New bus lanes set to greatly reduce journey times by 50%

patrickbrophy18

These plans are all very well and good. However, it is merely an improvement of what is currently already there. They keep on mentioning new routes when all I can see is a rehash of existing ones.


Dun Laoghaire town barely gets a mention. If these measures are to be undertaken, they need to penetrate far more of the suburban fabric for maximum coverage. Stepaside, Dundrum, Citywest and Carrickmines haven't even been mentioned despite being obvious traffic generators.


Yes, many people may use the same logic as the cancellation of the number 8 in the context of Dundrum and Carrickmines in that they have the Luas or the DART. Nevertheless, we need to change the perception of bus travel for the entire county of Dublin and not just for areas along existing flagship routes.

monument

circadian wrote: »

The main problem with this is that it's all for buses to the city centre. There's no strategy for getting across city without the city centre.

https://busconnects.ie/media/1177/busconnects-figure-3-future-orbital-bus-corridors.pdf

They cannot do everything at once!

monument

Lantus wrote: »

You don't have a choice so it's hardly consensual either. I'll give you a fair price for your car which I will be taking Tuesday regardless.

Legalised theft with some compensation doesn't make it right.

IF you want to discuss the rights and wrongs of using CPOs for transport projects you're welcome to post a new thread in Commuting and Transport.

-- moderator

Stephen15

patrickbrophy18 wrote: »

These plans are all very well and good. However, it is merely an improvement of what is currently already there. They keep on mentioning new routes when all I can see is a rehash of existing ones.


Dun Laoghaire town barely gets a mention. If these measures are to be undertaken, they need to penetrate far more of the suburban fabric for maximum coverage. Stepaside, Dundrum, Citywest and Carrickmines haven't even been mentioned despite being obvious traffic generators.


Yes, many people may use the same logic as the cancellation of the number 8 in the context of Dundrum and Carrickmines in that they have the Luas or the DART. Nevertheless, we need to change the perception of bus travel for the entire county of Dublin and not just for areas along existing flagship routes.

The N11 corridor is very well served. I think the aim should really be to get all radial routes up to standard of the 46a and 145 along the N11 corridor there are a few pinchpoints such as Deansgrange, Kill, Shankill and Bray. Perhaps bus lanes could be built along these roads.

DL is very well served by a mixture of radial routessuch as the 7 and 46a, orbital routes such as the 75 and local routes such as the 45a, 59, 63 and 111. DL is probably the best example of a transport hub in Dublin outside the CC.

monument

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

So by that logic , let's knock down the houses and build high rise apartments ?

Knock down the whole area around croke park for example and have thousands of apartments instead and an over crowding issue.

CPOing gardens vs CPOing a fairly highly populated area... are you even half for real?

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

Which all this comes back down to. The city is overcrowded.

It's really not. Dublin has a similar population density to cities of the same size around Europe. There's loads of cities with far higher density.

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

Dublin is not fit for this. I'd rather see most businesses such as offices , factories etc withing the canals moved out to M50 ring itself or beyond.

Why have a closed off office in the city center with 300 people working inside who commute for hours into a congested city when they could commute to another location outside the city on an improved orbital route network for cheaper and also save the employer money on office location cost.

What exactly is "a closed off office"?

What exactly is your idea to improve an orbital route network?

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

The city shouldn't have hundreds of thousands of people all trying to get into the city between 8 and 10 am and all trying to leave again between 5 and 7 pm.

If we look at the city proper - what the CSO calls Dublin City and Suburbs -- Dublin city and suburbs only 130,447 people enter the city, not "hundreds of thousands of people all" and the net loss/gain is only 90,045 people.

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp6ci/p6cii/p6www/

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime

monument wrote: »

CPOing gardens vs CPOing a fairly highly populated area... are you even half for real?




It's really not. Dublin has a similar population density to cities of the same size around Europe. There's loads of cities with far higher density.




What exactly is "a closed off office"?

What exactly is your idea to improve an orbital route network?



According to the CSO: "The results show that the population of Dublin City swelled to 702,159 during the day based on Census 2016 results, in contrast to its (De Facto) night-time population of 554,554, an increase of 26 per cent."

So, give or take, that's 147,605 people, not "hundreds of thousands of people".

Most of the 147,605 are coming from the rest of the continuous urban area of the city (ie parts of South Dublin, DLR, Fingal), and the GDA counties and Louth -- a mix of part of what is counted as the city proper and the normal hinterland of a city.

Why not ? If houses are not going to have a front garden anymore, then why be a house at all ? A well designed apartment does the same job. The idea of a house is a garden.

If the CPO goes ahead on this, I can see people taking compensation and moving out further and still keep their cars and still not solve the issue (a poster already posted here in this thread their scenario and how it does not work)

6 apartments instead of one house could do a lot for people looking to rent/buy near the city also.

But to talk serious, half of what's in this proposal won't happen anyway, and taking people's land against their will, will be met with protest. People who don't want to give up their land will fight it and I suspect they will do so in large numbers together.

Also with a completion date of (2027 ?) , I think it would make an awful lot more sense to get Dublin underground transport going. Not make the same mistake as with the luas.

By closed off offices I mean offices or places not open to the public that don't really serve a purpose. I.e I worked in the AA in Dublin city which have two offices on south William Street with an underground car park for staff.

Absolutely no need for them, it was only a call center after all and mostly 8am - 6pm. An office like that can easily be out at parkwest or the likes.

A high speed orbital route, possibly using the m50 at times or all the time to meet up at key locations to connect with other high frequency routes

I.e. M50 - Finglas north road - M50 - Blanchardstown - M50 - Liffey Valley etc. As an additional route for example.

147K people only entering Dublin in the day I find hard to believe. I believe the figure to be much higher but no facts to back it to (but CSO office can be wrong too)

And they come from all parts .

I see buses come up to Dublin full everyday with commuters from Wexford, Wicklow, Carlow, Kildare, portlaoise, Westmeath, Longford, Offaly, Louth, meath, Newry and even people who commute the odd time on the train from cork.

So when you take into account all the coaches, city buses, cars, bikes, bicycles, walkers, runners, trains and trams, I think it works out a lot more than 147k people.

Stephen15

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

Why not ? If houses are not going to have a front garden anymore, then why be a house at all ? A well designed apartment does the same job. The idea of a house is a garden.

While it would be far better if there were more apartments and less houses in Dublin that's far less realistic than CPOing part of people's front garden. The idea of house is generally more space also the houses will retain their back gardens so they will still have gardens.

If the CPO goes ahead on this, I can see people taking compensation and moving out further and still keep their cars and still not solve the issue (a poster already posted here in this thread their scenario and how it does not work)

If that were to happen then they could and should be done for illegal parking

6 apartments instead of one house could do a lot for people looking to rent/buy near the city also.

True there is a lot of wasted space for housing on residential properties which are oversized but there is also plenty of wasted space too on car infrastructure such as large petrol stations and car parks for rows of shops, pubs and churches. This somewhat wasted space which could be put to better use by using it for higher density residential and commercial properties.

But to talk serious, half of what's in this proposal won't happen anyway, and taking people's land against their will, will be met with protest. People who don't want to give up their land will fight it and I suspect they will do so in large numbers together.

They should be well compensated for talk about €25k per square metre. No one will have their land taken off them for nothing.

Also with a completion date of (2027 ?) , I think it would make an awful lot more sense to get Dublin underground transport going. Not make the same mistake as with the luas.

Really there shouldn't be a completion a city wants to grow and expand should be constantly thinking of new ways both big and small to improve their public transport system.

Absolutely no need for them, it was only a call center after all and mostly 8am - 6pm. An office like that can easily be out at parkwest or the likes.

Or India

Podge_irl

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

The city shouldn't have hundreds of thousands of people all trying to get into the city between 8 and 10 am and all trying to leave again between 5 and 7 pm.

I'm sorry but what city in the world doesn't have a significantly higher daytime population? That is what a modern city is. The question is how to get those people in and out most efficiently.

magicbastarder

Stephen15 wrote: »

They should be well compensated for talk about €25k per square metre. No one will have their land taken off them for nothing.

it won't be €25k per square metre. that would value my front garden at €4m. and i live in the suburbs.

if you had a house with an 8m frontage, it'd mean €200,000 per metre of garden taken.

RayCun

Dublin city centre is at the hub of the transport network. If you work in the city, you can get there on the DART, LUAS, trains to Euston and Connolly, Dublin bus, Bus Eireann, and private operators. What bike networks there are go to the city centre.

If you work in Parkwest, you have to be living on the red line, or one of a small number of bus routes.

It's much less convenient to get to, and that's a major factor for companies deciding where to locate.

Macy0161

Stephen15 wrote: »

The N11 corridor is very well served. I think the aim should really be to get all radial routes up to standard of the 46a and 145 along the N11 corridor there are a few pinchpoints such as Deansgrange, Kill, Shankill and Bray. Perhaps bus lanes could be built along these roads.

Well served in terms of routes, and maybe absolute numbers of buses, but it still has a capacity issue of full buses driving past full bus stops. And this capacity problem extends well down into Wicklow on the N11

waver

magicbastarder wrote: »

it won't be €25k per square metre. that would value my front garden at €4m. and i live in the suburbs.

if you had a house with an 8m frontage, it'd mean €200,000 per metre of garden taken.

A garden in the suburbs may not be worth 25k per square metre but a garden or parking for a family home in walking distance of the city centre could be.

If you go from Terenure through Rathgar to Rathmines a lot of the houses along the route are protected buildings costing about €1.7m plus

LuckyLloyd

Patww79 wrote: »

Hadn't seen this today. Absolute disgrace if it happens and a real sign we need to burn the place to yhe ground, or at least the bastards making the decisions. Enough is enough, people should not be giving up their property lightly

Property rights are not absolute as per the constitution. People will be compensated more than fairly for this necessary acquisition of a tiny portion of their holding.

cherryghost

magicbastarder wrote: »

it won't be €25k per square metre. that would value my front garden at €4m. and i live in the suburbs.

if you had a house with an 8m frontage, it'd mean €200,000 per metre of garden taken.

monument

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

Why not ? If houses are not going to have a front garden anymore, then why be a house at all ? A well designed apartment does the same job. The idea of a house is a garden.

If the CPO goes ahead on this, I can see people taking compensation and moving out further and still keep their cars and still not solve the issue (a poster already posted here in this thread their scenario and how it does not work)

6 apartments instead of one house could do a lot for people looking to rent/buy near the city also.

Why not? Because nobody said houses are no longer going to have gardens or driveways, and removing parts of gardens (and maybe the odd full garden if any?) is a huge different to forcefully relocating people from their homes across a highly populated area.

Trying to compare both is just silly.

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

But to talk serious, half of what's in this proposal won't happen anyway, and taking people's land against their will, will be met with protest. People who don't want to give up their land will fight it and I suspect they will do so in large numbers together.

You might be right on this and the NTA seem to be going OTT especially mirroring MetroLink and Luas to Finglas.... and it might come back to bit them.

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

Also with a completion date of (2027 ?) , I think it would make an awful lot more sense to get Dublin underground transport going. Not make the same mistake as with the luas.

What city are you thinking of where more people are transported underground than on the surface? There’s none comparable to Dublin — even if BusConnects is overkill (we don’t really know until the full plans are published) and regardless of underground’s being built, surface transport needs dealing with.

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

By closed off offices I mean offices or places not open to the public that don't really serve a purpose. I.e I worked in the AA in Dublin city which have two offices on south William Street with an underground car park for staff.

Absolutely no need for them, it was only a call center after all and mostly 8am - 6pm. An office like that can easily be out at parkwest or the likes.

Facebook, Twitter, the banks of different types in the Docklands etc etc are not open to the public and they are stating put. The trend internationally is towards more city centre locations for offices.

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

A high speed orbital route, possibly using the m50 at times or all the time to meet up at key locations to connect with other high frequency routes

I.e. M50 - Finglas north road - M50 - Blanchardstown - M50 - Liffey Valley etc. As an additional route for example.

This might we a welcome edition to public transport, but I feel you’re missing the big picture that most people in Co Dublin live inside the M50.

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

147K people only entering Dublin in the day I find hard to believe. I believe the figure to be much higher but no facts to back it to (but CSO office can be wrong too)

You have no facts to back it up is telling — it’s your hunch vs the Census. There might be the odd minor issue with the Census or more people traveling some days for events etc, but the Census is the best source on where people live and where they work.

I hadn’t seen that you had replied and I edited the part of my posted as follows:

If we look at the city proper - what the CSO calls Dublin City and Suburbs -- Dublin city and suburbs only 130,447 people enter the city, not "hundreds of thousands of people all" and the net loss/gain is only 90,045 people.

https://www.cso.ie/en/...p-cp6ci/p6cii/p6www/

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

And they come from all parts .

I see buses come up to Dublin full everyday with commuters from Wexford, Wicklow, Carlow, Kildare, portlaoise, Westmeath, Longford, Offaly, Louth, meath, Newry and even people who commute the odd time on the train from cork.

So when you take into account all the coaches, city buses, cars, bikes, bicycles, walkers, runners, trains and trams, I think it works out a lot more than 147k people.

Think about it just a bit more — on a quick estimate of Bus Éireann passenger trip per year figure and look at how many people they are carrying per day across the whole country including school buses and you’d be lucky to get 60,000 people (considering most daily passengers are taking return trips and you can average out those not going so). That’s all around Ireland.

Most of the bike, bus, train trips are from within Dublin City or country and a good chunk of the coach trips are from the GDA counties.

Ireland isn’t highly populated and most people work close enough to where they live.

I don’t really blame anybody for having the wrong perception on this — the media and some commentators are non-stop pushing the idea that long-distance commuters are the norm. That added to Dublin centristism is a bad mix for getting a grasp on the truth of how we commute as a nation.

There’s many factors coming all together to make it seem worse, for example: Some, in international terms, fairly short commutes from the GDA counties are also made much worse by not having Dart expansion and Metro in place — ie to get to Maynooth to somewhere like Sandyford or DCU fast and effectively by public transport. A larger amount of people than is normal elsewhere are driving commuters and because of congestion these are seen as longer distance than they are.

Anecdotally it seems a larger than normal amount of senior journalists, broadcasters, senior civil servants etc moved out of the city and there’s the presumption everyone did. The data says otherwise.

pclive

Can the name of this thread be changed to 'New bus lanes set to greatly reduce journey times'?

dfx-

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

You know the story lads. This *should* happen. Along with Metro Link. Along with LUAS expansion. Along with building up and using the likes of ML to build high density living in previously unused areas in the suburbs.

But it won't happen. Because of the way the news has been slanted. Because politics is local in this country and vested interests and lobby groups hold sway. Bus Connects will fail on the basis of this proposal, as many would have predicted.

This thread inside two days is why BusConnects is doomed to fail. It's getting involved in far too much stuff, weighted down with progressively more filler and baggage.

Property rights, cyclists, CPOs, random Dutch cities to name a few. Probably London model will be referenced, an expert's website and how some provincial town in Poland does it too soon.

Fix the bus network for bus passengers, you don't need to redraw the city.

Skatedude

pclive wrote: »

Can the name of this thread be changed to 'New bus lanes set to greatly reduce journey times'?

Nope, Why cant we change it to "Government been idiots and just build the underground already"

And they wont make any difference to many people until public transport actually runs at the times people need to get to work, fix the basics first. There are huge amounts of people working shift hours in all the pharma and manufacturing sectors who cant get to work unless they drive or the companies they work put on private transport for them.

bk

pclive wrote: »

Can the name of this thread be changed to 'New bus lanes set to greatly reduce journey times'?

Yes, I've changed it, much more appropriate IMO.

bk

Skatedude wrote: »

Nope, Why cant we change it to "Government been idiots and just build the underground already"

And they wont make any difference to many people until public transport actually runs at the times people need to get to work, fix the basics first.

I badly want Metrolink, it is a vital project. But it won't service the whole city, not even close to it. We also need to desperately fix buses.

Just a reminder, even in London, with the fantastic, 150 year old, London Unerground, more people are carried every day by London Bus, then the underground.

Both BusConnects and Metrolink need to be done at the same time.

Art(h)ur

Two days on, let’s try to assess the impact of what is proposed with a cool head, for a change.

bk wrote: »

This will only directly effect 1,300 homes out of 450,000 or so homes in Dublin!

0.3% of Dubliners may potentially have parts of front gardens impacted, the main document (here) mentions 'parts' many times and not once the prospect of CPOing the entire front gardens. So a situation when the whole front garden is replaced by a bus lane right by somebody's windows seems unlikely to happen at all or – in the worst case scenario – in a handful of cases (tens, not hundreds or thousands) and all of these will receive adequate financial compensation.

On top of that, majority of these front gardens are actually driveways and a look outside the window when going through any of the proposed corridors will confirm this. These allegedly highly valued buffers from the very busy roads that give privacy and noise protection have been covered with tarmac years ago and simply no longer exist in many cases. Which makes the danger of anybody’s front garden (NOT the front driveway) being replaced with a bus lane as part of this scheme extremely unlikely. I actually think it’s unfortunate that the phrase ‘front gardens’ is used so much in the official documentation when they are hardly there on the roads in question.

And the outer lane will typically be a dedicated cycle lane, followed by the bus lane further away from houses (target road layout) – another reason why a bus lane right by someone’s window is not part of this scheme. From this perspective, the "front garden issue" is so minor it's not even worth the 350 odd posts in this thread or heated comments by the media, politicians etc.

So what's likely to happen to 1,300 affected homes is a reduction (NOT a complete elimination) of a driveway meaning no more than having to put your wheelie bins next to your parked car rather than in front of it and everyone impacted will be financially compensated for the inconvenience. In rare cases of reduced driveway resulting in a loss of a parking space “we will seek to provide, where feasible, alternative parking close by for residents and businesses”, in addition to financial compensation.

With this in mind, it’s much easier to deal with other issues:

- Noise: a reduction of the front driveway (or garden) will most likely make a negligible difference, comparable to Dublin Bus putting more buses on those roads, e.g. increasing from 200 to 220 per day and no change to the road layout. When these things happen in real life (and they do), people are not up in arms for a simple reason – the difference in noise levels is negligible.
- Property values: with only part of the driveway removed, I cannot see material impact on property value. By they way, I fully agree with this:

Dravokivich wrote: »

The perceived value doesn't make much difference to most people day to day.

Can we please learn from the past and avoid the Celtic Tiger style obsession about property values?

- Who will benefit: anyone using any of these corridors and, as they cover the city quite comprehensively, this means everybody in Dublin. This includes both those living somewhere along these corridors (commuting e.g. for 20 minutes each way instead of 40 minutes each way every day) and those living outside of the M50 (half an hour instead of an hour). The "us v them" approach is not justified here:

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Why exactly do you think some stranger who just happens to live along your route to college should be concerned about your commute times? Or should be happy enough to have a road running through their front garden so you can get an extra half hour in bed or a bowl of cornflakes in the morning?

PS: Thanks for changing the thread name, incidentally IT themselves seem to be in two minds, trying to balance the very negative articles with a supportive piece here.

Dyr

dfx- wrote: »

This thread inside two days is why BusConnects is doomed to fail. It's getting involved in far too much stuff, weighted down with progressively more filler and baggage.

Property rights, cyclists, CPOs, random Dutch cities to name a few. Probably London model will be referenced, an expert's website and how some provincial town in Poland does it too soon.

Fix the bus network for bus passengers, you don't need to redraw the city.

If you've ever heard a first year Trotsky student telling you why communism is going to work this time, then you'll have an idea of what fuels the claims here that once every footpath is narrowed and garden and parking space is CPO'd then the bus service will be of such quality that you won't need your car. I remember hearing the same when the bus lanes were first put in

Utopianism pure and simple.

monument

dfx- wrote: »

This thread inside two days is why BusConnects is doomed to fail. It's getting involved in far too much stuff, weighted down with progressively more filler and baggage.

Property rights, cyclists, CPOs, random Dutch cities to name a few. Probably London model will be referenced, an expert's website and how some provincial town in Poland does it too soon.

Fix the bus network for bus passengers, you don't need to redraw the city.

Strangely* enough, property rights and CPOs comes up as an issue nearly every time CPOs are planned to be used, and cyclists, for good or bad, tent to be discussed when an authority is planning to build 200kms of cycle routes as part of a bus project. (* = not strange at all)

And the project is actually more likely to be doomed to fail if the NTA continue the attitude they have shown to date, which seems somewhat the same shown in your post.

You say it's "getting involved in far too much stuff" -- what do you think happens when you propose to change 230kms of streets and roads, and bring that to planning in one go?

The 230kms are not just blank roads -- they are streets where people live, they are parts of communities, and parts are urban villages or inner city areas.

Look at the details of the different routes -- there isn't just front gardens to be CPOed, there's a good few bus gates planned in different places (and strangely not used in other places). If anything will down this, it's the size of it.

Bambi wrote: »

If you've ever heard a first year Trotsky student telling you why communism is going to work this time, then you'll have an idea of what fuels the claims here that once every footpath is narrowed and garden and parking space is CPO'd then the bus service will be of such quality that you won't need your car. I remember hearing the same when the bus lanes were first put in

Utopianism pure and simple.

The original programme of bus lanes were highly compromised (water-downed with time plates etc) and never finished, some parts just finished a year or two ago, and more to go.

dfx-

monument wrote: »

Strangely* enough, property rights and CPOs comes up as an issue nearly every time CPOs are planned to be used, and cyclists, for good or bad, tent to be discussed when an authority is planning to build 200kms of cycle routes as part of a bus project. (* = not strange at all)

And the project is actually more likely to be doomed to fail if the NTA continue the attitude they have shown to date, which seems somewhat the same shown in your post.

You say it's "getting involved in far too much stuff" -- what do you think happens when you propose to change 230kms of streets and roads, and bring that to planning in one go?

The 230kms are not just blank roads -- they are streets where people live, they are parts of communities, and parts are urban villages or inner city areas.

Look at the details of the different routes -- there isn't just front gardens to be CPOed, there's a good few bus gates planned in different places (and strangely not used in other places). If anything will down this, it's the size of it.

Why is it getting involved in CPOs, changing 230kms of streets and creating 200kms of cycle lanes either all in one go or in 1 million parts?

No reason whatsoever for it to be doing that. It shows a lack of focus and concentration and discipline to deal with the bus network. You don't need to redraw the city to improve the current network.

It's the filler which become distractions and delays and ultimately consigns it to the bin.

Dyr

monument wrote: »

The original programme of bus lanes were highly compromised (water-downed with time plates etc) and never finished, some parts just finished a year or two ago, and more to go.

Like I said, you hear the same argument from first year politics students, communism just wasn't done right...yet

A fraction of the money spent on the proposed CPO's alone would buy you a system and staff that could enforce the law on every bus lane and junction, make sure that cyclists and drivers actually obey the rules of the road and the system work's as it should

We're not doing that though, ever wonder why?

mortimer33

Bambi wrote: »

A fraction of the money spent on the proposed CPO's alone would buy you a system and staff that could enforce the law on every bus lane and junction, make sure that cyclists and drivers actually obey the rules of the road and the system work's as it should

Enforcement will help in certain scenarios but you obviously will need to have the bus lanes to enforce first...i regularly take a bus on one of the proposed radial routes that has several points at which bus lanes merge and combine with car lanes. The merging easily adds 20 minutes onto my commute on a good day. On wet school days its a nightmare. I can't see what the big problem with continuous bus lanes is..

Dyr

mortimer33 wrote: »

Enforcement will help in certain scenarios but you obviously will need to have the bus lanes to enforce first...i regularly take a bus on one of the proposed radial routes that has several points at which bus lanes merge and combine with car lanes. The merging easily adds 20 minutes onto my commute on a good day. On wet school days its a nightmare. I can't see what the big problem with continuous bus lanes is..

I've timed bus runs at various times of the day over the course of a year, the biggest hold up factor across the board is the loading times. Could be fixed fairly easily.

The problem is when you're taking over the spaces humans use for their daily lives to provide a commuting (not transport) solutions then the cart is literally before the horse. We have a brutal track record with buses in this city and the problem isn't just that we haven't committed enough resource to the concept, the problem is the deeply dysfunctional organizations running the show.

When they're ignoring problems that could be fixed relatively easily and bring big returns so they can focus on massive infrastructural change instead it tells you something about their motivation, it's not the greater good of the citizenry.

AlmightyCushion

Bambi wrote: »

I've timed bus runs at various times of the day over the course of a year, the biggest hold up factor across the board is the loading times. Could be fixed fairly easily.

The problem is when you're taking over the spaces humans use for their daily lives to provide a commuting (not transport) solutions then the cart is literally before the horse. We have a brutal track record with buses in this city and the problem isn't just that we haven't committed enough resource to the concept, the problem is the deeply dysfunctional organizations running the show.

When they're ignoring problems that could be fixed relatively easily and bring big returns so they can focus on massive infrastructural change instead it tells you something about their motivation, it's not the greater good of the citizenry.

They are looking at speeding up loading times as well. It's on the BusConnects site:

The second biggest source of bus delays, after traffic congestion, is the payment process at bus stops. Payment of fares by cash is still commonplace, slowing down the boarding time. Even when using the Leap Card, the complexity of payment stages means a high percentage of passengers have to interact with the driver, with resultant delays at bus stops. At busy bus stops these delays can be for several minutes. Multiply by the number of busy stops on a route, and those delays accumulate to add significantly to the overall journey time.

Under BusConnects we will simplify and streamline the process of paying for bus journeys. We want to make the fare system simpler, and we also want to make movement between different bus services seamless and easy, without financial penalty. This will require a move to either a “tag-on” and “tag-off” facility, similar to Luas and DART, or a single “flat fare” approach in order to reduce the need to interact with the driver for fare payments.

As part of this process, cashless operation will be introduced on all buses, to remove the delays caused by cash payments. Currently over 70% of fare payments are made by Leap card. As this increases over the next couple of years, the transition to a cashless regime will become easier. BusConnects will incorporate the latest developments in account-based ticketing technology, potentially allowing use of credit / debit cards or mobile devices as a convenient means of payment. This will also allow integration with other transport payments such as parking facilities and bicycle hire.

Markcheese

You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.... There is gonna be disruption and change when anything gets built, and everyone near any change is gonna claim its the end of the world... Same people won't be rushing to complain if their property value goes up, because of better and more reliable transport links..or when they use the motorways (all built with CPOs),
Build it quick, get the buses moving ASAP...

Dyr

Markcheese wrote: »

You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.... There is gonna be disruption and change when anything gets built, and everyone near any change is gonna claim its the end of the world... Same people won't be rushing to complain if their property value goes up, because of better and more reliable transport links..or when they use the motorways (all built with CPOs),
Build it quick, get the buses moving ASAP...

I don't trust people who've shown that they can't boil an egg to make an omelette

if you want the buses moving ASAP there is a half dozen things that could be done that won't entail waiting for half the city to be torn up and rebuilt.

Let them implement those things successfully and they might have the credibility to undertake more drastic actions

Or we might find the drastic steps are not needed after all