Dublin Bus Network Review

LXFlyer

Also an improvement in the off-peak service on route 14 to every 20 minutes rather than every 30 as originally suggested, nor is the proposed 14 taking the crazy routing via Orwell Road and Churchtown Road Lower and Dartry as was suggested here also.

lucernarian

Good news on the 11. I don't see what difference bringing the 14 through Orwell and Highfield Road will make in comparison to going via the Dropping Well and Dartry Road hoever. Probably more customers going the revised routing but the current route is probably quicker as far as traffic's concerned...

LXFlyer

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

Good news on the 11. I don't see what difference bringing the 14 through Orwell and Highfield Road will make in comparison to going via the Dropping Well and Dartry Road hoever. Probably more customers going the revised routing but the current route is probably quicker as far as traffic's concerned...

I would not be so sure about that.

It was suggested above that once an inbound 14 reached Mount Carmel Hospital that it would then turn rignt, effectively doubling back along Orwell Road, before then turning onto left Lower Churchtown Road and then left at the Dropping Well.

Not only would that involve some extra time taken over that currently by adding an extra loop to either the existing 14 or 14a routing, the traffic on Lower Churchtown Road from the 0745 inbound departure onwards has to be seen to be believed. It is simply catastrophic - the worst traffic blackspot on either the 14 or 14a - backing up well beyond Windy Arbour LUAS stop. Similarly it is a serious blackspot outbound in the evening peak from before the LUAS stop to the Upper Churchtown Road.

The suggested routing via Highfield Road covers the busier sections of both routes and certainly seems to me to be reasonably sensible. Just needs a right turn filter off Upper Rathmines Road outbound!

Dub13

With the 14 no longer going to Santry I wounder if the plan is still to run all the 16s to the airport.

Aard

Thank god the 14 will go down Highfield Road. This is actually looking like a much better service. Well done, DB!

AlekSmart

KD345 wrote: »

You'll be happy to hear the 11 is remaining as a cross city service. Nice to see that the consultation days do affect the plans.

Yes indeed KD3435 I am happy with the developing situation re the 11 route's retention.

If nothing else it serves to underline the importance of Pro-Active and focused Customer input at a far earlier stage
.

I believe it's a fair point to make that the very strong negative reaction and the ability to motivate Local Representatives to lobby effectively against what was somewhat embarrisingly,a deficient plan regarding the 11 route.

Substantial credit is also due to Roísín Shortall who took an active and informed interest in the plans from the beginning predating her elevation to the Government benches.

I would also point out that Roísín Shortall`s interest and input into the broader Swords Road QBC project goes back quite a few years now and has been singularly positive.

But that aside,I don't regard this as any great victory,other than for common-sense.

I would also hope that the NEW ! IMPROVED ! 11 Route can be seen as something to market,particularly if a degree of Bus Priority can be provided between Goatstown-Ranelagh,which really now should become the focus of the Network Direct "Team" regarding the 11 route ?

Still,it`s a remarkable positive outcome and well done to all those customers,residents and other interested parties who bothered to get involved from the front-end !

SparkyTech

Very pleased with these proposals Pity they couldn't increase the frequency on the 44 but beggers cant be choosers!

Flukey

It looks like they are taking the 11 away from the Stillorgan Shopping Centre. "Network They Wrecked" strikes again. What sort of idiots come up with these ideas? Stillorgan Shopping Centre has lost enough routes already with the "improvements" they've made, without this being done too. Dublin Bus, Serving the Community, by not bringing people to places they want to go. Do these jokers not know what a bus service is for? Obviously not.

As for improving the Goatstown to Ranelagh section, while it is badly needed there is much of it that leaves no scope to do so. Unless it could all be done, clearing the other parts will only serve to bring a bus a little quicker to the next bottleneck.

ILBondo

tillorgan Shopping Centre has lost enough routes already with the "improvements" they've made

Pardon me for sounding pedantic but the high frequency 145 and 46a Stop literally a stones throw away. Only a few meters further away than the current 11 terminus. It will also be served by the 75 and 175

LXFlyer

The 47 and 84 also still serve the Shopping Centre. Upper Kilmacud Road is hardly that far away either for the 11 (it is barely 5 minutes walk from the current 11 terminus).

AlekSmart

[QUOTE=Flukey;71745119]

As for improving the Goatstown to Ranelagh section, while it is badly needed there is much of it that leaves no scope to do so. Unless it could all be done, clearing the other parts will only serve to bring a bus a little quicker to the next bottleneck.[/QUOTE]

I'd differ there Flukey.

There are quite a few locations along the Goatstown-Ranelagh section where some relatively small-scale Bus-Priority measures would provide good return.

The Goatstown/Taney crossroads and the,now poorly sited inbound Bus-Stop is a starting point.
Since the Traffic Signals were rephased to include a left-turn filter for Dubdrum the Bus-Stop now serves to provide an effective roadblock should a passenger wish to board/alight here.

I`d relocate the stop some 100 mtrs back towards Drumartin,perhaps merging it with the preceeding one.

I would also suggest that there is sufficient space along Goatstown Road for a peak hour inbound Bus Lane but only if some scrub-grass verge is surrendered.

The current dog-leg at Bird Avenue is also a throwback to the old 11 terminus days and is of questionable benefit especially as the Stop opposite the Mosque is adjacent.

When one gets as far as Clonskeagh Motors the abundance of grass verge offers a real opportunity to Prioritize public Transport as the next stretch as far as Beaver Row provides most of the real morning peak delay.

It's interesting that the prevalent use of the roadside grass along this stretch is for private car parking,although the houses concerned already possess substantial driveways and garages for this purpose.

In summation,there's plenty of potential,plenty of demand but virtually no administrative interest in getting down,dirty and pro-active about the concept of Bus Priority in the area.

CIE

ILBondo wrote: »

Pardon me for sounding pedantic but the high frequency 145 and 46a Stop literally a stones throw away. Only a few meters further away than the current 11 terminus. It will also be served by the 75 and 175

Brilliant. Then the 49, 65 and 77 27 can all stop outside Tallaght Square on the N81, a mere "stone's throw" from the centre. The stops at Blanchardstown Centre can also be relocated to within a "stone's throw" adjacent to the Navan Road as well (or Snugborough Road Extension; the "new route 10" can be the direct route to Ongar from there or something, replacing the 39A), and buses that currently serve Liffey Valley Centre directly can also be relocated a "stone's throw" away onto Fonthill Road...sure why didn't we do that ages ago :rolleyes:

Flukey

If it is such a small change, then why bother? Leave it as it is. The 75 is not very frequent, and is in fact a route that should be improved and has blatantly needed them for years. The 84 is not too frequent either. As for the 145 and 46A, well the 145 never served the shopping centre, and don't pretend now that it does, so it is irrelevant. The 46A did serve it, and should still do so. True, it was partially removed before Network They Wrecked came along, but that disastrous failed scheme put the final nail in the coffin of it.

The shopping centre is a major draw of people to the area and so it should be properly served, even if that means slowing down the journey of others. All passengers have to be served. There are parts of every single route that inconvenience some people, but I can accept that because I know there are people who need that. For most of us the trek to the dual carriageway may not be a major problem, but for people with shopping, particularly the older people, having the 46A removed made a big difference. As I live in the area, I've seen that change. The people talking about 5 minutes and distances stones can be thrown aren't the people who want to get off at the shopping centre. I would not begrudge their area being properly served if it meant adding to my journey, so they shouldn't begrudge those that want to stop in Stillorgan.

The 11 currently brings people from close to the shopping centre down the full stretch of the Lower Kilmacud Road towards Drumartin, Goatstown, etc. The 47, 84 and 75 will be of no use to the people that use the 11 for that purpose. The current 11 terminus was once a hive of activity, but little by little its services have been removed, sometimes adequately replaced, but often not. Whenever we get changes like this we get people coming out to say that the losing a service will still be ok because such and such a place will still be served by X bus and Y bus. That's all fine and dandy, but X bus and Y bus normally go in different directions than the bus that is being removed. The people that talk about X bus and Y bus normally don't live in those areas, so it makes no difference to them, but it does affect some people. So Yippeee!, the likes of 84 will still serve Stillorgan Shopping Centre. A fat lot of good that is to people who now live along the 11 route and want to get there.

It's great that the likes of the Sandyford Industrial estate, once completely ignored by buses, now has a lot of them, but it shouldn't be done at the expense of other places. If they want to improve the connections to the Sandyford Industrial Estate, then bring in new services rather than taking them from elsewhere. It may say on the website that "Dublin Bus is pleased to announce proposals for services in the Kilmacud, Goatstown. Ballinteer, Dundrum and Clonskeagh areas as part of Network Direct", but a lot of the people in those areas won't be pleased. I think the people in those areas are more important than those in 59 Upper O'Connell Street. It is those areas that make up the the community that Dublin Bus claims to serve. You cannot claim to be serving the "entire" community, when at the same time you are removing many of their bus services.

I don't keep referring to "Network They Wrecked" for nothing you know. Each phase of it proves just how accurate and more appropriate the term is. I've been a life-long customer of Dublin Bus, but since the introduction of Network They Wrecked I've been using the Luas a lot more. I amn't the only one either. That is the result of the "improvements" that we keep getting in the Stillorgan/Kilmacud area and in other areas. They are pushing people towards their competitors. On the very first morning of Network They Wrecked, I tried the particular route that was being touted as being the replacement for one that was dropped and I had used every morning. It added 40 minutes to my usual journey. Needless to say, I haven't used it on any morning since.

There are bigger crowds in the mornings along the Stillorgan dual carriageway now, not because of there being a better service there, but because for some of them the service they did use has been taken away. So you now have people who shouldn't have to be there at all, swelling the crowds that stand and watch full buses going past them, often containing people that also wouldn't have been on them before their services were removed. That is not an improvement.

These changes don't affect the people in O'Connell Street or the vast majority of the people in this thread, but it does affect a lot of people and has done so negatively. Changes in the other areas don't affect me, but I am able to see that many of them are having a negative impact on those areas, so I can appreciate their concerns too, even if everyone here or in O'Connell Street can't. You won't see me talking about the X bus and Y bus in their areas being good enough for them. The people in those areas are more qualified to know how good X bus and Y bus are. X bus and Y bus are of course of help, but people would like to have their other services maintained and improved rather than being dropped and then listen to Dublin Bus tell us how pleased they are about it. So leave the 11 as it is and bring in a new route to serve the Beacon and other areas that may have little or no service at present, and then Dublin Bus and a whole lot more people can be pleased.

schemingbohemia

I'm not going to quote your full post Flukey but while obviously moving services away from directly outside the shopping centre does have an impact, the greater good needs to be borne in mind.

Moving the services to the N11 benefits a huge multiple of the people it inconveniences and in an environment where Dublin Bus are being asked to do more with less is the only option for them. Have you ever walked from the "old" bus stop to the "new" bus stop? I haven't but I'd say it's around 300 metres, you'd rather input a delay of at least 3 minutes per bus (i'm being very conservative there) to save a few people the hassle of walking an additional 300 metres?

I'd like DB to be consistent in their approach and keep the 7/45/4 on the Rock Road and not detouring into Blackrock village, I'm sure there are many other detours that would benefit more people by being direct.

Serving the entire community means serving the vast majority of people well, not providing a service that goes down every side road so that everyone's journey will take far longer and lead to fewer people using the service because people do have choices.

SparkyTech

I'm not going to quote your full post Flukey but while obviously moving services away from directly outside the shopping centre does have an impact, the greater good needs to be borne in mind.

Serving the entire community means serving the vast majority of people well, not providing a service that goes down every side road so that everyone's journey will take far longer and lead to fewer people using the service because people do have choices.

Im not Dublin Bus's biggest advocate, but id have to concur with the above post. The bus network needs to be revamped, and, weather you agree the proposed changes or not, even if DB were to take every-ones opinion into account there will always be people affected negitavly by whatever changes come into force.

In my own area, DB are removing the 75, 48n and 48a from my doorstep. However, they are replacing it with a beefed up 14 and 16 service to compromise. The idea with Network Direct is providing high frequency routes along the general corridors of demographic areas to compensate for the other smaller less frequent routes that are bieng cut. (Hence the 46a serving the Stillorgan Corridor, The 13 serving the Drumcondar Corridor etc...). Id rather have to walk/cycle/take a bus for 10-20 mins to pick up a high frequency service then rely on an unreliable route thats under resourced and badly manged.

DB are working within the constraints of the recession and trying to provide as many general corridors as porrible with high frequency services. Inevitably, some geographic areas are caught in a lottery and will suffer as a result. Tbh as Stillorgan is still servied by the 175, the 75, the 84 and the 47 (with the 11 still reasnobly near, not to mention the walk to the services on the Dual Carrigeway), its fair to say DB are still providing a decent level of service to this area.

I do agree with you that it will be the elderly/mobility imapred that will suffer as a result. (In my own area a large stretch of road bewtween Dartry and Churchtown will have no service as a result of the 14a/14 merger) It might not be fair but DB are a cross bewtween public service and private industry, and have to balance profit with community service, unfortunatly.

LXFlyer

Flukey wrote: »

The 75 is not very frequent, and is in fact a route that should be improved and has blatantly needed them for years.

The 75 has operated every 30 minutes off-peak and every 20 minutes at peak since the 2008 timetable change in a clockface pattern, and there is going to be a new 175 every 30 minutes peak and every 60 minutes off-peak.

How is that "not very frequent"? I don't think that it warrants a higher frequency than that.

Stillorgan is gaining a brand new route from this network, along with a straightened out 75 which is a good news story.

The two posters above have summed it up very well. The network needs a revamp with more direct services. However at the same time there are serious financial constraints here and it is frankly just not viable to continue providing services to every estate in the city.

Many of the issues that you have complained (rightly) about such as the problems on week 1 have been addressed with new rosters introduced on the 46a, 47 and 145 to deal with the running time problems, and more tri-axle vehicles on the 145. No one denies that there were serious mistakes made, but I'd have to say that most of them appear to have been addressed.

An example of a lesson learnt is that yesterday new timetables came into operation on the key Blanchardstown routes (37, 38/a, 39, 39/a) and every stop was updated with the new information yesterday morning. I think DB have learnt that lesson now.

dynamick

For anyone not familiar, Flukey is arguing that Dublin Bus was wrong to allow high frequency services like the 46A to continue along the N11 without diverting into the Stillorgan shopping centre. Dublin Bus's argument was that the diversion added up to 10 minutes to journey times.

If you look at the map below you can see that pedestrians in Stillorgan Shopping Centre now have an extra 165 metre walk to reach the bus stop. I think the correct decision was made.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

liger

dynamick wrote: »

If you look at the map below you can see that pedestrians in Stillorgan Shopping Centre now have an extra 165 metre walk to reach the bus stop. I think the correct decision was made.

How easy is it to get to the other side to get a bus heading towards Dun Laoghaire???

KD345

liger wrote: »

How easy is it to get to the other side to get a bus heading towards Dun Laoghaire???

It involves using two pedestrian crossings to cross the N11 to reach a bus stop. It's very straightforward.

Flukey, I disagree with your comments on the 75. Since the changes mentioned by lxflyer, the service is very reliable and the frequency is to be further enhanced with the new 175.

Lucan123

lxflyer wrote: »

The two posters above have summed it up very well. The network needs a revamp with more direct services. However at the same time there are serious financial constraints here and it is frankly just not viable to continue providing services to every estate in the city.

This being the case, can someone please explain why Dublin Bus as part of Network Direct axed all the reverse 25X in the morning - these went a direct route through Lucan into the city and were always full, now commuters have to meander through all the estates (including ones we were told at the roadshow 25B would avoid). Without exaggerating, this has added hours to people's weekly commute especially as the busses now can be quite unreliable.

Also for a service that is supposed to be "More Frequent" there are dangerous melees in the evenings on the quays with far too many people trying to get on a bus, this never happened before the "improvements"

bk

KD345 wrote: »

You'll be happy to hear the 11 is remaining as a cross city service. Nice to see that the consultation days do affect the plans.

If the 11 is being kept, does that mean the 13 is still going to be redirected down Home Farm Road?

Surely it doesn't make sense to have both the 11 and 13 service Home Farm Road and no bus service on Griffith Avenue.

Would it not make more sense to have the 13 operate along Griffith Avenue instead now?

LXFlyer

bk wrote: »

If the 11 is being kept, does that mean the 13 is still going to be redirected down Home Farm Road?

Surely it doesn't make sense to have both the 11 and 13 service Home Farm Road and no bus service on Griffith Avenue.

Would it not make more sense to have the 13 operate along Griffith Avenue instead now?

I don't know is the answer, but I would imagine that when they come around to implementation that the 13 and 19 proposed routings will indeed change with the 13 reverting to Griffith Avenue, and the 19 by-passing Wadelai.

We'll just have to wait until the implementation of the network is announced.

Flukey

I personally have no problem in getting from the shopping centre to the dual carriageway and have often used the route on the map. It is not me that I am talking about. I still think it is wrong to have removed the services from the shopping centre. It is the main focal point of the area and so it should be properly served in the way it always was, and that means having the 46A going past it. The shopping centre isn't just your typical slight detour going along a road that has nothing of significance on it. There are lots of detours like that, and they could be removed, but the Stillorgan shopping centre is different. Also, as Liger mentioned, getting to the other side of the dual carriageway is a bigger problem. You can get there of course, but the buses should still serve the shopping centre.

You can use the "serving the majority" argument, but the logic of that would mean that no bus stop would be stopped at because the majority of the people on the bus don't get on or off at it. For most people, going through Stillorgan village is an inconvenience, but it serves a significant amount of people, which can be seen by the amount of people that get on and off at the stops around it.

We could take other examples on the 46A route and try the same argument. So, playing devil's advocate, should all the buses going along the N11 also bypass the slip roads to the UCD stops for example? There are stops before and after the slip roads on both sides, so couldn't people get off at them? Look at all of those young, fit students; wouldn't they be well able to walk up and down the slip roads rather than being brought to the main entrance, and even into the complex, and couldn't the residents of Seafield do the same on the other side? It would be much faster to run the buses under the bridge and the majority of people on the buses don't get on or off at UCD or Seafield, so shouldn't that be done too?

Now, I don't get on or off at those stops and I know it would be faster to avoid them, but I do appreciate that people that want to get on and off at them have the right to do so and it is better for them to get on and off at them, than having a few extra minutes added to their journey by the walk to and from the stops before and after the slip roads. So I would not argue for the UCD and Seafield slip roads to be bypassed, even though it would speed up my journeys and journeys of the majority of others and there would be plenty of validity in doing so. Equally, Stillorgan shopping centre should not be bypassed. OK, many more people get on and off at the UCD and Seafield slip road stops than do at Stillorgan, but, using the arguments made by others here, the majority of people don't, so it would serve the greater good to bypass them. I don't think it should happen, and I'd say many people in this thread would agree with me. If they do, then for the exact same reasons Stillorgan shouldn't be bypassed either. If they don't agree with the Stillorgan shopping centre stops, then they are effectively making the case for bypassing Seafield and UCD. So serve both Stillorgan and the flyover slip roads or neither.

dynamick

It's a simple case of allocating resources to reach the greatest number of people. If the bus diverts to Stillorgan it will carry some extra passengers who don't fancy walking down to the main road but it will lose passengers who don't want to wait in traffic. The bus company should choose the option that results in the greater number of passengers being carried.

I imagine you wouldn't want the bus to drive around the buildings in UCD campus or up to the door of RTE to save the staff a walk. There has to be a compromise between local convenience and the overall service.

I took the bus from Deansgrange to Dawson street today in 30 minutes. That is a fantastic service and it was busy off peak in both directions even with 7 buses an hour each direction. That saves me money and time compared to driving.

AlekSmart

Flukey wrote: »

I personally have no problem in getting from the shopping centre to the dual carriageway and have often used the route on the map. It is not me that I am talking about. I still think it is wrong to have removed the services from the shopping centre. It is the main focal point of the area and so it should be properly served in the way it always was, and that means having the 46A going past it. The shopping centre isn't just your typical slight detour going along a road that has nothing of significance on it. There are lots of detours like that, and they could be removed, but the Stillorgan shopping centre is different. Also, as Liger mentioned, getting to the other side of the dual carriageway is a bigger problem. You can get there of course, but the buses should still serve the shopping centre.

...... For most people, going through Stillorgan village is an inconvenience, but it serves a significant amount of people, which can be seen by the amount of people that get on and off at the stops around it.

We could take other examples on the 46A route and try the same argument. So, playing devil's advocate, should all the buses going along the N11 also bypass the slip roads to the UCD stops for example? There are stops before and after the slip roads on both sides, so couldn't people get off at them? Look at all of those young, fit students; wouldn't they be well able to walk up and down the slip roads rather than being brought to the main entrance, and even into the complex, and couldn't the residents of Seafield do the same on the other side? It would be much faster to run the buses under the bridge and the majority of people on the buses don't get on or off at UCD or Seafield, so shouldn't that be done too?

.......Equally, Stillorgan shopping centre should not be bypassed. OK, many more people get on and off at the UCD and Seafield slip road stops than do at Stillorgan, but, using the arguments made by others here, the majority of people don't, so it would serve the greater good to bypass them. I don't think it should happen, and I'd say many people in this thread would agree with me. If they do, then for the exact same reasons Stillorgan shouldn't be bypassed either. If they don't agree with the Stillorgan shopping centre stops, then they are effectively making the case for bypassing Seafield and UCD. So serve both Stillorgan and the flyover slip roads or neither.

With respect Flukey,it's not quite as simple as that.

Stillorgan Shopping Centre is'nt different at all,in fact it's the template for how Ireland came to design and operate most of it's "Shopping Centres".

Stillorgan SC was and is all about the Private Car,in fact the stalled development plans for it's reinvention were going to cement it's relationship with the Private Car to an even greater degree.

The removal of routes from the Old Stillorgan Road was not done on some whim but rather only after many years of bus services battling with the ever encroaching Private Car as the numbers of cars attempting to enter,leave or just circulate around the Village area grew like topsy.

The main SSC stops were always simply tacked-on to the periphery with no real attempt to allow for Bus access or indeed safety.

The outbound bus Stop,in particular,gave me more heart-in-mouth moments as I would watch dozey customers step off the bus and turn sharp right walking straight out across the road rather than go the few extra yards to the pedestrian lights and stay alive.

With the arrival of 13 mtr tri-axle vehicles this sort of exposure to risk was always going to be a deciding factor,especially as a safer alternative existed.

As time passed the tendency of motorists to park or otherwise abandon their vehicles along the front of Bauman's and further along the OSR was extending the danger zone.

But,in reality,what decided the issue was the amount of time saved on most journeys.

For example,even the act of attempting to access the Old Stillorgan Road for a Busdriver presented an ever worsening scenario as could be seen daily with Tri-Axles pulled diagonally across the Dual Carriageway often being deliberately blocked by some southern gentleman motorist striking a blow for the freedom to be anti-social.

The entire area of the Traffic Signal phasing at Oatlands as one attempted to enter the OSR,then, the equally fraught situation at Bolands Corner and the exit back onto the N11 were in no way condusive to a QBC style service.

The comparison between the UCD slip-roads and the OSR is'nt comparing like with like at all.

For example during morning peak the inbound Bus Lanes along the slips means that a Bus going under the flyover would become entombed in what can often be very heavy traffic build up indeed.

It's not for nothing that the QBN office decided to afford bus Priority along the sliproads and the UCD BusStop itself.

There just was'nt even the remotest interest from any of the Administrative Agencies to provide and maintain similar arrangements in Stillorgan Village.....why ?,well I'd hazard a guess that any proposal to actively prioritize the Bus Service through the Village,at the expense of restricting Private Car access would have been fought toof n nail by the various Stillorgan Captains of Industry and assorted Shopkeepers.

It really does come back to attempting to make the Bus Service as attractive to the greatest cross section of users,particularly new or reluctant customers and Dynamik very succinctly describes that here....

I took the bus from Deansgrange to Dawson street today in 30 minutes. That is a fantastic service and it was busy off peak in both directions even with 7 buses an hour each direction. That saves me money and time compared to driving.

What Dynamik describes there,if it can be maintained and marketed,will attract and retain a new customer base to the Bus service.

Persisting with attempts to stuff large-capacity vehicles at high frequency through a very active,narrow village street, with an over active car park entrance/exit thrown in for good measure would only serve to destroy this fledgling attempt at reliability and rapidity.

Flukey,if its a return to the Old Stillorgan Village routing you want,then it's definitely NOT Dublin Bus you need to be addressing but rather Dun Laoighre Rathdown/South Dublin Council,the Gardai and as many Uncle Tom Cobley's as you can find who have power to sort out the access

I wish you the best of luck !! :cool:

Cookie_Monster

SSC is still served by the 84, no?

Anyway that detour was awful when busy. I used to work there and drove (and bus and cycle at different times) to even access the car park coming from the N11 could take 15mins plus. Buses would take longer again as they had to come up the other road and turn across the junction.

There were many times a bus left the southbound stop just outside the centre as I left work and I walked down to the N11 southbound stop and beat it comfortably too. When you can walk faster than the bus you know there's an issue

CIE

I took the bus from Deansgrange to Dawson street today in 30 minutes. That is a fantastic service and it was busy off peak in both directions even with 7 buses an hour each direction. That saves me money and time compared to driving

What Dynamik describes there, if it can be maintained and marketed, will attract and retain a new customer base to the Bus service

Wow. That's a blistering average speed of 13.5 mph (if measured from Deansgrange Cross). And how many route 45 buses did they cut from Deansgrange over the past few years, a bus route that doesn't even reach the quays anymore but now turns around at Merrion Square?

SSC is still served by the 84, no?

Not from the city centre. Remember that the northernmost terminus is now Belfield? Ah, why don't we make the 65's easternmost terminus at Tallaght as well, or maybe Terenure, like its old competitor (the Dublin & Blessington Steam Tramway).

Cookie_Monster

CIE wrote: »

Not from the city centre. Remember that the northernmost terminus is now Belfield?

so. the old people who need this apparently travel free anyway so can just change buses at no cost...

plenty of buses from CC to Belfield

KD345

Stillorgan Shopping Centre is served directly from the City Centre by the 47.

AlekSmart

There is also the issue of the proposed (controversial) redevelopment plans for Stillorgan Shopping Centre ( does'nt that sound SO 1970's ?).

If and when that got Planning Approval it would involve a huge amount of civil engineering work within a very compact site indeed with considerable overspill on to the public thoroughfare.

Whilst in the current economic climate it's now unlikely to commence anyday soon,it does remain an issue for any Public Transport provider when attempting to cater for scheduling.