fact sees that future LUAS should in general be segregated from other transport.

They see the need as Luas getting exclusive use of its track space (save maybe at junctions). Bus lanes would be the same.

Bus lanes are not a solution, no matter what you do , outside creating completely seperate road space, it will be intermixed with other road users and hence its throughput reduces.

The problem is with other road users, primarily cars, not bus lanes. Your comment is analogous to saying the problem with the health service is the patients.

Dublin Bus figures show that while specific journey times for parts of routes have improved, overall bus travel time sin Dublin are along with other road users , is increasing , ie traffic including buses is getter slower. ( I think we are now below calcutta)

Because of cars.

It assumes me hear people rabbit on about European cities as model of public transport. Almost all European cities have very very good road infrastructures, I have driven through the centre of at least a dozen european and scandavian cities by car. Most european cities has at least 2 lane roads for car through them, ie Helsingborg, Stuttgart, Munich,etc

The problem si dublin has lors of these "2 lane roads for car" and not enough dedicated to other uses.

The problem in ireland is the issue gets "hijacked" by typically left leaning socialists who implement policy for political reasons.

Whatever happened to attack the post, not the poster?

As an example I live in Bray , i work in Parkwest near the red cow. No current public transport system can get me there in anything like the time a car can. in fact outside rush hour the car will beat public transport times any time ( ie door to door)

Sure, your particular journey. And what will times be like when the Interconnetor is built?

i have LUAS near me ( well about 1/2 mile away). Today I wanted to be at a meeting in geogres st at 1:15 pm, It took me 22 mins by car, there is no way any public transport could beat that. just face it cars are efficient ( door to door)

Door to door maybe, mass movement of people, no.

The solution to Dublins transport system is to add capacity by adding alternative "extra" capacity not playing with existing infrastructure. Buslanes are a joke currently, No real attempt is made to engineer a consistant end to end solution, most are merely a white line painting excercise. ( like cycle lanes)

White lines are cheap. New road space is expensive.

By the way the pollution issue is really a red herring, over the next 20 years motor manufacturers will eventually deliver virtually non-polluting cars. Its funny that the anti-car lobby uses pollution as an argument,.

Because it is an valid argument. Congection is another valid argument that will remain, even if pollution is solved.

(f) hence from (e) above they must be facilitated, its what peole want.

Bob want coke and hookers. I popose you provide them for him. Want peeople want doesn't equate to what is reasonable, needed or desireable.

( The M50 was planned in a time where there wasnt even an offical designation of what a motorway was in ireland, the statistics where proved wrong within 6 months and the junctions were engineered by a child of 3)

Local Government (Roads and Motorways) Act, 1974

"The West Link Bridge opened in March 1990" - http://www.ntr.ie/companies/roads/ntr-roads/services.asp

Were you right on any of your points? Can we rely on anything you say?

BoatMad

Its more about making bus journeys easier than making car journeys harder.

Unfortunately thats not whats happening, owen keegan and others are actively disuading car journeys, there no carrot only stick.

Bus usage trippled when the Stillorgan QBC was introduced. Over the last 10 years, bus usage into the city centre has increased, car usage has dropped.

You are merely picking possibly the only example, overall the statistics do not bear up the "investment" in buslanes

And they will move ftom cars also.

nope there is no evidence to support that, LUAS in essence took bus passangers as its witness by the recent efforts to tell DB to stop shadowing luas routes

They see the need as Luas getting exclusive use of its track space (save maybe at junctions). Bus lanes would be the same.

I'm in favour of building seperate buslanes, I am not in favour of removing existing car road space, add to the pot not divide it up, current buslanes are a political statement not a pragmatic one

The problem is with other road users, primarily cars, not bus lanes. Your comment is analogous to saying the problem with the health service is the patients.

nope, nonsense statement, Youre actually saying the problem is the patients ( ie cars), I'm saying the problem is the health service, ie infrastructure, especially bus infrastructure. I am saying that bus lanes are not a solution where they merely take existing road space. Cars are not the problem, the poor infrastructure, planning, lack of investment etc are the problems, nothing wrong with cars. They are simply a tool for peole to get around

Sure, your particular journey. And what will times be like when the Interconnetor is built?

still better, well we will have the improved M50, which is not as bad as people like to moan about. actually the LUAS developments are madness, BRay to city centre in a meandering jammed tram will be some fun in two to three years time. Garret Fitz is spot on.

Door to door maybe, mass movement of people, no.

Sorry, people actually have to travel from their starting point to their destination, they dont go from sandymount to tara, what nonsense

White lines are cheap. New road space is expensive.

Soory thats my argument, cheap and useless

The problem si dublin has lors of these "2 lane roads for car" and not enough dedicated to other uses.

you have obviously not driven around major european cities, we have virtually none.

Bob want coke and hookers. I popose you provide them for him. Want peeople want doesn't equate to what is reasonable, needed or desireable.

Standard tactic when loosing an argument, illustrate the extreme, then express teh "common Good" principle , your common good of course. The fact is ordinary decent people wnat cars ( thats why they buy them) they will continue to buy and use them until other methods, that are faster more cormfortable and more convienet present themselves, they will not go back to 19th century methods of transportation, thats just wishfull thinking. You could double teh price of oil and it would nt have an effect ( other then forcing bigger national wage settlements)

Because it is an valid argument. Congection is another valid argument that will remain, even if pollution is solved.

pollution is not a valid argument, it will be solved, that argument will not reduce the number of cars nor the number of people who desire cars. We still have one of the lowest ownerships of cars in europe, we aint seen nothing yet, Conjestion has nothing to do with cars per say, its got to do with planning etc....... The arguments against cars smacks of the two legs bad , four legs good. Mass transist transport only works where it presents a better alternative , and better in teh sense of comfort, convience, etc. You cannot turn back the progress clock. People now know and understand the benefits of the private car, it will not be undone by preaching about conjestion.

For example , one of teh major contributors to Dublin conjestion is the consentration of radial routes, another is the lack of investmenst particulary in the 80's , thirdly the concentration of population in greater dublin area, forthly , the lack of decent roads in the rest of the country, these have nothing to do with cars, they are failures of planning. making it attractive to work and live in other parts of ireland would play a major part in reducing conjestion, ( possibly more then bloody bus lanes)

Were you right on any of your points? Can we rely on anything you say?

Im right on lots of points, at least I make points .

djpbarry

BoatMad wrote: »

Unfortunately thats not whats happening, owen keegan and others are actively disuading car journeys...

What's wrong with that?

BoatMad wrote: »

You are merely picking possibly the only example, overall the statistics do not bear up the "investment" in buslanes

I very much doubt that's the only example. I'm going to throw in the example of the QBC that runs from Lucan all the way to the IFSC. That express bus is full every morning (or at least it was when I lived out there not too long ago). I can't imagine anyone who takes that bus would consider driving instead, considering the increased journey time.

BoatMad wrote: »

nope there is no evidence to support that, LUAS in essence took bus passangers as its witness by the recent efforts to tell DB to stop shadowing luas routes

What evidence have you provided to support this argument? The LUAS can only hold so many people.

BoatMad wrote: »

Cars are not the problem...

No, cars are not the problem, per se. It's the number of cars all heading in the same direction at the same time, that's the problem.

BoatMad wrote: »

The fact is ordinary decent people wnat cars ( thats why they buy them)

And what about the sizeable proportion of the population who can't afford a car?

BoatMad wrote: »

...they will continue to buy and use them until other methods, that are faster more cormfortable and more convienet present themselves

I haven't encountered a single urban, public transport system anywhere in the world that is as (or more) comfortable than a car - you're just looking for excuses.

BoatMad wrote: »

You could double teh price of oil and it would nt have an effect

I doubt that very much. A large chunk of people in this country are living beyond their means already. Double the price of petrol and I think that will push quite a few of them beyond their limit.

BoatMad wrote: »

pollution is not a valid argument, it will be solved

Oh, wow, that's a relief. Thanks for putting my mind at ease :rolleyes:

Pray tell, how will it be solved?

BoatMad wrote: »

We still have one of the lowest ownerships of cars in europe

We also have one of the fastest growing rates of car ownership in Europe and we also have the highest car usage in Europe.

BoatMad wrote: »

Conjestion has nothing to do with cars per say

I see. So if everyone in the country buys a car and decides they're going to use it every day come Hell or high water, then it's the fault of all the local authorities in the country for wasting their time providing public transport solutions and not providing enough road space?

BoatMad wrote: »

making it attractive to work and live in other parts of ireland would play a major part in reducing conjestion

So the problem is all the people driving the cars?

Húrin

Saruman wrote: »

I Agree... On any route that has a QBC all or most of the way then there should be a bus every 5 mins.
Also, there is no reason the Bus service could not be changed over to Biofuel as they are big dirty vehicles.

Biofuels have no future. They're dirtier than petrol.

LostinBlanch

djpbarry wrote: »

What evidence have you provided to support this argument? The LUAS can only hold so many people.

Well google brought this up and showed that Dublin Bus did decrease the 48a Service as many passengers had switched to the LUAS.

http://www.finegael.ie/news/index.cfm/type/details/nkey/25386/pkey/653

Edit; and this, which was subsequently shown to be true.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=202004&referrerid=59211

djpbarry

LostinBlanch wrote: »

Well google brought this up and showed that Dublin Bus did decrease the 48a Service as many passengers had switched to the LUAS.

I don't doubt that some people have switched from using the bus to using the LUAS - seems perfectly reasonable. But, I very much doubt that NOBODY has left their car at home in favour of the LUAS, which is what BoatMad has argued.

zippy 99

Tea drinker wrote: »

Giving the evidence everyday that people are sitting in cars for ages while practically no buses pass by in their dedicated lane, surely there is an argument against these lanes? I just heard on the radio that some guy is sitting in traffic on the blackrock road (new bus lane) and 2 buses passed by in an hour! Hard to believe that but...
How much pollutants are released by cars sitting for hours not moving (because of bus lanes)
Also there is a substantial maintenance overhead for having miles of underused roadway versus the well utilised roadway for mixed use. I don't know how much the bus companies contribute to this, or if they have paid anything to have a dedicated lane available.

The economics of bus lanes makes no sense to me right now. I think there would be a substantial jump in efficiency if they were open to cars for peak hours, or even a portion of peak hours. Less money spent on petrol, car maintenance more productive hours available to people and employers, faster delivery times, less time to get to meetings etc.

If we had a nice integrated public transport system we could argue that a well populated bus lane feeding into that would be useful - but we don't.

When you can't afford fuel for your car (or to heat your home for that matter), or all the carbon tax charges which are inevitable, you might be glad of the bus lanes.

Tea drinker

zippy 99 wrote: »

When you can't afford fuel for your car (or to heat your home for that matter), or all the carbon tax charges which are inevitable, you might be glad of the bus lanes.

Bus lanes won't be the biggest problem in the doomsday scenario you predict, nor will they avert it. I'm calling Bertie we got a defeatist here!

Anyway, who cares about the carbon charges, we are among the richest citizens in the world and have a fantastic economy. That's why we are attracting carbon taxes. Are you saying this isn't true??? :rolleyes:

I agree we need to conserve our fuels, the argument here is that some Bus lanes are contributing to fuel use and pollution.
If people were serious about reducing environmental impact through bus use they would push for free bus passes around the city, all the time.
The buses are not pollution free, and it's hard to say what actual benefit would be. What's with the burning oil smell from buses? That's down to poor maintenance or worn engines.

zippy 99

Tea drinker wrote: »

Bus lanes won't be the biggest problem in the doomsday scenario you predict, nor will they avert it. I'm calling Bertie we got a defeatist here!

Anyway, who cares about the carbon charges, we are among the richest citizens in the world and have a fantastic economy. That's why we are attracting carbon taxes. Are you saying this isn't true??? :rolleyes:

quote]


Im not predicting a doomsday scenario, Im just saying im sick of paying higher fuel charges and quite soon the carbon tax.

Im assume you are taking the hand about not caring about carbon charges as we are among the richest citizerns in the worl and have a fantastic economy.

What I see is a county of citizens living off credit and up to its neck in debt, trying to live the big life.

When the carbon taxes and mandatory ID cards and database are introduced im outta here.