Bus drivers air frustrations over gridlock

paulm17781

http://breakingnews.ie/ireland/mhojcwidojmh/

This is excellent news I think. It may do little but making the people who can make a difference aware of the problems is something. Now it depends if those people will act on it.

trellheim

Mr Fallon said prostitutes working along the Grand Canal had objected to idling buses because it was ’interfering with their business’.

That's made my day.

markf909

Another experienced Dublin Bus driver Tony Fallon said: “It is a very stressful job.” He called for lower bus fares and for enforcement of bus lanes.

I'm sure a subcommittee will take his advice on board, study it for a while, get consultants in to produce a report at say €70k and then declare that it could be a runner.

How many millions will it take to implement though?

Red Alert

I am not surprised they have had to come out like this. There is also a distinct lack of courtesy shown by car drivers to buses waiting to leave stops or change lanes.

IanCurtis

15 minutes on the bus this morning at Whitehall Junction thanks to hundreds of single-passenger cars as far as the eye could see.

They should be taxed out of this city.

If common sense and social conscience doesn't get them out of their cars, maybe money will.

Ham'nd'egger

paulm17781 wrote: »

http://breakingnews.ie/ireland/mhojcwidojmh/

This is excellent news I think. It may do little but making the people who can make a difference aware of the problems is something. Now it depends if those people will act on it.

There was a bus driver on George Hook this evening; I suspect it was to do with this. He did come over well it must be said.

ballooba

IanCurtis wrote: »

They should be taxed out of this city.

The bus service needs to be improved first.

1) Bus that actually go where people want to go.
2) Simplified fares.
3) Sort out silly and simple congestion causing problems.

I used to think that bus drivers were cranky and unreasonable people in comfortable state jobs. Now that I use the bus every day I have a different opinion of them and see the challenges they have to work with. Most have the patience of saints.

TheNog

markf909 wrote: »

I'm sure a subcommittee will take his advice on board, study it for a while, get consultants in to produce a report at say €70k and then declare that it could be a runner.

How many millions will it take to implement though?

Maybe rent out sections of the buses to the prostitutes and earn money on idle buses that way. There could be nice curtains sectioning off the bus with light red lights an all

Jip

Ballooa hit the nail on the head regarding the bus service needing to be improved first. This morning I was the sole occupant of my car, there's usually 2 of us and I left the house in Dublin 15 at about 7:15. I was in my office in Dublin 2 at around 7:50/55. Now if I was to get the 7:05 bus which I do on occasions when I don't take the car I don't get into the office until 8:20 at the earliest.
Now why would I choose public transport over taking my car every day ? And it's nothing to do with cars delaying the bus I take, it's ridiculous and indirect routes.

Red Alert

I the only way is to stop muzzling dublin bus in favour of privates that may or may not run services (as the LUAS feeder in Dundrum has shown), and then insist on a 'clean sheet' approach to design a network of new routes. Local politicans should not be involved because that inevitably leads to silly routing. Preference should be given to keeping the buses on bus lanes as much as possible. Also the number of stops should be reduced - people can walk 2 minutes to the next one unless we've all become morbidly lazy.

BostonB

IanCurtis wrote: »

15 minutes on the bus this morning at Whitehall Junction thanks to hundreds of single-passenger cars as far as the eye could see.

They should be taxed out of this city.

If common sense and social conscience doesn't get them out of their cars, maybe money will.

The bus isn't a via able option for everyone, especially if it takes twice as long as the car to get where you need to go. I believe that a large % of the congestion is created by poorly planned junctions and signals. For the last 10yrs or so I've seen a lot of junctions ruined by the introduction of lights, fliter lights and reductions of lanes, and yields for no good reason. Often easy flowing junctions become bottlenecks overnight when these improvements are put in place.

Its hard to take the public transport system seriously if they can manage to implement something simple as a unified billing so that you only pay one fare for a journey using more than one bus/train. Most major cities have that in place for 10~15yrs at this stage.

a_ominous

Why does Dublin Bus run so many buses through such a small area as it does at the moment? I'd reckon 95% of all the buses, not just routes, pass very close to O'Connell Bridge and the quays on either side. Not to mention Dame Street. I regularly see buses trying to cross from bus lane on Bachelor's Walk to O'Connell Bridge and all the traffic behind gets choked up while a bus has to cross 3 lanes and has to wait for lights to change to get to D'Olier St.

I believe that buses are the best option for a working public transport system, but Dublin Bus needs to re-think its routes. Integrated ticketing would help: from a customer point of view, I'm not that interested in the routes I have to travel, just that I get from A to B quickly and cheaply. Don't mind if I have to change buses once or twice but I don't want to pay 2 or 3 times for the 'privilege'.

ballooba

Red Alert wrote: »

I the only way is to stop muzzling dublin bus in favour of privates that may or may not run services (as the LUAS feeder in Dundrum has shown), and then insist on a 'clean sheet' approach to design a network of new routes.

Basically a pragmatic approach to routing taking into account new developments and the changing urban landscape. God forbid a transport company would take a customer centred approach.;)

Red Alert wrote: »

Local politicans should not be involved because that inevitably leads to silly routing.

Yes. This should be left for professionals.

Red Alert wrote: »

Preference should be given to keeping the buses on bus lanes as much as possible.

We also urgently need orbital routes. Someplaces like the Stillorgan QBC ar ridiculously overserved. At peak times I can expect a bus every 2 minutes or so. I feel I could live with buses every 5 minutes or so if I had to.

Red Alert wrote: »

Also the number of stops should be reduced - people can walk 2 minutes to the next one unless we've all become morbidly lazy.

I'm presuming this is to accomodate those less able among us. Elderly and disabled.

ballooba

BostonB wrote: »

The bus isn't a via able option for everyone, especially if it takes twice as long as the car to get where you need to go. I believe that a large % of the congestion is created by poorly planned junctions and signals. For the last 10yrs or so I've seen a lot of junctions ruined by the introduction of lights, fliter lights and reductions of lanes, and yields for no good reason. Often easy flowing junctions become bottlenecks overnight when these improvements are put in place.

I firmly believe that amber before red would greatly reduce congestion as well as educating people that they need to be ready to move when the lights change.

The Garda Traffic Corp need to start doing their job too with zero tolerance on yellow box infringements, bus lane infringements and traffic light infringements. Even during Operation GoSlow these are not addressed. A congestion problem is for life, not just for christmas. What exactly do they do? They seem to completely ignore road traffic offences? Are they assigned to other duties or something?

Zoney

Friday afternoon in Limerick is brutal, I almost pity the bus drivers more than the passengers. However, it's not much fun either spending 45 mins in the elements waiting for a bus that's supposed to be every 15, and then stuck packed in like sardines into a single-deck bus that slowly crawls through traffic. I've more than once seen someone panic and have to get off the bus.

In the Limerick example, it would be better to have gaps in the schedule before rush-hour and have a couple of buses out of the usual run and ready to recommence from the terminus end. Also, double deckers are desperately needed, especially considering there would be even more passengers if the service wasn't so hellish - it's packed even just with the people who have little choice but to use such an awful service.

However, even with more organisation of the bus service, little can make up for the diabolical lack of planning. Even by car it is hellish getting around Limerick at certain times of day, and Limerick is not a large city on the grander scale of things. It's nevertheless often a major expedition to get cross-city.

Bus lanes would certainly be welcomed, but that wouldn't help much at the black holes of junctions at certain points along the few main routes around the place. Also, in Limerick, at least one of the routes, the Childers Road, would require bus lanes either way in addition to four normal running lanes - unlikely to happen. It only recently got upgraded to four running lanes in the middle and even so has critical sections with a reduction to one lane one way, two the other.

RadioCity

Red Alert wrote: »

Local politicans should not be involved because that inevitably leads to silly routing.

This is a great suggestion, but I fear one that will never change. Theres probably dozens of little footnotes and changes in the timetables made over the years to accomodate one person.

I still go back to when the Belfast Metro was intoduced in 2005.
Before that Belfast was a complete mess of disjointed, poorly connected, low frequency routes.
The "Metro" took the highest frequency "corridors" and built the service around that. Each corridor was given a base number of 1 to 12 and each variant of the main route was given a suffix letter. Therefore you could know that a 1A/1B/1C etc went up a particular road and 10A/10B/10C etc went another road. Other routes were maintained as "socially necessary" with frequencies of 20/40/60 minutes. Other areas that traditionally were not part of the pre-Metro network (called Citybus) and were serviced by Ulsterbus, became part of the Metro network. It would be like bringing somewhere like Ashbourne into the Dublin Bus network.

I can't imagine all of Dublin getting used to new service numbers though...
Belfast did and it has been sucessful.

Del2005

ballooba wrote: »

I firmly believe that amber before red would greatly reduce congestion as well as educating people that they need to be ready to move when the lights change.

If people paid attention to the lights they could see the lights for the other road/ped crossing changing and be ready to move off. But I think that the people who take ages to get going at the lights would still take ages if the amber before green came in.

Earlier, the Dublin Transportation Office told the committee that if every motorist didn’t take their car for only one day a week, it would lead to 200,000 less cars in the capital per day.

Why does no-one suggest that the goverment remove free parking for civil servants? I'm sure if they had to pay for parking all day a lot more of them would use public transport.

trellheim

1) Bus that actually go where people want to go.
2) Simplified fares.
3) Sort out silly and simple congestion causing problems.

1. See the Patton Flyer and Port Tunnel threads for discussions around this. DB restricted by DOT for new routings.

2. Fares are restricted by the DOT

3. Congestion on the roads is controlled [ probably the wrong word ] by DCC

How can DB change any of the above ?

dewsbury

If we could do realtime texting for the next bus it would make a great difference.

It is always frustrating to find yourself walking quickly to the bus stop and then to have to wait 20 minutes.

I believe that online times (and texting) are coming but not for years!

When this comes it will encourage many more onto the buses.

spurious

Del2005 wrote: »

Why does no-one suggest that the goverment remove free parking for civil servants? I'm sure if they had to pay for parking all day a lot more of them would use public transport.

Which Departments give free parking?

Any civil servants I know use public transport.

invincibleirish

spurious wrote: »

Which Departments give free parking?

Any civil servants I know use public transport.

You want to see what the civil servants get in Cork, Joe Gavin cut a sweet deal for car parking at the new motor tax offices in the City as well.

ballooba

Del2005 wrote: »

If people paid attention to the lights they could see the lights for the other road/ped crossing changing and be ready to move off. But I think that the people who take ages to get going at the lights would still take ages if the amber before green came in.

Less aware road users are only watching their own lights. It works in most developed countries.

Del2005

spurious wrote: »

Which Departments give free parking?

Any civil servants I know use public transport.

http://something.ie/politics/2008/03/02/taxpayers-paying-9m-for-civil-servants-parking/

http://www.tribune.ie/article.tvt?_scope=Tribune/News/Home%20News&id=84183&SUBCAT=Tribune/News&SUBCATNAME=News

And from 2003

http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2003/06/22/story771999444.asp

BostonB

What % of road users are civil servants? are they not all decentralised now since those links are 5yrs old?

OTK

BostonB wrote: »

What % of road users are civil servants? are they not all decentralised now since those links are 5yrs old?

The 2006 DTO QBC monitoring report counted around 68K car passengers crossing the canals between 7am and 10am on week mornings. The minister for transport said this month that around 7,500 pakring places are provided free to public servants in Dublin city. So that's about 10%.

If you haven't noticed public servant parking in Dublin, have a look at the multi-storey blocks off Dame Street for the Revenue, the underground parking at the council offices at wood quay, surface parking around the Custom House, around the Dept of Education on Marlborough Street, underneath and surrounding Hawkins House on Poolbeg Street, on Kildare Street and Merrion Square around Leinster House (a carpark built on on a park without planning permission) . Semi-states like the IDA continue the tradition with extensive free parking under Wilton Place off Baggot Street.

Nearly every public servant with influence over transport policy in Dublin from central to local goverment, from think tanks to the revenue is provided with free parking. Presumably, one of the first acts of the newly formed DTA will be to allocate themselves enough parking spaces so that none of them will ever have to suffer using the system that they oversee.

jrar

markf909 wrote: »

I'm sure a subcommittee will take his advice on board, study it for a while, get consultants in to produce a report at say €70k and then declare that it could be a runner.

How many millions will it take to implement though?

If I'm not mistaken, some London buses are equipped with cameras and can therefore film footage of cars blocking bus lanes or just using them illegally - something similar here might at least free up the bus lanes for their intended traffic, but the broken and interrupted nature of many of the city's bus lanes also needs to be tackled i.e. complete the buslanes first !

jrar

Jip wrote: »

Now why would I choose public transport over taking my car every day ? And it's nothing to do with cars delaying the bus I take, it's ridiculous and indirect routes.

If you had to pay a congestion charge on top of exorbitant daily parking charges ??

markpb

jrar wrote: »

If I'm not mistaken, some London buses are equipped with cameras and can therefore film footage of cars blocking bus lanes or just using them illegally - something similar here might at least free up the bus lanes for their intended traffic, but the broken and interrupted nature of many of the city's bus lanes also needs to be tackled i.e. complete the buslanes first !

I took this up with DCC, DoT and Dublin Bus and none of them were interested for whatever reasons. DB said they didn't have the authority, DCC said they didn't have the authority, DoT said the legislation was in place to make it a local authority matter, DB didn't reply to my mails when I showed them the DoT clarification. DCC QBN said it was a good idea but nothing ever came of it.

Jip wrote: »

Now why would I choose public transport over taking my car every day ? And it's nothing to do with cars delaying the bus I take, it's ridiculous and indirect routes.

A lot of people think that but in some cases it isn't true. A work college of mine commutes from Straffan to Sandyford each day. There's no direct bus or train or anything close to it so you'd assume he's right to drive.

Turns out, after taking Bus Eireann + Luas, he can get in faster by public transport even though there's no direct route. A lot of people are in the same boat, they write off public transport without giving it a go.

BostonB

OTK wrote: »

The 2006 DTO QBC monitoring report counted around 68K car passengers crossing the canals between 7am and 10am on week mornings. The minister for transport said this month that around 7,500 pakring places are provided free to public servants in Dublin city. So that's about 10%.

Even allowing for the You also have to consider how many of those places are for visitors, how many public servants don't drive, how many have to to drive so the the theoretical figure of how many you'd actually get of the streets would be far lower.

Even taking that into to consideration, I've never noticed any difference in traffic on so called privilege days myself. When many public servants are off. Compared to the difference of a school holiday.

OTK wrote: »

If you haven't noticed public servant parking in Dublin, have a look at the multi-storey blocks off Dame Street for the Revenue, the underground parking at the council offices at wood quay, surface parking around the Custom House, around the Dept of Education on Marlborough Street, underneath and surrounding Hawkins House on Poolbeg Street, on Kildare Street and Merrion Square around Leinster House (a carpark built on on a park without planning permission) . Semi-states like the IDA continue the tradition with extensive free parking under Wilton Place off Baggot Street.

Nearly every public servant with influence over transport policy in Dublin from central to local goverment, from think tanks to the revenue is provided with free parking. Presumably, one of the first acts of the newly formed DTA will be to allocate themselves enough parking spaces so that none of them will ever have to suffer using the system that they oversee.

I can see what you think this will achieve. But I don't think its the right way to go about it. You need political will to change the public transport system, and there doesn't seem to be any.

I think a far bigger issue is the sub par and abysmal planning and road design that we continue to implement. They are making roads narrower and junctions slower on a daily basis the idea being it wil force people onto public transport that is often slower than getting the car. That will never work.

Heart

The problem with bus lane cameras is that in order for the council to issue fines the law has to be changed to make this offence a civil rather that criminal matter, the the council could issue fines uses both on street and on bus cameras. I believe that the Dept. of Justice is looking at changing the law to let this happen...

H

markpb

Heart wrote: »

The problem with bus lane cameras is that in order for the council to issue fines the law has to be changed to make this offence a civil rather that criminal matter, the the council could issue fines uses both on street and on bus cameras. I believe that the Dept. of Justice is looking at changing the law to let this happen...

That's true but the way I read the DoT clarification is that an LA could empower a traffic camera with Traffic Warden powers so it would be legal.

Dept. Of Transport wrote:

The position in relation to this matter is that Section 21, as amended of the Road Traffic Act 2002 allows for the electronic detection of road traffic offences. Decisions in relation to the use of electronic equipment for the detection of Road Traffic Offences including the offences relating to bus lanes usage is a matter for Dublin City Council and the Gardaí.

All offences created by the Road Traffic Acts are classified as being criminal and in that context every person accused of the commission of any one of those offences must be taken before the District Court to answer the charge or accusation made by the Gardaí or a Local Authority Traffic Warden. The Road Traffic offence of entering a bus lane with a vehicle other than those permitted to do so, comes within the fixed charge system. That system offers each person accused of an offence the alternative of paying a fixed charge thereby avoiding the prospect of a court hearing. There are no plans to alter this position.

serfboard

OTK wrote: »

Nearly every public servant with influence over transport policy in Dublin from central to local goverment, from think tanks to the revenue is provided with free parking. Presumably, one of the first acts of the newly formed DTA will be to allocate themselves enough parking spaces so that none of them will ever have to suffer using the system that they oversee.

BostonB wrote: »

I can see what you think this will achieve. But I don't think its the right way to go about it. You need political will to change the public transport system, and there doesn't seem to be any.

I think that's exactly OTK's point. There isn't any political will because those who are involved in (public) transport policy never have to use it - at least not for commuting purposes anyway.

OTK

markpb wrote: »

I took this up with DCC, DoT and Dublin Bus and none of them were interested for whatever reasons. DB said they didn't have the authority, DCC said they didn't have the authority, DoT said the legislation was in place to make it a local authority matter, DB didn't reply to my mails when I showed them the DoT clarification. DCC QBN said it was a good idea but nothing ever came of it.

Did you do all this off your own bat as a private citizen?

markpb

OTK wrote: »

Did you do all this off your own bat as a private citizen?

As a private citizen sick of sitting on extremely slow moving bus in a bus lane filled with cars

Tomas_V

Del2005 wrote: »

Why does no-one suggest that the goverment remove free parking for civil servants? I'm sure if they had to pay for parking all day a lot more of them would use public transport.

1: because that would totally unhinge the 'decentralisation' project which is about moving people to places with no public transport. 2: It would affect services where using a car is part of the work, e.g. tax & agricultural inspectors. BTW Only a privileged minority of civil servants and outside consultants have parking spaces. Much the same as in the private sector. This is really a red herring.

A case in point is that I regularly see the 29a into the city being stuck for up to 20 minutes by selfish pricks from Clontarf blocking the bus lane with their mercs and beamers at the junction of Castle Avenue and Howth Road in Killester as they try to force their way into the traffic flow. Same characters hog the bus and cycle lanes approaching Fairview.

The problem needs to be tackled on the road by putting manners on individual drivers. Let's forget about fines and tickets, instead let's just send these motorists up the nearest free road out of the way and get the buses moving.