BusConnects Dublin - Big changes to Bus Network

Victor

Peregrine wrote: »

Unless the article gets a lot of traction, I'm inclined to not give it oxygen. Half of it is crazy. As the NBRU might say: it's based on what's desired, not what's needed.

The NBRU suggestions are based on what they desire, not what's needed.

It's interesting looking back 10 years, when Dublin Bus asked the NBRU how they might save money and the response was along the lines 'we're not management, we don't know these things'.

LastStop

The BRT was touted for years, green lit and cancelled twice as far as I can remember. At one stage I read somewhere that contracts between nta or Dta at the time and DB were in place.

As for the NBRU not being qualified to give an opinion about what the transport system should look like, I'd say they have enough experience to give valuable insight.

If the economy is down the drain and projects need to be shelved, bus connects and the metro aren't as urgent as the children's hospital or housing so I hope the right items are put on the long finger.

donvito99

So they're against Bus Connects, with its dedicated busways and priority junctions, and have called instead for a different scheme which would build dedicated busways and priority junctions.

Also wouldn't the NTA be more inclined to contract out BRT to one of the private operators, Luas style?

Geuze

Is there any other country in the world where transport staff are against improvements?

I feel like simply giving up sometimes....................

loyatemu

I think they see BusConnects as a cover for more privatisation, which is why they oppose it. Same for the Metro, it won't be controlled by CIE, so it's bad.

salmocab

loyatemu wrote: »

I think they see BusConnects as a cover for more privatisation, which is why they oppose it. Same for the Metro, it won't be controlled by CIE, so it's bad.

Metro almost certainly won’t have drivers which I imagine they see as the thin end of a wedge.
It’s bizarre really that they take a stance That’s effectively anti public transport.

Slutmonkey57b

salmocab wrote: »

Metro almost certainly won’t have drivers which I imagine they see as the thin end of a wedge.
It’s bizarre really that they take a stance That’s effectively anti public transport.

Bus drivers have always been anti public transport and Pro bus drivers wages and pensions.

Sligo eye

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

Bus drivers have always been anti public transport and Pro bus drivers wages and pensions.

That’s a pretty sweeping statement to make without any kind of attempt to back it up.

It’s not often that I agree with the NBRU but their submission to government regarding the future of public transport is well worth reading. In it they urge the scrapping of bus connects and Metro and replacing them with expanded Bus Rapid Transit - not just in Dublin but in other cities, Rail to Navan, Dart to the Airport (I would extend it to Swords as well), completion of the Western Rail Corridor and most important of all, linking Heuston and Connolly directly with a new underground tunnel.

These would expand on already available railway infrastructure rather than reinventing the wheel.

MJohnston

Sligo eye wrote: »

That’s a pretty sweeping statement to make without any kind of attempt to back it up.

It’s not often that I agree with the NBRU but their submission to government regarding the future of public transport is well worth reading. In it they urge the scrapping of bus connects and Metro and replacing them with expanded Bus Rapid Transit - not just in Dublin but in other cities, Rail to Navan, Dart to the Airport (I would extend it to Swords as well), completion of the Western Rail Corridor and most important of all, linking Heuston and Connolly directly with a new underground tunnel.

These would expand on already available railway infrastructure rather than reinventing the wheel.

There's absolutely no reason to scrap Metro and BusConnects to achieve any of those other things.

sharper

Victor wrote: »

It's interesting looking back 10 years, when Dublin Bus asked the NBRU how they might save money and the response was along the lines 'we're not management, we don't know these things'.

Also don't forget they "represent the interests of their members" and you can't expect them to do anything other than that yet a lot of the time they pretend as if they're representing public transport and transport going public generally.

markodaly

Sligo eye wrote: »

That’s a pretty sweeping statement to make without any kind of attempt to back it up.

It’s not often that I agree with the NBRU but their submission to government regarding the future of public transport is well worth reading. In it they urge the scrapping of bus connects and Metro and replacing them with expanded Bus Rapid Transit - not just in Dublin but in other cities, Rail to Navan, Dart to the Airport (I would extend it to Swords as well), completion of the Western Rail Corridor and most important of all, linking Heuston and Connolly directly with a new underground tunnel.

These would expand on already available railway infrastructure rather than reinventing the wheel.

Bus Connects, is in effect a BRT.... so they want to scrap something and replace it with something similar.
What they want is power and control and with Bus Connects, with the NTA calling the shots, they feel aggrieved.

markodaly

sharper wrote: »

Also don't forget they "represent the interests of their members" and you can't expect them to do anything other than that yet a lot of the time they pretend as if they're representing public transport and transport going public generally.

Good point.

We hear the mantra that Unions are there to represent their members, when their hand is out looking for large pay increases.
Yet, then they act as if they are acting on behalf of Public Transport users.

Jamie2k9

Geuze wrote: »

Is there any other country in the world where transport staff are against improvements?

I feel like simply giving up sometimes....................

His wish list is mostly protecting CIE, you know the automated metro could displace a significant amount of DB staff. Some other projects like WRC is just mad.

Good thing is his metro comments will not please a lot of people and might come back to bite him when he needs support in future.

His comments sound like those from a politician, thinking now not the future.

Jamie2k9

Sligo eye wrote: »

That’s a pretty sweeping statement to make without any kind of attempt to back it up.

It’s not often that I agree with the NBRU but their submission to government regarding the future of public transport is well worth reading. In it they urge the scrapping of bus connects and Metro and replacing them with expanded Bus Rapid Transit - not just in Dublin but in other cities, Rail to Navan, Dart to the Airport (I would extend it to Swords as well), completion of the Western Rail Corridor and most important of all, linking Heuston and Connolly directly with a new underground tunnel.

These would expand on already available railway infrastructure rather than reinventing the wheel.

Yeah, 25mph DART from Connolly to Airport, sounds delightful....win win for Aircoach and even Airlink with a faster journey time. Not on speed but low level of service plus CIE operating hours.

Tunnel Heuston-Connolly, nobody wants to go to Connolly, majority of current PPT passengers alight at Tara, Pearse and GCD.

donvito99

Sligo eye wrote: »

That’s a pretty sweeping statement to make without any kind of attempt to back it up.

It’s not often that I agree with the NBRU but their submission to government regarding the future of public transport is well worth reading. In it they urge the scrapping of bus connects and Metro and replacing them with expanded Bus Rapid Transit - not just in Dublin but in other cities, Rail to Navan, Dart to the Airport (I would extend it to Swords as well), completion of the Western Rail Corridor and most important of all, linking Heuston and Connolly directly with a new underground tunnel.

These would expand on already available railway infrastructure rather than reinventing the wheel.

He's spot on though. O'Leary isn't mandated to serve passenger's interests, these proposals are to serve his member's interests first and foremost.

Why wouldn't he include Metro along with Dart Underground if he had passenger's interests and the interests of commuters generally at heart?

The BRT proposal is just BusConnects with bendy buses. It might work for Galway but to think that it would work in Dublin when Luas barely gets by is a good indication of the level of thought that the NBRU have given to the end service.

ITV2

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

Bus drivers have always been anti public transport and Pro bus drivers wages and pensions.

Not true in my opinion. tar and brush.

Kermit.de.frog

Start building the metro.

Should have had it long before now.

dublinman1990

Where did the NBRU get the idea that you get more 'bang for your buck' by not building the Metrolink & BusConnects? Those two projects have the biggest potential to draw in millions upon millions of passengers every year in a small country like Ireland. And yet; the NBRU still want them to be scrapped & be replaced with something that is a rebadged project with a similar name? I just don't get their logic about what they are talking about with their new proposal at all.

Public transport users in this country are getting sick to the back teeth in how their public transport network is being scrutinized by these charlatans.

We have all remembered the lies when the NBRU gave out misinformation to members of the public about the bus network redesign proposals for Dublin. If they ever had the gumption to say even more lies to the public when their own version of a better bus network gets released to the public if any future government bows down to them. They are going make themselves look like a team of well stuffed turkeys in a highly sought after turkey farm going from their brand of stupidity on most public 'transport matters.

But being serious though; if people are going to hear more of their lies while not hearing what they intended to hear. Where do they go next from that point onwards? The NTA are the only crowd to deal with this information in a reliable way when it's out for a public consultation. Most of the projects that the NBRU are proposing in their document are projects that have been on the drawing boards by our government for years. Many of these 'rehashed' projects have been touted years ago with a lot of public money spent on them already whilst none of them came to fruition when they had no chance of getting built by our government.

Serious amounts of taxpayers money has already been spent by the NTA to put out BC & ML out to public consultations. They have drawn themselves to huge demand among our population with huge amounts of dialogue expressed between the NTA & the stakeholders. If the NBRU think that the NTA are going to bow down to their proposals; by kowtowing to them. The public who have already spent their precious time, including myself, doing analysis on these critically substantial projects for Dublin, and for other cities soon, will quite rightly express their own views on these matters when it applies to them. They are actually the ones that are paying their hard earned taxes to the state in allowing these consultations to take place in public from the moment that the first bits of the project were handed to them. They are not going to sit there & say OK lads do your worst. There is no time for that because people are knowingly causing more wastage of time & money in the system when it is primarily their own fault. They want to get rid of that notion & just get on with getting them built to make it's transpsort system more sustainable for the future.

john boye

O Leary has been coming out with random empty statements to convince everyone he still has the power every week lately and they mean nothing, it'll be something else next week.

donvito99

dublinman1990 wrote: »

Those two projects have the biggest potential to draw in millions upon millions of passengers every year in a small country like Ireland. And yet; the NBRU still want them to be scrapped & be replaced with something that is a rebadged project with a similar name? I just don't get their logic about what they are talking about with their new proposal at all.

My guess is that the NBRU doesn't want change.

Muddying the waters in this way allows them to be seen to support investment in projects... that aren't on the cards and are much more unlikely to happen. So they can have their cake and eat it.

This is similar to the Eamon Ryan / Re Think Metrolink tactic - stop the Green Line upgrade from happening in the next few years by supporting a 'Metro South West' alignment which is decades away = nothing happens at all.

cgcsb

Bus connects is brt minus the bendi buses and extended to cover many more corridors.

cgcsb

Wierd that they want to connect the village of ballyhaunis to Galway with a deisel train that's slower than a bus.

loyatemu

cgcsb wrote: »

Bus connects is brt minus the bendi buses and extended to cover many more corridors.

It really isn't, BRT is like Luas using buses instead of trams. Busconnects is full of compromises in comparison: bus gates; fairly long sections where lanes are shared; very frequent stops (BRT has proper "platforms"); & taxis and bikes will be able to use the bus-lanes pretty much everywhere. It's an improvement and I hope it goes ahead, but it's not BRT.

Kermit.de.frog

Of course I imagine the real reason they are not in to the metro is the driverless trains.

Screw the ability for the general public to get around in comfort.

donvito99

loyatemu wrote: »

It really isn't, BRT is like Luas using buses instead of trams. Busconnects is full of compromises in comparison: bus gates; fairly long sections where lanes are shared; very frequent stops (BRT has proper "platforms"); & taxis and bikes will be able to use the bus-lanes pretty much everywhere. It's an improvement and I hope it goes ahead, but it's not BRT.

This is why the NBRU's proposal is mad.

Dermot O'Leary is personally opposed to BusConnects on the basis of taking bits of people's front gardens to widen roads for continuous bus lanes, yet at the same time, he proposes SwiftWay - dropped years ago - be implemented, which proposed three lines as I recall:

- Airport/Swords to the City
- Blanch to UCD via the City
- Clongriffin to Tallagh via the City

How in the name of God does he propose to get BRT with its permanent right of way to Tallaght without taking gardens?

The NBRU's plan is a load of guff and they got exactly the reaction and column inches they desired.

L1011

NBRU want there to be lots of drivers.

Driverless metro and more efficient buses = less drivers needed

CatInABox

donvito99 wrote: »

This is why the NBRU's proposal is mad.

Dermot O'Leary is personally opposed to BusConnects on the basis of taking bits of people's front gardens to widen roads for continuous bus lanes, yet at the same time, he proposes SwiftWay - dropped years ago - be implemented, which proposed three lines as I recall:

- Airport/Swords to the City
- Blanch to UCD via the City
- Clongriffin to Tallagh via the City

How in the name of God does he propose to get BRT with its permanent right of way to Tallaght without taking gardens?

The NBRU's plan is a load of guff and they got exactly the reaction and column inches they desired.

It's a one for everyone in the audience message, which allows people to cherry pick what they want, and because they agree with their one point, Dermot gets to claim that they agree with the rest, including opposition to BusConnects and Metrolink.

cgcsb

loyatemu wrote: »

It really isn't, BRT is like Luas using buses instead of trams. Busconnects is full of compromises in comparison: bus gates; fairly long sections where lanes are shared; very frequent stops (BRT has proper "platforms"); & taxis and bikes will be able to use the bus-lanes pretty much everywhere. It's an improvement and I hope it goes ahead, but it's not BRT.

Any BRT system proposed instead would encounter the same issues.

StreetLight

I have seen the various points made by the NBRU over the years, but not this. It's just a flag-flying exercise. I wouldn't get worked up about any of it.

GT89

StreetLight wrote: »

I have seen the various points made by the NBRU over the years, but not this. It's just a flag-flying exercise. I wouldn't get worked up about any of it.

They are trying to get at the NTA. The impression I get is that there is a strong resentment from the NBRU towards the NTA as they would rather the NTA did not exist and the government wrote a blank cheque directly to the CIE companies.

It's the same reason they got involved with disability campaigners as they were involved with lobbying the NTA for things which to be fair were quite meritable like better facilities for wheelchair users on trains and buses but beyond the remit of a transport union.

It seems since Dermot O'Leary likes getting media coverage whatever benefit is that to the average member working for DB, BE, IE or GAI I do not know as they're concerns would be more things like anti social behaviour, wages, overtime, bills and working conditions.