Time for Dublin Bus to sell Donnybrook Depot?

Bray Head wrote: »

This could easily pay for a bigger and better depot further south along the N11, with plenty left over.

Where? Land along the N11 is among the most expensive in the country, any replacement site would also be very expensive to buy and they presumably can't go too far south for operational reasons.

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Cherrywood?

Already taken ...

http://www.cherrywooddublin.com/masterplan/

Does it not make more sense to have buses stored in a central location. Why move it out to the suburbs where the buses will get stuck in traffic getting to their starting location.

jvan wrote: »

Does it not make more sense to have buses stored in a central location. Why move it out to the suburbs where the buses will get stuck in traffic getting to their starting location.

Ringsend and Clontarf depots are fairly central as well.

More of a problem imo is that some busses don't use depots near their starting location since network direct came in.

I believe dublin bus should undertake a comprehensive view of the depots they use, determine their operational needs and disinvestment themselves of one or more of their central depots.

Mongfinder General wrote: »

I wouldn't put a kennel in Cherrywood.

Strange comment, whys that ?
Especially as they are putting in close to 4000 homes , a new town centre , several schools snd parks etc

+1

The sites are valuable financially and operationally. Rebuilding them elsewhere would be a waste of money. Partnering with a developer to build on top could be a great financial stream for the future.

I'd be less keen on selling any part of the sites though. Once sold, they might never be able to be repurchased which means no expansion in years to come.

Mongfinder General wrote: »

In Cherrywood, Clondalkin?

No it's in south Dublin

The problem is there a difference between storage functions of the depots and maintenance which I presume also goes on in these depots.

Perhaps you could rent a half dozen mini depots in schools gated car parks as overnight depots and have smaller depots for maintenance.

Bray Head wrote: »

Here are two potential locations for the depot:
Cherrywood: at end of Wyattville Link Road: 
Woodbrook: at end of link road to old Bray road: 

The Cherrywood location would be no worse for the 46A 145 routes. An added benefit might be getting rid of the Bray depot which has a value too.


The idea of constructing above the depot makes sense. Probably not apartments but I have seen office and retail space above bus terminals in some cities.

That cherrywood site is earmarked for development and would be wasted with a depot. It wouldn't solve a problem.

Bray Head wrote: »

My point is that Donnybrook (where land values are higher) is also wasted with a depot!

A Cherrywood location could help re-orient the network somewhat and provide better connectivity to the Green Luas.

DB will also have to serve the area too when the high-density development takes place in the next few years.

DB workers would also presumably appreciate the cheaper housing costs the further you get from the city centre.

They can link bus routes with the green line, don't see how having a couple of hundred out of service busses would help there.

What has house prices got to do with anything ? Dublin bus are residential property owners

jvan wrote: »

Does it not make more sense to have buses stored in a central location. Why move it out to the suburbs where the buses will get stuck in traffic getting to their starting location.

Starting location's /terminus are out in the suburbs, buses travel out to these from the city empty every morning so having a bus garage further out would be more efficient. Also DB own a rather large piece of land out at Grangecastle which was/is ment to be used to relocate some inner city bus garage's, no sign of this happening any day soon though.

couldnt they have a temporary depo on the rte land? Excavate a massive basement for bus garage and apartment parking, have the entrance to the underground right at the entrance to development or have a seperate entrance for the buses and other traffic?

Terminal is up for rent on a 10 year lease (shows zero expectation of every resuming services) at the moment actually.

Why do people keep coming with ideas like this based solely on the notion that selling assets simply to generate money is a good idea? Surely that lesson should be learnt from Spencer Dock?

First of all, I'd point out that buses start and finish their days at both ends of the routes, not just at the outer termini as people seem to think. Also, while most buses are used all day long, a significant number are only used during the morning and evening peaks to boost capacity, and these then return to the depot from the city centre to layover till they are required in the afternoon/evening in the city centre once again.

Therefore having garages at locations that allow easy access to both ends of the route is of strategic importance. Donnybrook is ideally located with two fast routes to/from the city centre to allow for buses to start/finish (Ballsbridge and N11), and is right beside the N11 allowing fast access to the southeast of the city.

Closing Donnybrook would mean most of the morning/evening peak extras having significant extra dead running to/from the depots, as would all of the last inbound buses from outer termini.

Donnybrook routes stretch as far north as DCU and Beaumont as well as the city centre, that's a long way for buses to have to go empty from somewhere like Cherrywood to start up.

I would strongly suggest that the amount of dead running necessary to operate the service would increase as a result of this idea.

Talk of drivers finding cheaper places to live is totally irrelevant - bus drivers in Donnybrook live all over the city - not in Donnybrook itself. Most of them drive to/from the depot and I imagine the sizeable number living northside wouldn't take too kindly to this idea.

Developing new routes is not dependent upon garage locations - they will be developed based on demand and bus and driver availability.

By all means a new depot to the west of the city at Grangecastle should be developed, but the depots near the city are also needed as the fleet continues to expand, and because they facilitate buses starting and finishing in the city centre.

But this notion that a strategically important asset such as Donnybrook Garage (and for that matter Broadstone Depot) should be sold simply because of a potential one-off monetary gain is fundamentally flawed.

And what is the point of having a poll with hidden results????

lxflyer wrote: »

Why do people keep coming with ideas like this based solely on the notion that selling assets simply to generate money is a good idea? Surely that lesson should be learnt from Spencer Dock?

How much did IE get for the sale of the land there? Seems like a massive amount of land which has been well developed, yet IE are broke.

Bray Head wrote: »

Like any wholly state-owned enterprise, DB should have a focus on getting value for the taxpayer. Donnybrook bus depot is just a depot. It is not a bus station, which clearly benefits from a city centre location.

You are of course right on the issue of dead running. But is the current configuration of depots optimal? DB serves a radius roughly 25km of the city centre. But three of its six depots are within the canals and two within the M50. More suburban depot locations might help with the provision of more orbital routes too.

This contradicts your point about dead running. If dead running is an issue then clearly the location of a depot does influence the routes on offer.

My point on cheaper housing has been misunderstood. The average cost of housing within a 30-minute drive of Cherrywood is appreciably cheaper than that within a similar distance of Donnybrook. Bus drivers are people, and people like cheap housing. Sure, it would not suit every bus driver currently employed, but a suburban location would in the long run attract more applicants at a given wage.

I am going to repeat myself here - Donnybrook depot serves a mass of routes that stretch across the city - as such it is a strategic location for operating a bus service efficiently as it facilitates access to both ends of the routes it operates relatively easily.

I am not disagreeing with about the premise of opening more depots in outer locations. That is a good idea in itself (and will happen if the orbital routes go to another operator as they will have to provide their own facilities), but with the city bus fleet expanding, and likely to continue to do so for some time, any such depots really should be additional ones, rather than replacing existing depots.

Regarding new routes, the NTA dictate what routes are on offer and what the service levels on those routes must be, rather than Dublin Bus or the operator. The individual operator's garage locations have nothing to do with that.

Bray Head wrote: »

I am not suggesting that DB needs some city centre storage facilities. I am just not convinced that it needs as many.
From what I can tell there is no incentive or disincentive for DB to use land efficiently, and that is a problem.
Aircoach could presumably look for a city centre storage location as it would be strategically located mid-way along its routes. It stores its coaches near the airport though. Presumably because rent is cheaper there than it is just off O'Connell St.
The contrast is that Aircoach faces hard financial constraints and DB doesn't.

All Aircoach routes start and finish at the Airport - it has no dead running to/from termini. That analogy isn't the same as a city bus operator.

And Donnybrook is not a city centre garage - it is in the south city beside a major arterial route and within a short distance of both ends of many of its routes. It would be one of the last of any of the existing locations that I would consider for closure due to its strategic location operationally.

With respect, I think that you are really just creating more problems than you would solve with this idea from an operational perspective. You need to understand the entire nature of how the city bus service works operationally to base decisions like this on, which, with respect, I don't think you do (and I wouldn't expect you to).

I'm pretty skeptical of this idea to be honest.

I would say Donnybrook has a purpose of remaining where it is now because it nearer to DCC.

If Dublin Bus or the NTA built the Cherrywood depot & put the 7 or 7a out there; the bus routes could possibly be required to only do dead runs to Brides Glen & Loughlinstown all the time instead of empty dead runs between Cherrywood & Mountjoy Square because of quicker start times. I don't know how a process like this from a new permanent depot built in Cherrywood could work in a useful way.

It probably never work at all if those routes are required to start & finish from their termini as they are working from Donnybrook.

In large cities in Europe I see major bus stations with depot and light maintenance functions.
When was the last time that a bus station was built in Dublin ?


Also, this carry-on of littering the streets with bus termini belongs to 60 years ago.
What other counties in Europe go on like this these days ?