BusConnects Dublin - Big changes to Bus Network

dublinman1990

I would take it that the Phase 5b numbers would be adding significantly more passengers to the other phases as they are not included with the other phases of the project? Would the growth in passengers grow significantly larger within each phase to date or would the large growth in demand come from the orbitals at a much faster pace as opposed to the other phases?

GusherING

Clearly a lot of new drivers on buses at present. Some of the driving is absolutely shocking on the number 7 route.

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122098538#Comment_122098538

Care to elaborate?

dublinman1990

There are additional drivers on duty today and for the rest of this bank holiday weekend on the 7 route. The additional buses available for the 7 go from Dún Laoghaire Dart Station to Mountjoy Square.

There is engineering works taking place on the Dart line between Grand Canal Dock & Bray this weekend. The regular passengers and drivers on the route also had to put up with carrying extra capacity before and after the Leinster rugby match which was held at Croke Park on Saturday evening.

The extra drivers available for the 7 route to Dún Laoghaire this weekend are not like the regular marked in drivers for the 7 when it does the full route out to Brides Glen Luas. I would assume the extra drivers in place for the 7 are drivers who do other routes in Donnybrook or completely new drivers that have not done any routes before.

There are also additional buses in place for the 45A between Dún Laoghaire & Bray and for the 155 from City Centre to Bray.

GusherING

A bus I was on ran a red light through a busy junction and then hit a kerb at a later stop. Another bus kept braking extremely harshly. It was a noticeable drop in standards yesterday.

dublinman1990

I have never experienced those incidents from drivers working on the 7 before.

Are those incidents becoming more frequent on the route or is it just the start of a recent trend?

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122099029#Comment_122099029

Sometimes if the lights have just changed and the bus is going at a decent speed it's safer to just keep going rather than slamming on the brakes buses don't stop easily like a car. As for clipping kerbs very easy to do.

john boye

It's funny how the fantasy bus driver here gets more offended by complaints about bus drivers than the actual bus drivers.

I think to call some of the driving shocking is ott. The fact is there's a lot of new drivers out there who are learning routes while getting used to driving a large vehicle. Mistakes are inevitable. I suspect It's only going to continue too as it's hard to see the high turnover of drivers stopping any time soon.

sameoldname

Pretty sure new drivers don't start on any of the 7's. At least out of Donnybrook. The 11, 15, 46A, 84X, 145, 155 and probably a few others are new driver routes. Don't quote me on that though.

Midnight_EG

New drivers start on all routes, just depends on what order you're route trained in

BusGuy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122096122#Comment_122096122

No need to get mad at me.

BusGuy

Wait so is the 37 basically the only route to not be changed to other get a freq. update?

EDIT: So I also guess that the number in front and the letter at the end trend is dying, and we have the opposite.

TheChrisD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122103294#Comment_122103294

No, new 37 will serve Blanch Village and Clonsilla Road. Carpenterstown will be served by Route 34, which will travel via Phibsborough.

BusGuy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122104574#Comment_122104574

But isn't the 37 city part still in tact, and the Blach. area to be changed, or a completely new route at all?

dublinman1990

There is a letter here from some resident who lives along the upcoming N2 route protesting about some bus stops being erected on Blackhorse Avenue/Nephin Road in Cabra.

I looked at it on Reddit at first but I didn't know what route it was for until I looked it up here on X/Twitter.

It's noted that a leaflet was posted out to people's homes in the area from Richard Nolan (Civil Engineering) that they wanted to install the new bus stops along that section of road. I have not seen the leaflet from the company itself that gives us the actual details about what level of work is being done for these new bus stops.

It's probably the usual standard level of work like installing a TFI bus stop pole along with new kerbing for every other bus stop around the GDA. Although; if new bus shelters were installed for it like what was heard in the court case in Malahide Road; it might make some more sense to us who want to know about it in more detail.

If someone in this thread had the leaflet from the company owned by Richard Nolan and posted it here on boards; it might spell out this confusion for us in the end.

However; the letter also says that residents can make objections to the NTA by May 13th. They're already wasting their time doing that.

If these new bus stops for the N2 are already part of works linked with the Network Redesign Project or maybe the infrastructure side of the project; the residents who are getting these new bus stops along these roads should have known a long time ago that this development in the project cannot be changed either now or in the future.

They should have known in reality that they are absolutely powerless to do anything at this point unless they stump up a lot of money to start up a court case over it in future. I doubt the residents who live there would actually care about being told that particular fact being told to their own faces by public officials in the NTA.

https://twitter.com/DublinCommuters/status/1787416305630363667

It is absolutely stupid to think that they are people out there who live in this part of Dublin who know about this project surrounding the N2 now in 2024 as opposed to when the route was first proposed by BusConnects back in 2018.

If they make their complaints heard to the NTA between now and May 13th. Do you think they will get any sympathy from them?

cgcsb

Great news if the N2 starts running this summer

CatInABox

LOL at the "no consultation" complaint. The N2 has been planned to go down both of those roads since at least 2019, with at least a couple of massive consultations with it right there.

Radios, bus ads, billboards, tv ads, newspaper ads, leaflet drops, meetings with local councillors, the entire works! But no, because they didn't come around to my house and hold my hand while they told me about every single change that might affect me, there was "no consultation".

Really, if you're not going to engage in civil society, you can't complain when civil society leaves you behind.

trellheim

The poster is correct. There was no consultation in the area on this. They had to be forced to hold local consultations for the B spine. I'm fully expecting the usual pileons here going "but of course there were", well you've said so several times and poster (and me beg to differ ) . By the way I have no connection with the poster or know them whatsoever just am of a similar opinion. Not a single thing ever adduced here will convince me that this was not done on the QT. I still have the Busconnects booklet in my door for the Howth area which was all my avenue of 150 houses got ( and I'm not too far from Nephin) .

I contribute here because it is the ONLY way of knowing what is going on with busconnects routes or spines

On the point issue I think the N2 is worth having but you could run it down Skreen road instead of the southern bit of Nephin like the 37 and not a lot would need to change in terms of bus stops or value and that is something that probably could have been sorted out

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122111535#Comment_122111535

Again though, is it really "on the qt" when they've published it each time on their website, with millions upon millions spent on advertising it? It really beggars belief that people can be bombarded with these ads, ignore them, and then say they weren't consulted. At a certain point, personal responsibility kicks in, you have to participate in what is going on around you.

Was the additional local consultations you mention just where the NTA added extra local meetings onto the schedule, or was it another round of consultations just for that area? I know the former happened, but I don't recall the latter at all.

On the N2 using Skreen Road, while it's possible to use that road, the problem comes when it's time to turn right from the Navan Road onto Nephin Road, as there's no right turn there.

LXFlyer

You would think that the BusConnects website at www.busconnects.ie with links to all of the maps, diagrams, planning applications etc. didn’t exist!

But I’ve come to the conclusion that there clearly are a cohort of the population who just zone out to any news stories like this and expect everything to be delivered personally through their letterbox, and then get very indignant when the works actually start, claiming there was no consultation.

trellheim

You'd need a filter right for the N2 from Navan Road onto Nephin Road though,agreed, but thats a traffic light change and hardly the biggest change going for Busconnects.

Or put a stop in on blackhorse av just before the Nephin Road turn. and put a stop in opposite Cabra Garda station on Nephin to maintain bus stop distances

CatInABox

You'd need a filter right for the N2 from Navan Road onto Nephin Road though,agreed, but thats a traffic light change and hardly the biggest change going for Busconnects.

Ah, it's one of those junctions where it'd swiftly turn into a disaster if you allowed cars to turn right there. Even with the filter, the queue would often reach back beyond the previous junction, which would very very quickly cause chaos. There's a reason there's no right turn there already.

Or put a stop in on blackhorse av just before the Nephin Road turn. and put a stop in opposite Cabra Garda station on Nephin to maintain bus stop distances

You could, but why? I mean, if buses are going down Nephin Road, then there's not much point in not having a bus stop there, just to attempt to satisfy some crank. Dollars to Donuts that this guy is only worried about losing his on street illegal parking, just like your one taking the JR on the Artane route.

loyatemu

new stops for the local Bray service L14 are being installed:

https://www.greystonesguide.ie/here-comes-the-little-loopy-bus/

mikeybhoy

New bus stop erected on Park Road in Dun Laoghaire beside the People's Park. Not aware of any plan to run a bus on this road as part of BC.

stephenjmcd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122112829#Comment_122112829

Some stops for the E1 also being updated today on the dublin road towards shankill.

Works on pavement etc around the stops

bk

Public consolidation isn't required for a new bus stop, in fact not even planning permission is required.

New bus shelter, yes, that requires planning permission, but just a bus stop pole, plus the necessary changes to the road/footpath for it require no planning permission.

Public consultation is not required for either of the above, the planners might decide to do one anyway, but it isn't required.

The bus stop changes happening for the N2 and the likes of the N4 in the past are pretty minor and certainly shouldn't require a public consultation! Sure the more major works of BusConnects core corridors, some of which will take gardens, etc. should, but not something like this!

Seriously people have lost their minds if they think minor bus stop changes should require a public consultation!

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122079943#Comment_122079943

BTW I noted another location that has the blue spray paint you mentioned. A very obvious location for a N2 bus stop. I won't say where in case it triggers some Nimby to object.

Steve Allen

Noticed a couple of new stops this week, for what must be the new 24 route, around Sycamore Rd / Willow Pk, D11

p_haugh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121655369#Comment_121655369

And it seems to have been awarded to Indra:

https://www.indracompany.com/en/noticia/indra-signs-framework-agreement-nta-become-long-term-ticketing-technology-partner-irelands

Is there a seperate thread for next-gen ticketing? I swore there was but cant seem to find it.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121855824#Comment_121855824

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121855883#Comment_121855883

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121855862#Comment_121855862

Another version of the revised network map has been added to the BusConnects website and this has fixed the L1 routing through Kilpedder Village.

https://busconnects.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/A3-Big-Picture-Map-11.04.24-B.pdf