BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

cantthinkofausername1

Notice signs of the 46a bus being replaced by the 11/b are now on the North Circular and Berkeley bus stops

rx8

I spotted 2 pick up trucks today, full of bus stops on or around the Ballymun road, replacing stops.

jd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123081461#Comment_123081461

yes, saw some new stops along there earlier, eg outside the Circle K on Ballymun Rd (labelled with E1!)

dublinman1990

The Dublin Bus webpage which provides the E Spine timetable now has the correct timetable for the E2 from Dún Laoghaire to Harristown.

https://www.dublinbus.ie/news/phase-6a-of-the-busconnects-network-redesign-will-commence-on-sunday-26-january-2025

LXFlyer

The L15 timetable pdf has also now been corrected on the GAI page and TFI page.

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123081166#Comment_123081166

The L55 was a fairly last minute addition when the S4 replaced the 18 and 76 in Ballyfermot. Wasn't in the original maps

hfjm20

This may be a stupid question but what happens to the new busconnects stop poles that have some new and some old routes on them? When new phases make the older routes obsolete will the poles just be repainted with the new routes or will they have to put in new poles every time? Seems like an awful waste

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123081661#Comment_123081661

I'm pretty sure they are modular and can be updated. When the N2 started up I'm pretty sure the poles and flags didn't change, just the new info was added to the existing one.

p_haugh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123081661#Comment_123081661

The bus stop sign itself that shows the stop number & routes serving it can be unscrewed and slid out of the stop pole afaik. A new sign with the updated routes would then be slotted in instead.

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123081661#Comment_123081661

Those new stop poles seem very flimsy noticed a good few the wrong way round after high winds. I know the old design was outdated and many stops lacked service information but the stops definitely lasted the test of time some of them are the same physical pole from CIE days just repainted. Bus Eireann stops generally tend to be in awful condition and I don't know why.

The best design of bus stops in my opinion is the style DB use/used in the city centre. Not sure why this design couldn't be replicated across the network they're quite similar to the bus stops used in London and seem sturdy enough.

VG31

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123081090#Comment_123081090

In my experience they are rarely completely full (i.e. people getting left behind) because of airport demand. There are exceptions to this such as 23:00 to 01:00 from the airport. I generally use them at peak times but northbound in the morning peak and southbound in the evening peak. The times you mention would be busy because of commuters to the city centre from Swords, Santry, Whitehall etc.

But my point was that the 16/41 demand is either not related to the airport at all or is airport demand that is specific to the areas the 16/41 cover. I can't imagine there will be much overlap with the 19.

rx8

The 19, will hide in a different zone in the airport until the 16 and 41 have loaded up and departed before putting the numbers up and following them into town. So no fear of it being full or overloaded then.

john boye

Was the 19 not supposed to be a Harristown route?

p_haugh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123082712#Comment_123082712

I believe it will be Harristown operated, yes.

rx8

My bad.... I assumed the 19 would be operated by Donnybrook as a replacement for the 11.

Taisteal Éireann

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123081226#Comment_123081226

Still says such and with a lot of the new bus poles going up today, there's possibly an error on that pole.

The naming of bus stops is very, very amateur across the country. There seems to be zero form of standardisation with names, locations, capitalisations, etc. You have stops called 'Dorset Street Upper' and 'Upper Dorset Street', 'Drumcondra Rail Station' vs. 'Heuston Train Stn' vs. 'Greystones Station', you have multiple examples of bus stops right beside each other with totally different names (one example off the top of my head is Harrington Street and Synge Street on the South Circular Road). Again, the NTA are to blame but they likely inherited the sloppiness of Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann in this regard. While most of this is not really an issue for a lot of regular bus users, it just looks so amateur on timetables and information.

Other posters have mentioned the vast number of errors in the new timetables and there are still loads yet to be fixed (which means a number of the new bus stop poles will be wrong and have to be corrected). One of the major ones I see that still hasn't been fixed from looking through all the timetables is the removal of the southbound bus stop in Newtownmountkennedy for the L1, probably the main destination stop on the whole route. According to the timetable, the 'local' bus drives through the village without stopping, while the 'regional' buses continue to stop. Either they are copying timetables and removing stops or creating new ones and not double checking existing stops.

p_haugh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123083012#Comment_123083012

Another example is stop 774 outside the Garda station in Donnybrook. The English stop name simply says "Garda Station", yet the irish version says "Stáis G Domh Broc"!

Daith

There should be more uniformity in stops, but no people would complain they couldn't handle the change from Dorset Street Upper to Upper Dorset St.

BeerNut

That's quite a poor criterion for success.

VG31

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123083012#Comment_123083012

There are also stops near Our Lady of Victories in Ballymun which are missing from the E1 and E2.

A2000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123081601#Comment_123081601

60 was originally the 95 from spiddal park. In the first plan there was no Bus covering the loss of the 79 at all. The L55 has a purpose but prob not busy enough to survive. Yesterday the 16.30 L55 was at cherry orchard hospital in traffic at 17.01. It was due to make its return journey at 17.05. The traffic was from n4 back up kennelsfort road as always. As a last minute addition the public had no say in its routing.

trellheim

I had promised to check as LxF had said signage had gone up

This is to an extent true but is hampered by being incorrect, hard to see, and not complete in many cases. Let's show a few examples.

1. OCS Northbound - note that the 11 replaces the 46a, but beside that a notice that the 11 is being removed.
2. Also here, it is over 6ft in height to that display board, you have to lift your head to look at it and there's nothing on the stops themselves
3. Pic 2 Parnell Sq 46a nothing
4. Pic 3 Parnell Sq No. 11 "the 11 is being withdrawn"
5. Pic 4 Berkeley Road , signage is over 6ft above the ground, I had to look up to squint at it and I'm over 6ft tall.
6. Pic 5 NCR, again signage over 6ft tall, the lady was trying to read it on tippy toes and gave up as its in small enough font.
7. Pic 6 example of the signage, no mention of the 11b on any of the above signs at all.

dublinman1990

It appears that the FF Galway TD Dara Calleary would be taking over Eamon Ryan's department in Transport & Climate with Energy being added to the brief under this new incoming Government when Michael Martin becomes Taoiseach later today.

What's your opinion on Dara Calleary taking over the brief of Transport which will handle BusConnects Dublin within this new Government. Do you think he would be able to give any valuable ideas or solutions on how to resolve the resource issues with rolling out the new BusConnects spines under the remaining phases of the project.

How would you think he could fare out in the rolling out of newer charging points in Dublin Bus & GAI depots which will be crucial to the remaining phases of BusConnects into this year and next year. Do you think Dara Calleary would have any political clout to actually get the remaining phases of BusConnects out as planned for this year and next year while being stuck with the ongoing shortages of bus drivers and mechanics that are needed to provide these new routes & to sort out the outstanding issues with establishing the newer charging points within the bus depots as well.

Eamon Ryan in my view had started undertaking a lot of work from day 1 to get a lot of these phases rolled out for the past 4 years while the GP were in the last government with FF/FG. Although Eamon had been desperately slow in trying to get the charging points built in the bus depots owned by Dublin Bus so far. Only 2 depots in Dublin Bus having charging point facilities getting rolled in Summerhill & Phibsboro is not good enough. He should have made more inroads within the public spending code rules to get them out faster than what we have already. I think he only succeeded in opening 2 new charging point facilities in two BE depots in Limerick & Athlone during his tenure as Minister for Transport. I am not sure what is going on about the BE depot in Galway having these charging points as well as the current status of BE's Cork & Waterford depot to be added to the list of completed depots that have these new facilities in place for their newer bus fleets.

Taisteal Éireann

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123083047#Comment_123083047

The Irish names are worse than the English ones. Lots of stop names missing fadas, lenitions, eclipsis, etc.

cgcsb

A country FF transport minister will of course be a disaster. You're talking bypasses galore and nonapproval for business cases for Dublin projects.

Taisteal Éireann

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123083559#Comment_123083559

While Fianna Fáil probably have a better record of building infrastructure compared to Fine Gael, compared to other conservative parties on the continent (and even the Tories in Britain), they're both severely lacking. But unfortunately I feel it'll be more "Motorways for Mayo" rather than "D-Spine for Dublin", especially if it's the rural independents keeping the government in a majority. I'm personally not optimistic, but I hope I'm wrong.

stop

Passing through Newtownmountkenndy, noticed the 184 removed and L1 appearing on some bus stops.. but not all.

The first stop southbound on main street (4653) now lists only the 131 and 133.

Checking bustimes.org confirms it is not listed for the L1.

Not quite sure how they keep making these kind of mistakes.

Best email address to flag this to?

Taisteal Éireann

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123084231#Comment_123084231

It's laziness and sloppiness, nothing more, nothing less. Even before the NTA days, it was the same. You really need a whole new set of schedulers/timetablers.

I know in the past that any bus stop outside of County Dublin was Bus Éireann's responsibility and in the past I've flagged things like this with them and they've fixed it (albeit, very slowly). I'd imagine now though that it's the NTA you'd have to inform. I would say if you email Go-Ahead, they'll probably just forward it to the NTA anyway even though it's their route that is missing, not Bus Éireann's routes.

jd

Finally a bus stop in Northwood. I think it's properly labelled!

bikeman1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123085577#Comment_123085577

I thought we would never see the day! Great to see at last.

I'm still wondering where the buses will hold. With an 8 minute frequency, there could be more than 3 buses needing to be at the terminus at the same time and it is going to be tight for 3 buses. Presumably they have scheduled accordingly…