Luas Cross City (Line BX/D) [now open]

MJohnston

What difference is all this from how the Red line currently operates between Heuston and Connolly? People are happy enough to stay on it during that stretch, because it's just *slightly* faster than walking. I think the Cross City between Stephen's Green and Dominick will actually be a little bit less disrupted than that though, O'Connell Bridge is probably the worst section.

Bray Head

The Luas website suggests Busaras to Heuston 14 minutes. The distance is 3.0 kilometres so 30 minutes at a brisk pace. So roughly double walking speed, although I guess the kilometre along Abbey St is probably only 1.5 times walking pace.
St Stephen's Green to Parnell Monument is 1.6km so about 16 or 17 minutes at a brisk pace. The Luas might beat this by a minute or two.
To sum up: The cross-city extension will have much longer that is barely above walking pace than the existing red line does.

Chivito550

MJohnston wrote: »

What difference is all this from how the Red line currently operates between Heuston and Connolly? People are happy enough to stay on it during that stretch, because it's just *slightly* faster than walking. I think the Cross City between Stephen's Green and Dominick will actually be a little bit less disrupted than that though, O'Connell Bridge is probably the worst section.

Heuston to Abbey St is usually 11 minutes, though it can be as high as 13. The walking distance is 2.5km, which I guess would be 25 minutes for the average walker. Other than just after Heuston, there are no corners, so while slow, and while there are many areas it has to stop, it doesn't have to come to a 10kmh crawl like the green line does after Charlemont, and no doubt will in cross city.

Surely regarding O'C bridge it will only stop at the end of Westmoreland St and then get a clear run over the bridge and across the next intersection, as the length of the new trams are longer the bridge, so it can't exactly sit on the bridge. If it only has to stop once then it may not be too bad.

LeinsterDub

Chivito550 wrote: »

Where in the city centre do you think it will get up to 30kph?

I didn't say it would I said the city center limit of 30 will apply

AngryLips

In fairness, the Luas red line does have a habit of sitting at the junction of O'Connell Street for an insufferable length of time

Idbatterim

i am just back from manchester, used the tram there and it moved quick enough on street in the city centre, it seemed to have priority...

MJohnston

Bray Head wrote: »

To sum up: The cross-city extension will have much longer that is barely above walking pace than the existing red line does.

I'm not sure this is definitely true - there are only 3 street junctions that I can see where the Luas will not receive full priority - Parnell/O'Connell Street, the Quays, Pearse Street. College Green I'm not sure about, but everywhere else it has to have priority (there's not enough room in nearly every case for anything else). The Red line has OCS, Amien Street, Church Street, and a few other minor streets (it crosses quite a lot more directly across compared to Cross City).

Hopefully a lot of the proposed city centre traffic changes will be put in place too, that'll significantly improve the speed.

ongarboy

MJohnston wrote: »

What difference is all this from how the Red line currently operates between Heuston and Connolly? People are happy enough to stay on it during that stretch, because it's just *slightly* faster than walking. I think the Cross City between Stephen's Green and Dominick will actually be a little bit less disrupted than that though, O'Connell Bridge is probably the worst section.

I routinely walk from Connolly/Busaras to O'Connell St or Jervis St along the Abbey Street tram route and so many times I have beaten the Luas walking at a leisurely pace The lights at Beresford Place can have a tram stuck there indefinitely. I imagine the BXD will have many similar pain points between SSG and Parnell Street.

MICKEYG

ongarboy wrote: »

I routinely walk from Connolly/Busaras to O'Connell St or Jervis St along the Abbey Street tram route and so many times I have beaten the Luas walking at a leisurely pace The lights at Beresford Place can have a tram stuck there indefinitely. I imagine the BXD will have many similar pain points between SSG and Parnell Street.

I never understand how this can't be fixed by linking tram positions to lights. What am I missing?

salmocab

MICKEYG wrote: »

I never understand how this can't be fixed by linking tram positions to lights. What am I missing?

well presumably giving the tram priority on arrival at a set of lights might cause traffic to back up nearby.

salmocab

salmocab wrote: »

well presumably giving the tram priority on arrival at a set of lights might cause traffic to back up nearby.

Traffic is virtually at gridlock now, so it probably wouldn't make it much worse, it will be traffic stuck in the tram's way that will be a bigger issue.

Sam Russell

MICKEYG wrote: »

I never understand how this can't be fixed by linking tram positions to lights. What am I missing?

salmocab wrote: »

well presumably giving the tram priority on arrival at a set of lights might cause traffic to back up nearby.

There is no sense not giving absolute priority to trams.

A tram crossing O'Connell St takes less time to cross if it hits it at top speed compared to holding it waiting. It will need to cross anyway, so what is the point of stopping it? It is predictable - it can be accommodated by adjusting the lights, and by doing this with some level of intelligence, no other vehicle will be delayed. The Luas might actually move with some speed in the city centre.

There was a similar argument about the West Link and all the delays caused by the toll. Not any more.

markpb

Sam Russell wrote:

A tram crossing O'Connell St takes less time to cross if it hits it at top speed compared to holding it waiting.

There's no way a tram will ever cross that junction at full speed even if it didn't have to stop at the lights. It's far too busy an area for that to be safe.

It would be great to get the trams green time sooner in each cycle instead of having them waiting given the short amount of green time a single rail vehicle needs.

However it's going to very difficult to manage that junction in the future given the volume of rail, bus, cycle and pedestrian traffic all conflicting.

stop

markpb wrote: »

However it's going to very difficult to manage that junction in the future given the volume of rail, bus, cycle and pedestrian traffic all conflicting.

I assume they will have to allow parallel running which iirc disallowed at present?
e.g. If Abbey Luas is crossing E-W then pedestrians are currently not allowed to cross E-W at the ped crossings alongside.

For many of the junctions on the Saggart branch, all others must stop while Luas gets its path, which is ridiculous given that there a filter lights/lanes galore.

If people can't understand a filter light why protect only the Luas from them

salmocab

Deedsie wrote: »

Trams, buses, pedestrians, cyclists and taxis should all have priority over private cars especially in the city centre. No Tram should be delayed to allow cars block up the city centre further.

trams and buses definitely should, probably bikes but not sure how taxis are better than private cars, anyway they, all together are traffic and slowing them down at one junction knocks back traffic along to junctions further back and that can create worse traffic. Your second sentence doesn't really make sense, delaying the trams might keep the traffic moving better but giving them priority everywhere could be a disaster. trams run every 3 minutes during rush that means at a junction there could be a tram every 90 seconds getting priority on a set of lights. These lights would have buses and cyclists waiting too, it would gridlock the whole city .

salmocab

Deedsie wrote: »

The only thing that grid locks the whole city is the overwhelming volume of private cars that are allowed in there every day. Taxi's should definitely have priority over cars. People who really need to drive from various random locations in the city centre could use taxis after using PT to get into town in the first place.

I agree there are too many cars in the city but slowing down the cars and buses to allow a tram go a bit quicker isn't going to happen. PT isn't a real option for many people it would have to improve a lot before it will be.

MJohnston

salmocab wrote: »

I agree there are too many cars in the city but slowing down the cars and buses to allow a tram go a bit quicker isn't going to happen. PT isn't a real option for many people it would have to improve a lot before it will be.

Buses, no. But the Quays/College Green changes will undoubtedly make things much worse for private cars. It's unavoidable really, and overdue.

salmocab

MJohnston wrote: »

Buses, no. But the Quays/College Green changes will undoubtedly make things much worse for private cars. It's unavoidable really, and overdue.

Giving trams priority at every junction would without a shadow of a doubt slow down buses
actually might have taken you up wrong sorry, but making things worse for cars will do the same for buses

MJohnston

salmocab wrote: »

Giving trams priority at every junction would without a shadow of a doubt slow down buses
actually might have taken you up wrong sorry, but making things worse for cars will do the same for buses

You have taken me up wrong. The plans I'm referring to would speed up both trams and buses by removing private traffic entirely. It's basically the only way forward for Dublin city centre transport at this point

Spanish Eyes

Taxis and cars should not where possible share roadspace with buses and trams in the city centre.

There must be a way around this.

Gridlock doesn't even describe it at the moment, although the luas works are an issue, but not the main one. The sheer volume of buses, cars, bikes on OC Street at the moment is just mind boggling.

Everyone is commenting on it, so it really must be bad!

Idbatterim

It will be very interesting to see does Luas cross city get many people out of their cars and also, how many switch from bus to Luas...

FreudianSlippers

Idbatterim wrote: »

It will be very interesting to see does Luas cross city get many people out of their cars and also, how many switch from bus to Luas...

I very much doubt it on the Northside - given it's serving a mainly public-transport demographic area for the most part. It'll be great for DIT students and people living in Phibsboro/Cabra (maybe Ashtown I guess), but I don't think it'll do a lot to ease congestion on the N3/N2 and the various feeders inside the canals branching off from them.

Then on the Southside, I'm not sure how it could have a major impact? I doubt there are many people driving from South Dublin to Phibsboro/Cabra for work.

It'll mainly be students going to DIT - but I'm guessing they're already getting the DART or Luas or Bus into town and walking/changing.

MJohnston

Everytime I drive around this area, I get more and more annoyed that they didn't incorporate a simple extra couple of kms of Luas track into this and terminate in a massive park and ride somewhere on the N3. The potential to reduce traffic there would be massive imo.

Idbatterim

seeing as they are going to go through finglas anyway eventually, would it not make sense for the luas line to connect at the N2? the n3 already has the rail line running beside it and will connect at broombridge anyway...

looking at it there on google maps, from broombridge, they could dig cut and cover tunnel for a large part of it, then bridge over m50, tbm small sections in finglas, there is loads of green space there to launch tbm...

LeinsterDub

Deedsie wrote: »

I completely agree... I can't understand why more people are not demanding this. Red Cow P&R is very successful. There should be a similar option on the Northern End of the M50. And it could have a stop along Metro West.... Eventually

What route would you suggest it take to the N3/M50 there is a lot of green space out that way.

LeinsterDub

Idbatterim wrote: »

seeing as they are going to go through finglas anyway eventually, would it not make sense for the luas line to connect at the N2? the n3 already has the rail line running beside it and will connect at broombridge anyway...

looking at it there on google maps, from broombridge, they could dig cut and cover tunnel for a large part of it, then bridge over m50, tbm small sections in finglas, there is loads of green space there to launch tbm...

Why would you need a TBM or tunnels at all, what route are you suggesting?

FreudianSlippers

MJohnston wrote: »

Everytime I drive around this area, I get more and more annoyed that they didn't incorporate a simple extra couple of kms of Luas track into this and terminate in a massive park and ride somewhere on the N3. The potential to reduce traffic there would be massive imo.

There is a park and ride at the N3 parkway station (where the BXD should have terminated) but I don't think it is particularly large - that being said I've genuinely never stopped there, only driven by and it doesn't look big. But build a multi-story with good security at a fair monthly price and it'd be full every day if the Luas went there.

MJohnston

Idbatterim wrote: »

seeing as they are going to go through finglas anyway eventually, would it not make sense for the luas line to connect at the N2? the n3 already has the rail line running beside it and will connect at broombridge anyway...

looking at it there on google maps, from broombridge, they could dig cut and cover tunnel for a large part of it, then bridge over m50, tbm small sections in finglas, there is loads of green space there to launch tbm...

Yes, an N2 targeted extension would certainly be the optimal solution, but I'm talking about a simple, short additional bit of track west of Broombridge.

LeinsterDub wrote: »

What route would you suggest it take to the N3/M50 there is a lot of green space out that way.

Wouldn't need to go the whole way, just to the Navan Road Parkway station - I believe there's enough room along the canal for this.

Idbatterim

Why would you need a TBM or tunnels at all, what route are you suggesting?

A route I spotted on google maps, to be honest I havent even looked at the proposed route? but at a guess I will say a lot of it will be on street and glacially slow?

Stephen15

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

I very much doubt it on the Northside - given it's serving a mainly public-transport demographic area for the most part. It'll be great for DIT students and people living in Phibsboro/Cabra (maybe Ashtown I guess), but I don't think it'll do a lot to ease congestion on the N3/N2 and the various feeders inside the canals branching off from them.

Then on the Southside, I'm not sure how it could have a major impact? I doubt there are many people driving from South Dublin to Phibsboro/Cabra for work.

It'll mainly be students going to DIT - but I'm guessing they're already getting the DART or Luas or Bus into town and walking/changing.

Handy for the IFSC though