BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123924320#Comment_123924320

Yep. This is a disaster.

The spine concept doesnt work if the network doesnt flow and it clearly is not flowing.

An underground is needed, its been said many times but there is no way out of this without an underground system.

The more spines we roll out, the more congested the roads become and the less reliable the service becomes, pushing more and more people back into cars.

Add in rapid population growth and return to office working plus a lack of available housing for working people in the city centre and other employment centres and you have a slow march towards city gridlock.

cgcsb

I don't think there's any real practical scenario in which Finglas gains an underground metro service, especially in light of the highly segregated luas Finglas route that is in planning.

The issues with buses can be resolved through a part 8 and some weekend works to implement a bus gate on Whitworth road, but the NTA and Dublin City Council seem to not want improved public transport.

Daith

I'd just say there wasn't a huge issue in Finglas with the 40 and 140.

The current issue with a reduced frequency an cancellations at the drop of a hat is worse.

The Whitworth Road was an issue and could always add 10/20 mins to a journey. But at least if you got the bus, you were fine.

The L89 should have gone through Finglas South somehow and could have been somewhat of an alternative.

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123924565#Comment_123924565

Not many industrial estates inside the canal cordon, the natural place for the boundary for a Congestion Charge Zone.

cgcsb

As other users have pointss out congestion charging is effective where there is spare public transport capacity for people to move to when they leave the car behind. We don't have that capacity and the only way to create it is to allocate sufficient road space to public transport.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123924766#Comment_123924766

Congestion charges also don't take account of somebody who might live in Dublin but work outside of it. I've always felt carbon/fuel taxes should be levied heavier in cities where we have public transport options than where there isn't any

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123924766#Comment_123924766

I’m not sure that closing what is a relatively major road to all general traffic bar local access without beforehand holding any form of public consultation (which would include an assessment of the effects on other local roads) would come close to being politically acceptable.

For the record I’m not saying that it’s not a potential option, but the notion that it could be done as a Part 8 and over a weekend is for the birds.

dfx-

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123924589#Comment_123924589

But we're going to have a nice College Green Plaza to sit down at and admire once you do get through the gridlock.

So there's a positive.

Daith

As much as I'd like for something to happen, there isn't going to be any change to the Whitworth Road. The time to do that was part of the Finglas/Ballymun corridor.

Although I do wish they'd drop the "Finglas" from the corridor name. It's basically some extra cycle lane infrastructure.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123924725#Comment_123924725

Not everyone works in an industrial estate, that was an example.

You could say offices in the Docks instead. Someone coming from the same counties still couldnt get there without driving, unless they happened to live on a direct train line, which is not most people.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123924766#Comment_123924766

Thats only a solution if you intend to replace the cars with yet more unreliable buses, buses that people outside of Dublin cant access and people inside Dublin dont have faith in and/or can't easily access.

Buses must support a PT solution but they can't be the only solution.

trellheim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123924883#Comment_123924883

northbound from the quays on up there are only three major ways from the city via Car to the N2 :

1. North King St
2. Broadstone
3. Whitworth Road

Remember there is no right turn at Phibsboro from the NCR wesbound to the N2

No buses use North King St

Broadstone has a ton of buses already

That just leaves Whitworth road

Yes there are minor roads ( Eglinton Terrace, Lindsay Road, Iona road) but they wont take buses and are already ratruns, Eglinton terrace in particular is a bad one.

Daith

Oh I don't see any changes happening to the Whitworth Rd. I imagine a lot of the complaints are from former 140 passengers.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123924939#Comment_123924939

What we are talking about is the post by the second post on this page by @cgcsb quoted below who seems to think that closing Whitworth Road to general traffic could be done over a weekend with apparently no consultation.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123924614#Comment_123924614

cgcsb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123924912#Comment_123924912

Creating bus priority makes the bus reliable. It's not the only solution. Luas and metro are in the planning process

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123925039#Comment_123925039

A Luas minor expansion and a single line metro are in planning stages, but they are years and years away from being delivered.

You can't bring in the congestion charge until solid PT alternatives are in place and we are a decade away at least from Metro & a tiny luas extension completing.

Perhaps in 10 or 15 years we can look at the congestion charge, providing those other PT schemes are operational.

For the next 10 years at least the traffic issues will continue to worsen.

I think the danger is that over the next decade, if BusConnects doesnt keep up with the demand and continues to be unreliable, we will see a move back towards cars and commuting.

I see plenty of posts on another forum where mostly younger people are learning to drive to avoid having to use the buses in Dublin and their car transfer approach is not downvoted or unpopular.

Daith

Just looking at departures and seems to be a couple of F routes northbound all starting at Parnell St now.

hfjm20

Tracking for db not working is a real pain currently. Says there’s an E2 in 2 mins for Nassau street but the rtpi shows it still in Harristown

cgcsb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123925435#Comment_123925435

You're the one who brought up congestion charging and you're the only one who seems to want it. It's not an effective solution in our case the only effective measure deliverable in the short term is a re-allocstion of road space to buses.

The current discussion is about the F spine bus connects so luas and metro are massively impactful on that area of the city.

loco_scolo

I'm surprised to hear the route is so much worse via Whitworth Rd. Is it Whitworth Rd itself, or the section afterwards?

I live near that junction with Drumcondra Rd, and changed to using the 40 bus following removal of the 11 and 13. Found the 40 great for the most part (regular and crosses the Liffey). It could be a disaster at times, but only when you get to Parnell/OCS.

I would have thought the section through Phibsboro (for the 140) was a nightmare for buses?

Daith

I do think some people on the 140 forget how bad the Phisboro route can be tbf.

The problem with the Whitworth Road is that it can be so variable. It could be 10 mins but on Monday it took nearly 20 mins. Yes it was bad weather but Ireland has bad weather.

Other factors are cars and vans parking on the Dorset St bus lane also afterwards.

OCS Northbound and Parnell St is an utter pain too. Way too much traffic trying to get through

Kiteview

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123924565#Comment_123924565

Your comment just is not correct and is very much London focused.

Drawing any comparison between Dublin and London is fundamentally a flawed idea since London’s permanent population, never mind its commuting population, is multiple times that of Ireland, never mind Dublin. Nor is it true that “you can just get the Tube” for many residents of London since the Tube has almost no coverage south of the river, leaving approximately 5 million people in London to “get by” without access to the Tube.

As I pointed out there are many cities across Europe with Low Emission Zones and/or Congestion Charges - and it is hard to see why Dublin doesn’t immediately plan to introduce the former even if the latter is supposedly “too difficult”.

Lastly, if you want another UK example, look to Oxford which is in the process of introducing a congestion charge even though if has no tube, metro or tube systems and normal “public transport” is the bus system - which up to now has been held up by cars etc at peak times, which of course is the exact problem with public transport in all our cities (ie not just Dublin).

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123925582#Comment_123925582

I am not in favour of the congestion charge without the appropriate infrastructure, though I think it is something the govt will consider when the BusConnects network jams up.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123925793#Comment_123925793

It will be interesting to see how Oxford fares with the congestion charge. It isnt a place I have visited so I cant comment on traffic there.

It is smaller than Dublin and wont have as many people travelling into the city for work from outside of the city, but an interesting test case without doubt.

RobbingBandit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123924658#Comment_123924658

The 40e is still running through part of Finglas South from Broombridge so the L89 wouldn't do the same.

All three F1,2 and 3 using Whitworth Road is an incredibly frustrating decision by NTA, The 140 used Phibsborough road so that's just silly.

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123925856#Comment_123925856

100% Either the 23 or 24 could've been rerouted to serve Whitworth Road if it needs to have a direct connection to Finglas and the F routes travel the more direct route out Western Way.

Daith

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123925856#Comment_123925856

Finglas South is a big area. The L89 could be routed along Tolka Valley Road, St Helena and Wellmount Road and it wouldn't overlap with the 40e and give other areas a link to Broombridge. It only runs every hour so not going to do much really tbf

Agreed that the F routes going down Phisboro could have worked with changes to 24 etc. it would even make the Finglas Bus Corridor make sense.

The only reason the F1 is going down Whitworth Rd is to satisfy the "spine" concept, which isn't hugely important here (imo) and they're already breaking that by running buses from Parnell St and ignoring the spine themselves

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123925856#Comment_123925856

The new network is predicated on Spines, so all the spine routes follow the same route from where they join, through the city centre, and then until the point where they split. The objective is to give an integrated schedule all along the Spine.

Now that needs properly and accurately designed schedules, which we don’t have yet due to the running times being so poorly estimated.

But splitting the routes midway along the Spine isn’t going to happen. That’s what the radial routes are designed to cover.

Changing to the E1 and E2 at Hart’s Corner may be another option.

As far as the L89 is concerned, it could easily be re-routed to serve Finglas North, Cardiffsbridge Road (to serve Dunnes), Wellmount Road and then dogleg up the off ramp from the N2 and come back through Finglas Village and rejoin the current routing.

p_haugh

As expected with more of the hybrid workers heading to the office, yesterday was a bit worse compared to Monday. Mainly partial cancellations, which backs up what @Daith was mentioning. The F1 alone had 26(!) partial cancellations.

Partial cancellations:

Full cancellations:

cgcsb

So it looks like the F3 is running at a 40 minute peak time frequency with some people reporting gaps of an hour. That's a big step down from the 40 which was reliably 10 to 15 minutes and the 40 was actually very full at peak times. Not sure how the NTA expects people to cope with less than a third of the service.