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BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

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    #4052
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    marno21 wrote: »
    BusConnects is finished by the looks of things

    Dermot O'Leary on a lengthy rant on Morning Ireland this morning about "unravelling a functioning bus network"

    The NTA are guilty here of making no attempt whatsoever to counter any of this hysteria

    That's untrue. The NTA and Walker have been active on twitter, TV, radio and print


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    #4053
    tom1ie
    Registered Users Posts: 10,185 ✭✭✭✭tom1ie


    LeinsterDub wrote: »
    That's untrue. The NTA and Walker have been active on twitter, TV, radio and print

    True, but it was far too late and the momentum was with the nimbys before we started seeing the adds on the bus shelters and in the papers.
    Nta should have been hammering home how much of a watershed moment this would have been for Dublin, from day one.


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    #4054
    sharper
    Registered Users Posts: 1,216 ✭✭✭sharper


    Qrt wrote: »
    ...was the plan not always to release a second draft in the new year? I don't know why everyone is hysterical about it being cancelled.

    If I recall correctly the plan was to be implemented late in 2019 so it looks like this has slipped anywhere from a few months to a year.

    I dread to think what my commute will be like this time next year without any improvements.


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    #4055
    MJohnston
    Registered Users Posts: 10,561 ✭✭✭✭MJohnston


    It'd be impossible to counter what the NBRU were at anyway, unless you also stoop to their level and start telling lies about them too. They just made up whatever made people angry and got them to cut their own noses off.

    Couple that with a completely necrotic national media that relies on opinion pieces by politicians and vested interests rather than actual experts.

    The best I can say about this whole thing is that it has at least provided some covering fire for Metrolink.


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    #4056
    Qrt
    Registered Users Posts: 1,636 ✭✭✭Qrt


    sharper wrote: »
    If I recall correctly the plan was to be implemented late in 2019 so it looks like this has slipped anywhere from a few months to a year.

    I dread to think what my commute will be like this time next year without any improvements.

    Thankfully I live on the Luas line, albeit far out. Luas is great for reliability but it's still shockingly slow, and to top it all off, I live 15 mins walk away. I genuinely can't imagine what a bus commute is like in this city. The 27 from Jobstown takes a solid hour off peak, I dread to think how long it takes peak.


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    #4057
    sharper
    Registered Users Posts: 1,216 ✭✭✭sharper


    naughtb4 wrote: »
    Where else has a similar system been implemented in a city similar to Dublin (size, not a grid layout, no metro or widespread rail)? I know it has been mentioned before but cannot find it

    Found Wellington have made a change to a similar system and feedback seems very negative

    He redesigned the Houston bus network back in 2015, aspects of the media coverage might sound familiar

    https://humantransit.org/2015/08/houston-welcome-to-your-new-network.html
    No, not everyone is happy. Yesterday's Houston Chronicle article led with a photo essay about an unhappy-looking man whose stop is disappearing. You'd think we'd abandoned him, but in fact his vanishing stop is three blocks from a new light rail station, and within blocks of high-frequency transit in all directions. As often in ridership-increasing redesigns, he'll have to walk further to better service that will take him many places faster.

    Once implemented it was generally well received and thought to be a success

    https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2016/08/houston-bus-system-ridership/496313/
    Now, one year out, Houston’s big bus overhaul is on its way to success by the measure it hoped to achieve. Leah Binkovitz at the Kinder Institute for Urban Research reports that Metro saw ridership on its local bus and light-rail systems showed a gain of 4.5 million boardings between September 2015 and July 2016—an increase of 6.8 percent.


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    #4058
    Peregrine
    Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 26,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭Peregrine


    "It's **** so they'd better not try to fix in case they get it wrong"

    This is one complaint from the last two months that I will never understand.


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    #4059
    sharper
    Registered Users Posts: 1,216 ✭✭✭sharper


    Qrt wrote: »
    Thankfully I live on the Luas line, albeit far out. Luas is great for reliability but it's still shockingly slow, and to top it all off, I live 15 mins walk away. I genuinely can't imagine what a bus commute is like in this city. The 27 from Jobstown takes a solid hour off peak, I dread to think how long it takes peak.

    Currently the worst part isn't even the commute length, it's waiting at a stop and watching full bus after full bus drive past. Nothing in the real time info or reliability statistics covers this so it's hard to quantify and you can't even guess at a good time to catch a particular bus.

    Transit through the city centre and quays is painful. If there were enough busses along the route it would likely be faster to get off walk, walk a couple of km and catch another bus further on down.

    Some of these issues can be improved in the current system via infrastructure but we all know what'll happen to that when the interests aligned with protecting private car use wake up and oppose it.


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    #4060
    PhoenixParker
    Registered Users Posts: 2,671 ✭✭✭PhoenixParker


    sharper wrote: »
    He redesigned the Houston bus network back in 2015, aspects of the media coverage might sound familiar

    https://humantransit.org/2015/08/houston-welcome-to-your-new-network.html



    Once implemented it was generally well received and thought to be a success

    https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2016/08/houston-bus-system-ridership/496313/

    This tends to be the experience with research led behavioural change.
    Massive, incredible negativity. Followed by success and widespread support.

    See the smoking ban and plastic bag levy for simple examples.
    This is more complicated to get right but it's the best chance we've got. The current route network is ridiculous.


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    #4061
    ThunbergsAreGo
    Registered Users Posts: 10,399 ✭✭✭✭ThunbergsAreGo


    sharper wrote: »
    He redesigned the Houston bus network back in 2015, aspects of the media coverage might sound familiar

    https://humantransit.org/2015/08/houston-welcome-to-your-new-network.html



    Once implemented it was generally well received and thought to be a success

    https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2016/08/houston-bus-system-ridership/496313/

    That would be American style grid though

    Interesting there that bus use barely increased and light rail was the big winner


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    #4062
    sharper
    Registered Users Posts: 1,216 ✭✭✭sharper


    naughtb4 wrote: »
    That would be American style grid though

    I've seen the importance of grid layout mentioned by a few but none as yet have really explained why. You'll have to explain it to me because I just don't get it.

    Many existing routes have pressure on them at various points to alter so they divert into a new or expanding estates and service the populations there. I don't see how this is sustainable without sacrificing journey time, frequency and reliability. Creating high frequency spines and then feeding from different routes that traverse those estates makes perfect sense to me as a sustainable and scalable solution to the problem.

    You cannot have a network the size of the greater Dublin area, have almost every bus traverse the city centre and have all those routes wind their way through every estate.

    You can also take a look at this recent thread for an example journey that's near impossible under the current network but well handled under bus connects https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=108181306


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    #4063
    hmmm
    Registered Users Posts: 11,205 ✭✭✭✭hmmm


    Break the implementation of this plan into parts, demonstrate it works in one part and extend it to the rest of the city. Maybe I'm being naive, but this seems like an obvious solution to get us across the line. Yes it will take longer, but if it's a choice between a slower implementation or not doing it at all I know which one I'd prefer.

    Right now there is more than enough political will to kill this plan. The last thing FG TDs will want is this all kicking off as they are facing into a potential election.


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    #4064
    hmmm
    Registered Users Posts: 11,205 ✭✭✭✭hmmm


    sharper wrote: »
    You cannot have a network the size of the greater Dublin area, have almost every bus traverse the city centre and have all those routes wind their way through every estate.
    You can if the users of the service who don't value their own time, but value being able to get on a direct service, are the ones who vote and turn up at the public meetings.


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    #4065
    ThunbergsAreGo
    Registered Users Posts: 10,399 ✭✭✭✭ThunbergsAreGo


    sharper wrote: »
    I've seen the importance of grid layout mentioned by a few but none as yet have really explained why. You'll have to explain it to me because I just don't get it.

    I was just looking for a non American example where a city hadn't been planned into grids, and therefore previous routes would be more akin to ours.

    Looking at the before map for Houston it looked really under served from a coverage perspective


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    #4066
    sharper
    Registered Users Posts: 1,216 ✭✭✭sharper


    hmmm wrote: »
    Break the implementation of this plan into parts, demonstrate it works in one part and extend it to the rest of the city. Maybe I'm being naive, but this seems like an obvious solution to get us across the line. Yes it will take longer, but if it's a choice between a slower implementation or not doing it at all I know which one I'd prefer. .

    That sounds logical but the NTA are essentially saying then they're not really sure if this will work or not and some passengers deserve to have their existing service protected while some other set of passengers can be unwilling guinea pigs.

    Imagine the headlines then.

    The only way that would work is if you were building out the network into a totally new area but that's not going to happen on the scale needed to conclusively demonstrate it'll work. Anyway people would say "Sure it works for them but it'll never work in this part of the city"


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    #4067
    MJohnston
    Registered Users Posts: 10,561 ✭✭✭✭MJohnston


    The grid layout isn't that important by itself, what it adds that is super important though is permeability. This means that main arterial routes are easily accessible from sub-routes off of them, and that you can pass through a sub-route towards another arterial route.

    Pedestrian cul-de-sacs are the enemy of permeability, and they make it much more difficult to plan out a comprehensive yet efficient network. Basically because you have to deal with the fact that people might live in a house that has an arterial route passing 2 metres away from the back garden, but unfortunately someone build the estate wall that way, so that house has to walk 15 minutes in the wrong direction to get back to that route. In that regard, grid cities fare better, but only downtown areas tend to benefit from that - American suburbia seems to mostly have less permeability than Dublin suburbs, on average.


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    #4068
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users Posts: 34,351 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    _Kaiser_ wrote: »
    Heard the plan has been put back for rework until the new year on the radio this evening.

    They sought submissions so unless they were just going to ignore them, the plan was always going to have to be reworked. The volume of submissions received, and given it's now almost October, means that a revised plan can't be ready until the new year.
    _Kaiser_ wrote: »
    It was never going to be accepted. Too much too quickly.

    A deeply dysfunctional network isn't going to be fixed any time soon by incremental change. But somehow dissatisfaction with the status quo morphed into an argument to retain it.

    Fingal County Council are certainly not competent to be making decisions about the most important piece of infrastructure on the island. They need to stick to badly designed cycle lanes and deciding on whether Mrs Murphy can have her kitchen extension.



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    #4069
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users Posts: 34,351 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Victor wrote: »
    Comments submitted! 39 pages long.

    I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours :)

    Fingal County Council are certainly not competent to be making decisions about the most important piece of infrastructure on the island. They need to stick to badly designed cycle lanes and deciding on whether Mrs Murphy can have her kitchen extension.



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    #4070
    Stephen15
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,907 ✭✭✭Stephen15


    The infrastructure plans will be an even tougher sell than route plans. It fall on a group of politically active middle class who will be the first to get onto their local FG or FF TD. Their concerns about CPOs and traffic will be far more likely to be heard than someone living in an working class estate who's unhappy about loosing their direct CC service. I think we can all agree that the proposed route network won't work unless the proper infrastructure is in place.

    To say bus connects won't happen is wrong because elements of it are already happening there are new stops being installed at present new route information and maps. There are already a set of new timetables which offer an improved frequency on a number of routes in South County Dublin which will start next week when Go-Ahead take them over.

    By January we will a large increase in Dublin city bus fleet meaning buses can run more frequently as 125 additional buses will be in service.


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    #4071
    Victor
    Registered Users Posts: 78,333 ✭✭✭✭Victor


    Hotblack Desiato wrote: »
    I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours :)

    Gwan then


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    #4072
    RayCun
    Registered Users Posts: 15,704 ✭✭✭✭RayCun


    A few extra buses won't make much difference if they are stuck in traffic for most of their journey.


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    #4073
    Chris_5339762
    Registered Users Posts: 5,864 ✭✭✭Chris_5339762


    MJohnston wrote: »
    The grid layout isn't that important by itself, what it adds that is super important though is permeability. This means that main arterial routes are easily accessible from sub-routes off of them, and that you can pass through a sub-route towards another arterial route.

    Pedestrian cul-de-sacs are the enemy of permeability, and they make it much more difficult to plan out a comprehensive yet efficient network. Basically because you have to deal with the fact that people might live in a house that has an arterial route passing 2 metres away from the back garden, but unfortunately someone build the estate wall that way, so that house has to walk 15 minutes in the wrong direction to get back to that route. In that regard, grid cities fare better, but only downtown areas tend to benefit from that - American suburbia seems to mostly have less permeability than Dublin suburbs, on average.


    The entire of Ireland has by far the absolute worst permeability of any country I've been in. Its awful. Go to the UK even and you see public footpaths everywhere that connect estates and roads.


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    #4074
    CatInABox
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 10,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭CatInABox


    An unusually balanced article in the Irish Times today, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop while reading it, but it does seem far more balanced to me.

    See here.

    Now that Jarrett Walker is coming back to Ireland, it'll be interesting to see how often he's out there on TV now, doing the NTAs job for them. He certainly hasn't been shy of a fight so far.


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    #4075
    OscarMIlde
    Registered Users Posts: 746 ✭✭✭OscarMIlde


    hmmm wrote: »
    You can if the users of the service who don't value their own time, but value being able to get on a direct service, are the ones who vote and turn up at the public meetings.

    In some cases loss of a direct bus is a loss of their own time. In the case of North Kildare(Leixlip/Celbridge/Maynooth)the vast majority of people have very long commutes and these travel times are now being extended by loss of expresso services. I welcome incresed connectivity between the three towns but not at the expense of an even longer commute.

    There is a arrogant presumption on here that those unhappy with the proposals are too ignorant to understand them. I read them and understand it. Off peak Leixlip and Maynooth have no real increase in service levels ( 25 mins versus now 30 mins for Maynooth, 12.5 mins versus 15 mins now for Leixlip) and some gains in travel time by bypassing Chapelizod, a simple move that should have been done years ago. Still buses are are being routed through Lucan village uneccessarily so not enough reduction in off peak times. Celbridge gain no reduction as they now travel through Leixlip, offsetting any gains made by bypassing Chapelizod.

    On top of that they have gutted the expresso system, which is already oversubscribed. They should have extended this service, giving nine or ten expresso buses to each town between half 6 and eight in the moring and made them properly direct by making them non stop to Liffey valley and Heuston and then normal stops thereafter. They should similarly have incresed frequency and duration of frequency in the evening, and made them all depart from the city centre rather than UCD. The UCD-Westmoreland street route is overly lone, often taking an hour, and passengers would be better served taking 46a/39a/145 to the city centre and catching the expresso buses there.

    I can only presume the north Kildare plan was generated by someone who has never spent 2 hours sitting on the so called express buses, no one with any sense would have thought people would agree with a longer than 4 hour a day commute for relatively short distances, This is in addition to the fact that no mention or planning for the 200,000 houses proposed for the Celbridge/Leixlip/Maynooth area within the next three years. In my opinion the bus connects bus was an insult to people like me (and there are many like me) forced to commute due to house prices. In the rush to entice fair weather bus users they have thrown the regular commuter under the non-existent bus.


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    #4076
    Qrt
    Registered Users Posts: 1,636 ✭✭✭Qrt


    Chris_5339762 wrote: »
    The entire of Ireland has by far the absolute worst permeability of any country I've been in. Its awful. Go to the UK even and you see public footpaths everywhere that connect estates and roads.

    +++++ this! Blanchardstown is horrendous, New Lucan is horrendous, some parts of Tallaght are bad but it's fairly limited thankfully. A little backstory, the estate of Swiftbrook is surrounded by walls and railings. A few years ago a car came off the roundabout and brought some of it down, leaving a gap. The residents used it to get to the bus and shop quicker, the council rebuilt it without consultation, and over the next couple of weeks, the wall was brought down again and the council installed kissing gates!

    Another anecdote re permeability. The whole Árd Mór estate runs along the Luas Line, but there's no way it accessing it from the estate...


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    #4077
    sharper
    Registered Users Posts: 1,216 ✭✭✭sharper


    OscarMIlde wrote: »
    I can only presume the north Kildare plan was generated by someone who has never spent 2 hours sitting on the so called express buses, no one with any sense would have thought people would agree with a longer than 4 hour a day commute for relatively short distances, This is in addition to the fact that no mention or planning for the 200,000 houses proposed for the Celbridge/Leixlip/Maynooth area within the next three years. In my opinion the bus connects bus was an insult to people like me (and there are many like me) forced to commute due to house prices. In the rush to entice fair weather bus users they have thrown the regular commuter under the non-existent bus.

    You're thinking of all this in relation to the existing infrastructure.

    Under the bus corridor section the current travel time for Lucan to city centre is listed as 50 minutes, reducing to 30-35 minutes under bus connects https://www.busconnects.ie/initiatives/core-bus-corridor-project/

    Peak journey times will definitely be a regressive step for many existing commuters under bus connects without infrastructure upgrades but the route changes themselves are not the only part of the plan. The connection between changing the routes (relatively free in so far as spending goes) and actually paying to build something (with all the legal battles and special interests that go with it) is certainly a worry but it's not being ignored either.

    I strongly suspect the primary assumption weakening the bus connects plan for Maynooth and Celbridge is the given assumption from the NTA that train capacity exists and should be used in preference to the bus. This is not going to improve without a major spend in upgrading the rail network which is needed but is even riskier than bus connects.


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    #4078
    ThunbergsAreGo
    Registered Users Posts: 10,399 ✭✭✭✭ThunbergsAreGo


    sharper wrote: »
    You're thinking of all this in relation to the existing infrastructure.

    I strongly suspect the primary assumption weakening the bus connects plan for Maynooth and Celbridge is the given assumption from the NTA that train capacity exists and should be used in preference to the bus. This is not going to improve without a major spend in upgrading the rail network which is needed but is even riskier than bus connects.

    This isn't limited to Maynooth Kildare, trains are at capacity, look at the 10 minute dart thread as an example. You are right though, on the Houston example bus usage increased by a negligible amount the real gains were in light rail. Existing couldn't cope with an increase of even 10 percent at peak

    Is there any reason the infrastructure changes couldnt be put in place first? I assume they would also benefit existing routes


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    #4079
    sharper
    Registered Users Posts: 1,216 ✭✭✭sharper


    naughtb4 wrote: »
    This isn't limited to Maynooth Kildare, trains are at capacity, look at the 10 minute dart thread as an example. You are right though, on the Houston example bus usage increased by a negligible amount the real gains were in light rail. Existing couldn't cope with an increase of even 10 percent at peak

    Is there any reason the infrastructure changes couldnt be put in place first? I assume they would also benefit existing routes

    The train network is a total disaster, I think making assumptions in relation to that in the bus connects plan is a mistake. If Dart underground was under construction sure fine but we'll be lucky to see that in our lifetimes.

    I'm certain at least some of the infrastructure can be done first, likely more than enough to keep everyone busy in the meantime. Historically the government has a strong preference for transport planning over transport implementation unfortunately.


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    #4080
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    tom1ie wrote: »
    True, but it was far too late and the momentum was with the nimbys before we started seeing the adds on the bus shelters and in the papers.
    Nta should have been hammering home how much of a watershed moment this would have been for Dublin, from day one.

    It's always easier to tear something down. The never never never brigade will oppose everything. There appears to be a sizable less focal majority if favour of this plan


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    #4081
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    hmmm wrote: »
    Break the implementation of this plan into parts, demonstrate it works in one part and extend it to the rest of the city. Maybe I'm being naive, but this seems like an obvious solution to get us across the line. Yes it will take longer, but if it's a choice between a slower implementation or not doing it at all I know which one I'd prefer.

    Right now there is more than enough political will to kill this plan. The last thing FG TDs will want is this all kicking off as they are facing into a potential election.

    The plan requires frequent buses everywhere for it to work you can't just do some of it.


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