Condel Road - Bus Lane

oh well

so, has anyone ever seen a bus on the bus lane - or even a taxi. I travel it about 8 times a day and haven't seen one yet. It would be handy for me if there was one - save me using my car so much.

Berty

It is not a bus corridor so it will be hard to see one. All Bus Eireann except for single Express from Galway to Killarney would use this road. It should not be 24 hours. It should be a bus lane from 10am - 3pm to allow rush hour to use this lane.

I have seen one bus eireann coach, two taxis, and an air coach use this. I have also seen many many women stopped at the park dropping off their kids for school blocking the lane.

Builderfromhell

Drove along Condell road Thursday night at around mid-night. I knew it was a 24 hour bus lane but drove my truck in it as otherwise I was too close to oncoming traffic. No reason for it to be 24 hour.
Whoever is in charge of road design in Limerick seems to constantly get things wrone.
Remember the crossing they built at barringtons pier. That had only been there a year and it had to be taken down to allow for bus lane. They knew of bus lane plans when they built it.

sioda

It should not be a bloody bus lane at all its a joke i mean wouldn't it be better as a two lane road in in the morning and two out in the evenin or vice versa.

Berty

The bus lane on the Dublin road was 24 hour Monday to Saturday which meant I could wizz past all the losers driving in the wrong lane on the Sunday.

Then with some brilliant decision from the planners they bought new signs changing it to a 24 hour Mon-Sun bus lane.

Rubbish.

BeanieBaby

Yes, I've seen several busses using it, but I've seen more busses not using it.

Interestingly, the busses that do use it, seem to think it has a unique speed limit. On at least two occasions I have been driving in towards town comfortably over the speed limit and have been left well behind by busses in the bus lane.

And I agree that the road is dangerously narrow where the bus lane exists.

Insect Overlord

It's more of a joke to be unexpectedly over-taken on the left hand side on the way into town. I've been learning to drive over the last month and do a lot of my driving on the Condell Road. It's not as if I've been driving too slowly, or driving overly cautiously, but still it happens that some cunt wants to go faster. :mad:

Berty

Bear in mind. Any vehicle that passes you in the bus lane is not undertaking you. Their lane is separated by a continuous white line making it a separate lane.

However, speeding is still speeding but if you are stuck in bumper to bumper doing 5kph and they pass at 59kph, they may seem fast but they are not speeding.

Builderfromhell

Drove into town along Condell road tonight. There used to be a speed limit sign (50KPH) as you approached the turn off for Salesians. Now there is no speed limit sign. Does this mean you can drive at 60kph into town or until you see a 50kph sign??

Insect Overlord

Builderfromhell wrote: »

Drove into town along Condell road tonight. There used to be a speed limit sign (50KPH) as you approached the turn off for Salesians. Now there is no speed limit sign. Does this mean you can drive at 60kph into town or until you see a 50kph sign??

There's a 50km/h sign where the bus lane begins, shortly before the new pedestrian crossing, and that speed limit applies all the way into town. Most people either don't know about it or just ignore it...

chocoholic

Berty wrote: »

It is not a bus corridor so it will be hard to see one. All Bus Eireann except for single Express from Galway to Killarney would use this road. It should not be 24 hours. It should be a bus lane from 10am - 3pm to allow rush hour to use this lane.

I have seen one bus eireann coach, two taxis, and an air coach use this. I have also seen many many women stopped at the park dropping off their kids for school blocking the lane.

I have also seen many men blocking the bus lane by stopping at the park when dropping off their kids for school :eek: What a coincidence!

Berty

chocoholic wrote: »

I have also seen many men blocking the bus lane by stopping at the park when dropping off their kids for school :eek: What a coincidence!

Its always nice to get the feminist reply.

mysterious

Why don't they have it bus lane only from 7am to 7pm.??

Why don't they put all intercity buses, leaving the city go via Condell road rather than the Ennis road? This way, it would mean less traffic using the Ennis road and more buses using the Condel road.

Other solution.

Is making two lanes inbound, and and a bus lane outbound. Traffic snarls up inbound, so two lanes provided here.

Or they could just widen the road, and keep everyone happy?? I mean if they are going to the bother at least widen the raod inbound having two lanes and a bus lane maybe. I think it would be a nice idea to have a DC quality road from the Coonagh interchange to the city the whole way as DC, this would relieve much traffic from the Ennis and Northern relief road.

The Shannon bridge should be able to handle it too, as the Tunnel will take much of the heavy traffic away from the bridge and the Dock road.

P.S traiffc should ease considerably on the Condell road once the Tunnel is complete anyhow.

Berty

mysterious wrote: »

Why don't they have it bus lane only from 7am to 7pm.??

Why don't they put all intercity buses, leaving the city go via Condell road rather than the Ennis road? This way, it would mean less traffic using the Ennis road and more buses using the Condel road.

Other solution.

Is making two lanes inbound, and and a bus lane outbound. Traffic snarls up inbound, so two lanes provided here.

Or they could just widen the road, and keep everyone happy?? I mean if they are going to the bother at least widen the raod inbound having two lanes and a bus lane maybe. I think it would be a nice idea to have a DC quality road from the Coonagh interchange to the city the whole way as DC, this would relieve much traffic from the Ennis and Northern relief road.

The Shannon bridge should be able to handle it too, as the Tunnel will take much of the heavy traffic away from the bridge and the Dock road.

P.S traiffc should ease considerably on the Condell road once the Tunnel is complete anyhow.

The bus's cannot leave via the condell road because there are people to be picked up on the Ennis Road.

They did widden the road.

I spoke to the Engineers department years ago and suggested they widden the inbound lanes on the bridge by making the outbound lane smaller on the bridge. They took my advice and filed it I presumed. 3 months later they moved the white lanes and it meant that people in the left inbound lane could move down the lane without bouncing off the kerb of getting trapped behind a truck too wide for the lane.

BeanieBaby

mysterious wrote: »

the Tunnel will take much of the heavy traffic away from the bridge and the Dock road.

P.S traiffc should ease considerably on the Condell road once the Tunnel is complete anyhow.

I disagree. I think the new tunnel will be a white elephant. It will be a toll tunnel. Who is going to pay €3 or whatever to cross the Shannon when they can do it for free. Traffic volumes have decreased dramatically in the last few months, and will only drop further. People cannot afford to spend huge sums of money crossing the river.

I don't know if any of you know Birmingham. But there are two roads that bypass the city: the M6 and the M6 Toll. The M6 Toll is a lovely road, it is 27 miles long and it only costs €4.70 max for a family car. The M6 non-toll is constantly congested and yet the M6 toll is usually empty.

The motorway services are good quality and the police are rarely seen which means you can make up time safely

If you compare the two, the Shannon Tunnel is extremely bad value for money. The only way the tunnel will be used is if the charge is either minimal or scrapped.

Berty

BeanieBaby wrote: »

I disagree. I think the new tunnel will be a white elephant. It will be a toll tunnel. Who is going to pay €3 or whatever to cross the Shannon when they can do it for free. Traffic volumes have decreased dramatically in the last few months, and will only drop further. People cannot afford to spend huge sums of money crossing the river.

I don't know if any of you know Birmingham. But there are two roads that bypass the city: the M6 and the M6 Toll. The M6 Toll is a lovely road, it is 27 miles long and it only costs €4.70 max for a family car. The M6 non-toll is constantly congested and yet the M6 toll is usually empty.

The motorway services are good quality and the police are rarely seen which means you can make up time safely

If you compare the two, the Shannon Tunnel is extremely bad value for money. The only way the tunnel will be used is if the charge is either minimal or scrapped.

I disagree and not just for the sake of disagreeing. I was a civil engineer on the Fermoy Bypass which is a Toll road.

The traffic in the town is impacting in a massive way. The reduction of traffic is down, the air pollution is down and the business are happier now that customers can get around town easier.

Drogheda is the same.

People will pay €3 to use the Toll, save for a few, who out of principal or spite will refuse to use the road. If you are heading from Coonagh to Roxbrough then you wont lose much time by avoiding the tunnel and save a bit of money but how about people coming from the Dublin direction heading to Ennis or Galway or those driving anything bigger than a car.

You will loose more in fuel sitting in traffic than you would paying for and using the tunnel.

mysterious

BeanieBaby wrote: »

I disagree. I think the new tunnel will be a white elephant. It will be a toll tunnel. Who is going to pay €3 or whatever to cross the Shannon when they can do it for free. Traffic volumes have decreased dramatically in the last few months, and will only drop further. People cannot afford to spend huge sums of money crossing the river.

I don't know if any of you know Birmingham. But there are two roads that bypass the city: the M6 and the M6 Toll. The M6 Toll is a lovely road, it is 27 miles long and it only costs €4.70 max for a family car. The M6 non-toll is constantly congested and yet the M6 toll is usually empty.

The motorway services are good quality and the police are rarely seen which means you can make up time safely

If you compare the two, the Shannon Tunnel is extremely bad value for money. The only way the tunnel will be used is if the charge is either minimal or scrapped.

Well the tunnel should be no more than 2Euro imo. On the other hand. You will save alot of time going by the tunnel.

The Condell road, goes towards the city, hits roundabouts, traffic, bridges, city centre, Dock road and then back out of the city to ge onto the N20, is an extensive journey in comparison to taking the trip under the shannon.

But I agree, 3 euro is a disgrace. They will have to bring it down regardless for it to work. It is just not acceptable 3 euro one way. It's meant to be a bypass.

They were considering tolling the M20 too. It just won't work. It pisses me off that the government put tolls without taking into consideration of planning into where the tolls will work and are suitable:mad:

Browney7

An File wrote: »

It's more of a joke to be unexpectedly over-taken on the left hand side on the way into town. I've been learning to drive over the last month and do a lot of my driving on the Condell Road. It's not as if I've been driving too slowly, or driving overly cautiously, but still it happens that some cunt wants to go faster. :mad:

So you're the one that keeps holding me up:D

TestTransmission

An File wrote: »

There's a 50km/h sign where the bus lane begins, shortly before the new pedestrian crossing, and that speed limit applies all the way into town. Most people either don't know about it or just ignore it...

Buseireann bus passed me out last nite on this road,he was doing about 100kmph,great for those who can ignore the law...

phill106

Very annoying that its a 24hr bus lane when there isnt a 24 hr bus service.

Mac 3

Whoever sits down and decides these things should be taken out and shot.

True for the above poster, 24 h bus lane, no 24 hr bus service.

A few buses have passed me on Condell Rd, none of which were anywhere near the speed limit.

The only other thing was some boy racer idiot in an Astra GTC that felt his time was obviuosly way more valuable than mine..

phog

Mac 3 wrote: »

Whoever sits down and decides these things should be taken out and shot.

True for the above poster, 24 h bus lane, no 24 hr bus service.

A few buses have passed me on Condell Rd, none of which were anywhere near the speed limit.

The only other thing was some boy racer idiot in an Astra GTC that felt his time was obviuosly way more valuable than mine..

There was never more than one lane in either direction and there was always a restricted speed limit so what have lost?

oh well

we've gained nothing excpet a bus lane that used only very infrequently, but not by city buses so its not going to take many/any cars off the road. We've lost a hard shoulder which was used quite a bit, lost a good walking wide shoulder, gained a cycle lane thats trecherous to use cos the other lanes are so narrow that many drivers use the cycle lane. It was the perfect opportunity to create 2 lanes into town to flow traffic much easier. There was a day when 2 lanes did operate before they put more cones down, and traffic that morning just sailed into town.

Taxi cut in us yesterday at the end of the bus lane. Came flying up the bus lane and decided to cut in on the breaking space between the 2 cars. Fe@king idiot, we almost crashed into him. They a law onto themselves when it comes to rule of road.

Kess73

Mac 3 wrote: »

Whoever sits down and decides these things should be taken out and shot.

True for the above poster, 24 h bus lane, no 24 hr bus service.

A few buses have passed me on Condell Rd, none of which were anywhere near the speed limit.

The only other thing was some boy racer idiot in an Astra GTC that felt his time was obviuosly way more valuable than mine..

Hardly a boy racer car. That model has a 1.4 engine. The speed limit on that road are too slow for off peak times, and making the road even more narrow with a pretty pointless bus lane just has made matters worse.

Goofy

phill106 wrote: »

Very annoying that its a 24hr bus lane when there isnt a 24 hr bus service.

What possible benefit would come from opening up the lane to all traffic at times when there is very little traffic on the road anyway?

oh well wrote: »

It was the perfect opportunity to create 2 lanes into town to flow traffic much easier.

What benefit would 2 lanes into town be? The roundabout is the bottle neck, not the single lane leading up to bridge. As the majority of traffic on this road heads for the dock road, it would be queueing up in two lanes and merging into the right one leading up to the roundabout. I would much prefer to see a bus lane to be honest.

Bus Eireann has said in the past that it has plans for the Coonagh bus route (305) presumably to cater for the Coonagh Cross shopping centre (whenever it eventually gets finished). Maybe these plans include rerouting it to use the new bus lane?

phill106

Originally Posted by phill106 View Post
Very annoying that its a 24hr bus lane when there isnt a 24 hr bus service.
What possible benefit would come from opening up the lane to all traffic at times when the

Goofy wrote: »

What possible benefit would come from opening up the lane to all traffic at times when there is very little traffic on the road anyway?
I just dont see the point in the stipulation. May as well have a sign saying no hovercrafts before 9pm.
The signs are reusable elsewhere, so should have ones similar to the ennis road (mon-fri 8-6pm i think?not sure from memory). They should change the signs or get some buses to make use of it.

Mac 3

Kess73 wrote: »

Hardly a boy racer car. That model has a 1.4 engine. The speed limit on that road are too slow for off peak times, and making the road even more narrow with a pretty pointless bus lane just has made matters worse.

Kess I'd agree with you, even though only a 1.4 it didn't stop him from thinking he was M Shumacker.