BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

TheChrisD wrote: »

Well, what sort of alternative option did you suggest? Perhaps a combination of things such as taking the C2 from the barely-built sections of north Adamstown and instead running it past SuperValu and up into Lucan village to terminate instead; and adding a G3 to split off from the G2 along Thomas Omer and Adamstown Avenue into Adamstown itself. Then the C3/C4 could possibly be made to bypass Lucan village.

I think it should be totally fine for the C3/4 to go through Lucan, as the services they are replacing also do this.

It's the peak-only routes going there that seems pretty unnecessary - specifically 323 (from Maynooth), 324 (from Celbridge), 325, 326 (both from Leixlip). Lucan itself already has the 322, as well as the 321 serving the parts of Lucan south of the N4. The 325 or the 326 going through Lucan would probably also be okay, but it seems overkill to send the Maynooth and Celbridge services through there too (in addition to the C3/4) when they don't currently.

sharper wrote: »

The C3 is absolutely superior to the 66. More direct and more frequent.

The C4 is slightly more complicated. It removes chapelizoid but adds Leixlip. It might work out faster overall but still not as improved as it could be. Frequency is also better except for Sundays.

The C3 is still less direct than the existing 66x though because the C3 will go through Lucan. From a peak time commute perspective that's a step backwards.

As I mentioned elsewhere I consider more direct and more frequent C3 a reasonable replacement for the 66x but ultimately that's subjective to me and not something I can really dispute if someone else feels differently about.

My commute is also different to some others in this thread. I get the 66X from the city centre and not UCD. That has the effect of making the 323 totally useless for me because the only 66X departures you can actually use in the city centre are the ones that depart from Westmoreland street, not UCD. The others will be full before reaching the city centre (and the others are often full or at least packed within two stops, hence everyone's confusion about them being downgraded).

It's a nuanced change that really depends on what you use the X services for. If you're a passenger that's going to the intended terminus of UCD, then there very arguably won't be any affect on journey time - the extra detour through Lucan is balanced out by the time gained by taking a quicker route in the city centre. If you're using it to go to the city centre, then yeah, it'll probably lengthen your journey time if you continue to stick with that route. If we can get even more enhancements to the Hazelhatch line frequency though, it starts to become a question of "why wouldn't you take the train?" because that will be a quicker journey than any existing option.

sharper wrote: »

The X services aren't taking a quicker route to the city centre under bus connects. They already bypass Lucan and Chapelizoid. Under bus connects they no longer bypass Lucan and in the case of Celbridge also go through Leixlip. If you're a Celbridge user in particular that's a pretty big negative for your daily commute each way on an already long route.

Why are you replying to my post with that when I specifically said it in the post? Did you misread what I said?

Infrastructure improvements are nice and everything but we don't even have detailed plans for these let alone timescales for implementation.

No, well we don't have detailed plans or timescales for any of BusConnects anymore. I'd be pretty sure the infrastructure plans would have been inextricably linked to the network change though. A lot of the network redesign was impossible without them (lots of contraflow lanes needed, for example).

I like bus connects but I don't think commuting was seen as any sort of priority in the plans. I also don't think overall journey length was seen as important. Further out areas should certainly be using trains instead but we don't have the infrastructure for that either and we're even further away from having a plan for that.

Two things I'd disagree with - first is that commuting wasn't a priority. I think it absolutely was, but with the expectations that (a) people need more diverse routes like orbitals to connect them with their workplaces (b) interchanging needs to be accepted as common practice. I mean, their interactive map was specifically designed to mention the number of extra jobs reached (or vice versa), so it was definitely a very big priority.

Journey time certainly wasn't a priority, that's for sure, and that's because it's been widely measured that frequency and reliability have a much greater impact on service sentiment than journey time changes (at least within a certain range). People are more likely to switch from commuting with a car to the bus if they can rely upon a bus turning up quickly when they go to a stop (this has been proven to work in Dublin with the relatively slow, but high frequency Luas). And people who already use buses are on average more concerned with frequency and capacity than journey times too.

Leading on from that point - if improving frequency is a better encourager for moving people from cars to buses, then it'll also have a side-effect of improving journey times (because fewer cars will be on the roads).

If I was building busconnects I'd build the network plan they produced then overlay the peak time commuter based services on top of that. If you can win over existing commuters (let's say most of the existing taxsaver owning population) that gives you a large base of support to get the rest of the plan through. As things change and other improvements make the peak time services less needed you can reduce them.

The problem wasn't necessarily that people weren't won over, it's just that a very vocal section of people were really annoyed. People are generally very silent about things that they're happy with, which is one of the problems with our various planning systems.

But to your point, it seemed to me that they were very much open to adjusting lots of the BusConnects network, Walker himself said:

How much change could we make to the plan in response to public comment?

[...] if you change more than about 15% of the network it will fall apart. But 15% is not minor. While the plan is a dramatic change, at least half of it consists of service on streets served now, doing something much like what it does now. So compared to the amount of the network we’re actually changing, 15% is very substantial.

[...]we will make changes. Quite possibly lots of them.

sharper wrote: »

I don't want to go back and forth endlessly making the same points but

I was replying to where you said

The X service changes don't have any balancing going on, they're just longer.

Nope, that's not accurate - the X services all go down the Quays and cross at O'Connell Bridge, then through College Green. This is by far the most congested part of the city.

In contrast, the 32something services that are going to UCD all skip this section - instead they cross the Liffey at Bridge Street, then down to Kevin Street and across Stephen's Green that way. This is a far less congested route, and I would imagine would be accompanied by infra changes to Kevin St, and I estimated above that it could shave something like 9 minutes off of the city centre portion of these Kildare to UCD journeys. Which would essentially balance out the effect of going through Lucan.

Daemonic wrote: »

That's an optimistic train journey. Current train times from Hazelhatch to Connolly (the most likely stop for anyone taking rail instead of a current 67X) is between 35-40 minutes. Only 5-10 minutes less than the time it currently takes to get from Celbridge main street to Bachelor's Walk without adding in the additional time commuting to and from Hazelhatch station and the likely waiting time for the 259/W8.

Yeah but a reason most people take the train the whole way to Connolly is because of the lack of a 90 minute flat-fare. It looks like we might even get one of those without BusConnects, which would be excellent, but it would mean you'd be far more likely to get off at Heuston and use the Luas if you wanted to go to Connolly or beyond.

Hazelhatch to Heuston times are much much closer to 20-25 minutes.

Dravokivich wrote: »

So? Would you rather on street parking?

Or maybe there's a middle ground 🀔

Hurrache wrote: »

I'd be interested in seeing the cross over of those happy to see that persons property CPD'd for BusConnect for the greater good of those that travel down that road, but not happy to see College Green turned into a Plaza, for the greater good of the city.

Kinda irrelevant - if that person's property is CPO'd for BusConnects, then it means the rest of BusConnects is going ahead. If the rest of BusConnects is going ahead, then it means that all bus routes that pass east-west through College Green will be removed, and extra infrastructure provided on the alternate routes in order to accommodate the extra buses. Which means that the only practical objections to the College Green plaza are solved.

So, if you're in favour of BusConnects, there's really no reason to not be in favour of the plaza. You can certainly insist the Plaza be dependent on BusConnects though.

Hurrache wrote: »

And equally one street is not going to prevent the rest of BusConnects going ahead.

Well it is going to prevent a substantial portion of it from working, but you do you.

By the by - Mr Murray is photographed by the Irish Times standing at stop 1190 - this should clear up any vagueness as to where he gets on the bus. In this case, the gentleman would not have to walk any further to catch the bus, he could walk to the same 1190 stop, and get on the N4 directly to Spencer Dock. I think it's absolutely appalling behavior by the Irish Times to (a) not fact-check this but more importantly (b) not to contact Mr Murray and give him corrected information.

It seems to me that the publication of an article with an clickbaiting headline was more important to the Irish Times editors and journalists than the truth. This is just another little peak behind the curtain of the dumpster fire that is Irish journalism.