BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

p_haugh

The blue boxes for the new flag poles are all across Southern Cross in Bray and along the 63 route in Cournelscourt/Cabinteely. Seen them when I was out and about today.

dublinman1990

I assuming people living in areas like Greenhills and Kimmage are delighted that the 9 & 83/a are staying on with Dublin Bus for another year. People in Kimmage are probably even more happy to know that they get to keep three direct bus routes that go into Dublin City Centre for a year since the 74 was introduced last November. I know some guys from college who live in those parts of Dublin. They're probably delighted to hear this news.

I want to ask two questions about the 4 & the 11 as well.

When the 4 will eventually go to Heuston Station from late June; would it terminate the route near the Taxi Rank outside the station or will the route terminate near the Eir Head office on Heuston South Quarter?

The addition of the 4 to Heuston Station will probably add quite a lot of bus traffic in that part of the city. However if it's going to Heuston Station from June; it probably won't be regarded as a cross city route anymore because it's new terminus is going to be located south of the Liffey. Would these developments alone actually present a cut in frequency for the 4 timetable from this June or not?

Heuston Station currently has a lot of PT routes serving the GDA serving it at the moment:

Dublin Bus: The 90, The S2, Route O (from this year), the 145 (which is being axed from June), the C-Spine & 52/P & X routes, the G-Spine & 60 and the 68/69.

Dublin Express 782 to Dublin Airport.

The Commuter bus routes from GAI

Citylink between Dublin Airport & Castlebar/Galway

Aircoach between Dublin & Cork/Galway

Gobus to/from Cork

Bus Eireann Expressway routes: Dublin between Waterford/Cork/Southwest etc.

The Luas Red Line.

I would be concerned that a lot of the private cars travelling outside the station as they will add a lot of traffic congestion to the area as most of that traffic goes out onto the Quays particularly during the peak times. The 4 could be negatively impacted if it approaches heavy traffic levels along the Quays during these times of the day. The 39/A buses have had a lot of trouble with maintaining their timetables while the heavy traffic on the quays were the major fault in becoming delayed on it's routes. I would say the other routes like the 145 would have encountered similar issues with heavy delays while trying to keep up with the timetable along the quays.

Will the 11 still be allowed to travel up through O'Connell St and follow the 46A route from there to Infirmary Road? I would think the frequency for the 11 to Infirmary Road will probably be maintained as that is still a cross city route until it gets replaced by the 86 within the Southside in later phases of BusConnects in the near future.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121817467#Comment_121817467

Sorry yes you’re right. Well then the 23/24 won’t happen until next year.

Thanks for posting the update.

p_haugh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121817960#Comment_121817960

The 11 will be terminating at the current 46a terminus (and doing the 46a routing to there) to keep up the connections along North Circular Road until the O route is launched.

The 4 will have the same arrangement as the 145 currently does at Heuston I'd imagine.

AX636

From NBRU

DaBluBoi

What's a zonal schedule?

AX636

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121820193#Comment_121820193

Garage's have different Zones, like Summerhill has 3 Zone1 is 15A/B/41s and zone 2 is 120/123 zone 3 33.. instead of having stand alone routes that's all its more internal than anything

dublinman1990

I came an interesting blog post on dublinbusstuff.com this morning.

As of the 12th of February; the Dublin Bus Streetlites from Donnybrook are now allocated to do the 44b, 44d & L25.

https://www.dublinbusstuff.com/PhotoWeek/WSL25.html

The Streetlites do the 0815 ex Dundrum & 0915 ex Dún Laoghaire in the morning peak runs.

They also do an evening run on the 44d from O'Connell St to Dundrum in the evening peak times.

Do you not think having a bus like the Streetlites on these routes would make things a lot more difficult for commuters when they go on these routes during the morning & evening peak times? I would imagine that if you had a lot of schoolkids at that time of the morning along with people who are maybe getting the Dart in Dun Laoghaire in the morning; they would not be able to get on a bus of that size at all if it is still full while arriving at their stop.

I would assume that a lot of the passengers that are being left behind at their stop after missing the Streetlite buses are going to take more room on the GT's & SG's on their next run.

john boye

Quite clearly they wouldn't be on those departures if they couldn't handle the loads on them.

jd

Re E1 to Northwood. My information is that the agreement reached is that the E1 will enter from the Ballymun Road, and will head into town using the Santry Avenue exit. One Stop/terminus near Costa.

AngryLips

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121827935#Comment_121827935

So essentially, the entire Northwood neighbourhood will still remain largely unserved by public transport.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121828203#Comment_121828203

Hardly the “entire” neighbourhood. That’s a bit OTT.

Most of the residential properties will be within a 5-8 minute walk of a bus but some (a minority) will have a 12 min walk.

That’s not uncommon for many housing estates.

bikeman1

It's still not good enough for a major destination on the Northside, with high density apartment blocks having just come on stream and many more nearly built or in various stages of the planning process. In addition to a busy retail area, two nursing homes, a gym, offices, two small private hospital hospitals, two hotels and a beautiful public park.

It has been a great place to have a mixed development, but missing one crucial thing - public transport and namely a bus route. Many routes skirt the estate but are a decent walk out from the apartments. A link through Northwood Ave. is important to link the whole development from routes on either end to the estate and particularly for residents.

Hopefully, the owners will see the benefit of PT.

DUBLINBUSGUY

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121827235#Comment_121827235

The 44D is very quiet. The L25 is a brand new route that runs every 15mins and I live near it and often see it almost empty.

jd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121828661#Comment_121828661

It's a start, at least Northwood Management have agreed to a PSO route within the estate. I have copies of emails from nearly 20 years ago when local pols and I + some others were trying see if we could get a bus route into the estate. We nearly had agreement for the 27B to run through but it didn't happen. When this E1 eoute is successful perhaps they will start the new D4 service from Northwood, rather than Coolock Lane, with agreement of Northwood Management.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121828678#Comment_121828678

Often times the L25 is quite well used especially at weekends. Like other orbitals it is often used for partial journeys as well as end-to-end, so you can’t really judge loadings just at one location.

All the new routes generally take time to build customer numbers.

Citrus_8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121828678#Comment_121828678

It usually takes something between 12 to 18 months to build passenger numbers on the new routes.

LXFlyer

I get the impression from the plethora of blue painted boxes that are appearing on street, that the NTA have decided that the new physical stops are going to start being rolled out regardless of the BusConnects phases - they may just want to get on with getting them on street.

p_haugh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121828858#Comment_121828858

Any time I've gotten it it is pretty busy for an orbital (still plenty of seats mind you)

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121830484#Comment_121830484

The same with any route not travelling into the city centre you'd find the same with the 45a, 63, 184 etc. There's probably a bit too much capacity on it for the time being it replaced the half hourly 75 and is double the frequency however if it wants to attract new users high frequency paramount.

The S8 on the other hand seems to be a bit of a dogs dinner of a route. Somehow manages to skip all the main locations near the route its ridiculous that the buses have to go all the way to the Frank Keane garage to make a right turn in Blackrock and the route completely skips Dundrum SC altogether.

trellheim

The No.11 will need to have at least 3 times the frequency it does now if it is to cover the 46a volume , I am standing nearly all the time from Parnell Square northbound no matter what 46a I get.

Did a route choice up and down Steevens lane for any routes get decided at all ? It would seem like an obvious choice to cut off dog-legs

BusGuy

The 46A itself is a perfect route; amongst the others, removing the 46A is bad out, as it connects from one side of Dublin to the other, but I guess every route will be on the death wheel one way or the other.

The 44D is never quiet in terms of your destination. EG: Between 17:00 -18:00 you have not one but THREE 44s taking you to Dundrum.

BusGuy

Can we also note that the 46a is a perfect success for Dublin Bus, as it has high freq., high passenger numbers, and less/none anti-social behavior compared to the other routes?

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121833936#Comment_121833936

Are there stats around anti-social behaviour at route level?

Is the 46a going then?

it does always seem a busy service that one.

mikeybhoy

I saw an EA electric single decker on Parnell sq. today hopefully the O isn't too far away

AX636

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121833961#Comment_121833961

It was maintenance driving it, was on Marlborough Street yesterday and today

trellheim

There has always been a service to the zoo from town since the No.10 tram at least , and not a 99 route ( that one serves a different purpose ) , every time DB have tried to pull it they've had to put it back on again, I suspect the same will happen with the 46a , and the O route flat out will not do the job lol single deckers, the 46a have half a load usually at Hanlons Corner inbound, which means punters will be waiting double and even triple the O frequency as the buses arent empty at Infirmary Rd like the 46as are , the empty 46a's have to wait nearly 3-5 minutes just to get a right turn onto Infirmary road as there isnt a filter for them . One of the spines should be re-done to the northern 46a to reflect reality and not just crayons , I mean it feels like monopoly " get 200 points if you can get a bus route under Macken St bridge!"

cgcsb

Can we be real for a moment, the 46a is not high frequency, it has 20 minute gaps in the peak hour and 40 minute gaps on Sundays. The 145 and the C spine are probably the only truly high frequency bus routes.

TranslatorPS

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121833921#Comment_121833921

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121833936#Comment_121833936

You could literally make the same argument of connecting one side of Dublin with the other about a bunch of other cross-city routes (ex-1, 4, 9, 11, 13, 15, 16, 27, 39A, ex-40, 83, 123, 140, technically 145, 155, and I even probably forgot something), so please, for the sake of some level of conversation here, please limit your enthusiast-fuelled future-wise irrelevant nostalgia as far as possible – it doesn't really add anything to the discussion.

trellheim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121836214#Comment_121836214

Show me where it says that 46a frequency - here's a handy link for you https://www.dublinbus.ie/getmedia/8cfd0d42-27e1-479f-925d-dcdddce6b483/Route-46a.pdf?ext=.pdf