Dublin Bus and the City Centre...

Archytas

Recently I did a wee bit of travelling and as I was working in the three cities I used public transport to move about....

And I noticed something... Dublin is the only city that allows buses to start their journey from the city centre. This practice means that buses(especially westmorland, Eden Quay, etc.) sit by the side of the road/block the bus lane until its their time to leave. This is especially frustrating around the city council buildings and outside usit(78A,79,66,91 etc....)

In Toronto... all the bus start outside the city and go through it, same in syndey. In fairness though Toronto has one of the best public transport systems in the world. The offending bus should have to start elsewhere and move through picking up and leaving the bus stop instead of sitting there for ages.... I've noticed some people around this forum talking about better placement of bus lanes... surely bus stops are as important?

Comments?

gibo_ie

definately agree with you, espically the stops they have put on the now two lane northbound o'connell st outside pennys/GPO.

A thought i had was to have a proper terminus in the city center. CIE (overall owners of Dublin Bus in a way) have a site on Abbey st/Strand St, it is beside the Jervis street LUAS stop. They recently resurfaced it as a type of car park but nothing as done with it in the last few weeks. My thought is that they could use it as a main terminus and passengers could easily change for LUAS right here, they have an entrance on both Abbey street and Strand Street and have easy access to the quays and city north from here with some minor changes (e.g. allow buses to drive down the LUAS track on Abbey st to O'Connell st -- it is surfaced)

Justa a thought but then again i dont think dublin Bus are interested as they have a lot of prime space and i dont think they really care about accidents that happen a la Wood Quay or something would have been done long ago...

Victor

gibo_ie wrote:

Justa a thought but then again i dont think dublin Bus are interested as they have a lot of prime space and i dont think they really care about accidents that happen a la Wood Quay or something would have been done long ago...

Possibly an unfair comment.

Wellington Quay had been identifeid as an issue and albeit late the terminii were moved from there. Several other terminii have been moved out of the places thery were, e.g. 7, 46A, northside busses starting in Leeson Street / St. Stephen's Green.

Flukey

There has certainly been improvements in recent years. There are some, but there should be some more cross city buses and more of the ones that don't enter the city at all. It is still often the case of having to go through C in order to get from A to B when B is not far from A in the first place and C, usually being the city centre or towards it, is a bit of a journey.

D'Peoples Voice

I believe one of the reasons for buses terminating and commencing their journeys from the city is Dublin's traffic.
If buses are parked on the quays, then there is a high probability that if they say 1800hrs on the timetable, that is the time they will leave the quays.
However if the bus is going across the city, it has to come from a part of the city that could be a far distance out, in which case Dublin bus cannot say with any degree of certainty what time the bus will reach the quays, because of traffic.
As most of their custom would be around the O'connell st/quays/stephens green, think of the hassle they would have if Dublin Bus said they don't know what time the bus will be reaching these bus stops at. I think this is why they even leave a few mins gap between a bus arriving at the quays and when it departs again, this buffer can be used up if traffic is heavy.
This is where a bus really suffers against a train, with the train you can almost predict to the nearest 5 mins what time the train will reach a particular station, with a bus in Dublin city, it's more like 15 mins minimum.
One costly solution could be for the government to buy out Tara house on tara Street used by iarnrod Eireann I think, in addition to the Dept of Social Family and community affairs office on Tara Street, in addition to the Dept of Health office in Poolbeg Street, demolish these buildings and create one massive bus depot in the area. Because of it's close proximity to Tara Street Dart station, it could be a bit ore integrated than the way it is at the minute.
Even the old Irish times building on D'olier Street.
Create our own Central station! to rival that of the great and magnificent Busaras

MorningStar

Of course the fact they sold off the property they owned in the city centre might have something to do with it. Didn't they have a large bus terminal building in temple bar that is now Thunder Road Cafe. They don't use the one around the back of Jervis Street shopping centre that much either.
I have a bigger issue with the fact most buses go into town. I only know of one bus that travels north to south side.

RuggieBear

MorningStar wrote:

I only know of one bus that travels north to south side.

which one?

John R

There was a plan to build a large bus station in temple bar but that was stopped by the Haughey government.

Apart from the various bus garages the only significant piece of land in the city centre owned by CIE is the previously mentioned Strand St. site. Up until a few years ago it was well used as off street parking for buses between their duties. Then it was taken over by the Luas project as a construction base.
AFAIK there are plans by CIE to develop it commercially with the ground area as a bus interchange.

edanto

RuggieBear wrote:

which one?

Not sure if it's the one he's thinking of, but the 3 defnitely goes from santry to sandymount. And it's impossible to depend on to travel from the city to ringsend/sandymount - for the reasons D'Peoples Voice pointed out. Luckily, they brought in a new route, the number 2 that goes from the city to sandymount and back.

This route is particularly bad for buses catching up with each other. In Ringsend, it's impossible to depend on the buses in the morning. Often, there is none for half an hour and then three go by in two minutes. If a bus catches up on the one before, couldn't the people be asked to move bus, have the driver wait 5/10 minutes and then continue? It might take a few minutes to empty the bus, but do you guys think something like that would improve the service or make it worse? [course, I can see problems in the rain and with people just jumping on 'oh I had a ticket and I lost it' - but I still think it'd work]

And then, the problem of trying to get from A to B via the city centre, as Flukey pointed out. What about a new route? Dublin City Council went to some trouble to establish the pink/blue priority routes around the city. Dublin Bus could put buses on these routes (several pink and blue buses travelling clockwise and counter - anybody been to Perth?) to help people travel AROUND the city. Think that would be any use? Would there be enough people to make it worthwhile?

Seperately, if we come up with good ideas here, how do we tell them to Dublin Bus? (I tried the web suggestion form, no real response yet, don't think they like my ideas :-o )

e

Ernest

There are several cross-city bus routes such as the 10, the 16, the 19 and the strange 129 which goes from Leeson St to Baldoyle just ONCE every evening!
But the writer is right - why do not more of them cross the city instead of clogging up the quays parked. And what moron in Dublin Bus moved the bus route that had the accident a while back ( goes to Lucan I think ) way down the quays to the City Council Offices!!!! Could it be more inconvenient for passengers?? Why don't buses start next on Georges Quay next to Tara Street DART - that might represent a move towards integrating the two systems. Not to mention Pearse Station - why do no buses go from that station to anywhere except DunLaoghaire.?

dmeehan

Ernest wrote:

the strange 129 which goes from Leeson St to Baldoyle just ONCE every evening!

http://www.dublinbus.ie/your_journey/viewer.asp?route=129

what a waste of a bus route

A Dub in Glasgo

It is true that buses clog up the streets and quays waiting for the timetable.

In Glasgow, all city centre start/terminate buses will go to Buchanan Bus Station which is in the city centre.

It is unfortunate that the government of the day sold off the land to build a bus station in the city centre.

D'Peoples Voice

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

It is unfortunate that the government of the day sold off the land to build a bus station in the city centre.

I'm probably wrong here, but I don't think the land in Fleet street was big enough, I thought that was only used as a terminus by buses operating out of the Conningham road garage.
The advantage of having the one central terminus as opposed to several bus terminus (is that termini?) is that you can hop off one bus and onto a connecting bus quite efficently. When this is seemless, like in many underground stations like in Manhatten, people don't mind THAT much having to change. It's not essential to have buses crossing the city. The problem is having to get off at a bus terminus in Poolbeg street and then walk up to the halfpenny bridge to get a connecting bus at a another Terminus (or whatever you call the place a bus commences a journey, terminus probably only refers to where a bus finishes or "terminates" the journey)!
I just think that it's odd the government can CPO a building to build a road through it, they can spend millions on Iveagh house in the Pheonix park for prestige, they can spend millions on new offices for decentralisation, but they can't find the money for a central bus terminus.
The crux of the matter is, the terminus does not have to store all the buses at night, there are bus garages in the surburbs for that, what we want is a central terminus, where people can stand inside a building, while all the buses can pull up outside. that's why I suggested POSSIBLY the irish times/ Manchester united store/EBS between Westmoreland street and D'olier street, because it's effectively an island with a major northbound road like westmoreland street on one side, and a major southbound road like D'olier on the other side.
The bus terminus could be the ground floor of the building (and you could have offices from the second floor up).

GerardKeating

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

I'm probably wrong here, but I don't think the land in Fleet street was big enough, I thought that was only used as a terminus by buses operating out of the Conningham road garage..

They had a lot more than that, at one stage Dublin Bus had bought most of the Quay's on both sides from the ha'penny bridge to just show of O'Connell.

Being partially socially responscible, the rented out most of the buildings they acquired rather than board them up like normally developers.

These cheaply rented buildings became weird ethnic resturants, art galleries.

So eventually, when the had eneough land, the put in the plans for the central bus station and proposed to redevelop the land they had acquired and suddenly the found public opposition to destroying our new artistic quarter.

So most of the site of the Central Bus station became Temple Bar.

Victor

Ernest wrote:

the strange 129 which goes from Leeson St to Baldoyle just ONCE every evening!

The 129 is merely a 29 that starts before the usual terminus, meaning the bus can facilitate office workers going northside from Leeson Street, whether as a dircet service or for changing to other services.

Ernest wrote:

And what moron in Dublin Bus moved the bus route that had the accident a while back ( goes to Lucan I think ) way down the quays to the City Council Offices!!!! Could it be more inconvenient for passengers??

It was the simplest and most pragmatic solution at the time.

Why don't buses start next on Georges Quay next to Tara Street DART - that might represent a move towards integrating the two systems.

Not to mention Pearse Station - why do no buses go from that station to anywhere except DunLaoghaire.?

2, 3, 44/C, 48A? Some 27X | 49X | 50X | 77X |

Dún Laoghaire busses specificly don't stop at Pearse Station, not since the DART opened AFAIK.

Ernest

The 129 bus has no connection whatsoever with the 29 bus. They go different routes entirely - one up the Malahide Rd the other up the Howth Rd.
Being about the only cross-town route from the North-East suburbs - apart from the once a day 32X from Portmarnock to Belfield - the 129 would be a very useful route if it ran other than once in the evening and once in the morning.

John R

Ernest wrote:

There are several cross-city bus routes such as the 10, the 16, the 19 and the strange 129 which goes from Leeson St to Baldoyle just ONCE every evening!

and the 3, 11/a/b 13/a 16a, 19a, 83, 121, 122, 123. All frequent cross city routes.

Ernest wrote:

But the writer is right - why do not more of them cross the city instead of clogging up the quays parked.

Because it is not practical for long routes. The distance and more importantly the journey times between termini would be too long to regulate any reasonable sort of headways and is also a problem for crew rostering.

Ernest wrote:

And what moron in Dublin Bus moved the bus route that had the accident a while back ( goes to Lucan I think ) way down the quays to the City Council Offices!!!! Could it be more inconvenient for passengers??

I guess it would be the moron who thought not using a terminus where a bunch of people were killed in a questionable accident was not a good idea. As it happens that location was just temporary and those routes were changed to terminate at Pearse St over six months ago.

Ernest wrote:

Why don't buses start next on Georges Quay next to Tara Street DART - that might represent a move towards integrating the two systems. Not to mention Pearse Station - why do no buses go from that station to anywhere except DunLaoghaire.?

In fact there are no buses to DunLaoghaire that go past Pearse Station although buses from DunLaoghaire stop outside it.

Other buses that go by Pearse Station: 3 cross city to Drumcondra/Whitehall.
44/44c to Ranelagh-Milltown-Dundrum-Sandyford-Ballyogan-Enniskerry and
48a to Dundrum-Ballinteer.
13/13a to Drumcondra, Phibsboro, Glasnevin, DCU and Ballymun.

Victor

Ernest wrote:

The 129 bus has no connection whatsoever with the 29 bus. They go different routes entirely - one up the Malahide Rd the other up the Howth Rd.

But the 29A (theres no 29 ), 129 and 29N end up in the same general direction and do overlap on some roads.

In any case I was actually confusing it with the similar 127

dowlingm

Archytas, apart from express buses very few buses go downtown here in Toronto because they would get in the way of the light rail or be duplicating the subway. Instead buses run to-from subway stops which in turn take people downtown.

However, here bus, metro and light rail are co-ordinated rather than Dublin, where DB which competes with CIE-owned DART never mind LUAS!

Once again, why Dublin needs a Transit Authority.

Archytas

ahhh.. the TTA.... The nicest people in the whole world... And I mean that... I used to get the night buses in TO and had such a laugh with the drivers. Oh and yeah the rockets going east-west, buses mostly going north south and the subway around the centre... Transfer heaven!!!!!!!!

Seriously.. I dunno when they planned it but its beautiful... A transport system to be proud of!

Archytas

dowlingm wrote:

Once again, why Dublin needs a Transit Authority.

oh and I think CIE where supposed to be it...