bk wrote: » Well some of those things listed have already quietly happened at other locations over the past few years. For instance the recent placement of bollards along the bus lane at Whitehall. The widening at the Cat & Cage in Drumcondra was a major project and it has gone extremely well and has been a great improvement.
LXFlyer wrote: » Surely the College Green debacle should tell us that much?
LXFlyer wrote: » As a bus user it is utterly frustrating to see much of the existing infrastructure just ignored without penalty by private motorists ad nauseum, be they bus lanes, yellow boxes, parked trucks in clearways/cycle lanes. Sitting on a bus on Rosie Hackett Bridge through 6 changes of lights before getting onto Burgh Quay due to the yellow bus being blocked (several times now) tells me that we have a real problem.
LXFlyer wrote: » Full enforcement of existing measures would be a start. The complete lack of enforcement doesn’t fill me with a lot of confidence that we are going to see any massive improvement in the near future.
cgcsb wrote: » I'm glad College Green has come up because there's a decision due on Halloween, after much delay. A positive decision, means that The North quays, Parliament St and George's st will all need to have car bans as a result of that decision, separate to Bus Connects. These measures alone will improve journey times.
bk wrote: » Well College Green is a bit different, since it is actually constructing a new structure and thus falls under planning/ABP's remit. I believe just putting up bollards, redirecting traffic, etc. are considered traffic management measures and thus don't come under planning laws. For instance, I don't remember the bus gate or the bus only changes on the quays going through planning and ABP. Of course those can still face opposition and political interference, but they don't seem to face quiet the same planning requirements, legal issues and delays. I agree completely and totally feel your pain. The lack of enforcement seems to be why planners are moving more towards hard infrastructure changes to force change, rather then rely on just lines on a road and trusting people to follow those rules. That is why they are trying to do College Green, if there is a square there, then people can't simply ignore the bus gate, etc.
riddlinrussell wrote: » https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/college-green-plans-refused-by-an-bord-plean-amid-bus-and-traffic-concerns-1.3666481 Looks like it will be some time before College Green is traffic free then....
LXFlyer wrote: » A victory for common sense. The plan was fatally flawed by the removal of Parliament Street as a two way bus street.
LXFlyer wrote: » ] Most of your posts on the network design keep referring to the infrastructure improvements as if they’re guaranteed to be in place and simultaneously with the network redesign rollout, which ignores the fact that the infrastructure plan has a 10 year rollout period and most of it is highly unlikely be in place ahead of the network redesign. This is (for me) a critical shortcoming and certainly militates against removing existing direct connections to the city.
Muahahaha wrote: » Never knew the infrastructure could take up to 10 years to arrive :eek: Though Im in support of BC in general Ive always felt that a network design without the infrastructure in place is putting the cart before the horse. Im guessing the NTA have realised this but figure that we cannot wait for a decade to redesign the network so must proceed with what is already there. Thing is though without the spines being built out with full bus priority & segregation it is hard to see how peoples journey times are going to improve anytime soon. For those who have to change bus at a hub their journey time is likely to get even longer that what it is at present.
CatInABox wrote: » Most likely, the infrastructure will be built in phases, otherwise it'd cause traffic jams on every road in and out of the city. We're likely to see them finish each route one by one, with the Quays being one of the first built.The only infrastructure that's truly needed beforehand to get the bus reorg right is the hubs. There are currently buses running on almost all of the routes designated for spines already, so it's not like they're suddenly going from no buses to hundreds.
LXFlyer wrote: » I think that you are underplaying the need for the infrastructural improvements before implementing the network redesign. That will entirely depend upon what changes take place in the network redesign when it is published in the New Year. There are a number of areas who currently have a direct route to the city which, under the initial plan, would instead have a connecting service which would be running at intervals of 30-60 minutes to a location where they can change to a spine route. Depending on the location of the where the interchange is, that connection will generally be fine on the inbound trip, but it has serious implications on the return trip, where passengers will have to judge the connecting service along the spine with a large element of guesswork. Such people will be far more dependent upon the vagaries of Dublin traffic and could end up with waits of 25-55 minutes that they never used to have if the connecting spine service doesn't get to the interchange point on time. Given that the spine routes will, in the main, be long cross-city routes, then in the absence of infrastructural improvements the arrival time of said buses at an interchange on the other side of the city is going to be a game of Hobson's Choice. As it is journey times on existing cross-city routes can vary wildly from one day to the next. Hence it will be a game of chance that people making connections into the low frequency (30-60 minutes) connecting service. That's not an improvement for those people, who currently have direct services to/from the city, and most likely aren't showing up randomly for buses, but rather are using the timetable, and frankly one of two things is going to have to happen for them to be catered for: 1) Direct services to/from the city retained 2) Infrastructure to be put in place that can deliver reliable journey times Without this happening, many people's journey times will be extended unnecessarily and frankly that in my opinion isn't acceptable.
CatInABox wrote: » Wasn't saying that every route will be perfect right at the start, or that some people won't be inconvenienced, just that for most people, BusConnects will be an improvement with or without infrastructure changes. The way some people are talking, it's as if the bus network will collapse into a black hole if BusConnects comes in without every infrastructure project completed.
bk wrote: » Having read the plan in detail, most of it could go ahead without the need for major infrastructure IMO. Sure some bus stops need moving closer to junctions, etc. but the whole CPO side isn't needed, but would certainly enhance the benefits of it. As I mentioned, much of BC is just rolling back the Network Direct changes that shrunk the network and putting capacity back in place. Many of the core concepts can go ahead without major infrastructure: - The core routes A, B, C, etc. is simply a smart amalgamation of mostly existing routes, making it simpler to use and more importantly allowing separate routes that share the same route for long distances to be smartly scheduled as one to reduce bunching. - The orbital routes can mostly be put in place with just the moving of bus stops that I mentioned, really not a big deal. Yes there are some routes and areas that you will want to hold off on if the infrastructure is there. But those certainly don't include the majority of the core of this plan from what I can see.
tom1ie wrote: » I dont see how bc can reach any kind of happy outcome without qbc's into and out of the city centre. Without the qbc'c we have the equivalent of luas cross city- pt sharing road space with cars, bikes pedestrians, and you can see how well that works! bc without the qbc infrastructure, will be a disaster, especially in dublin sw.
CatInABox wrote: » And again, most of the spines already have bus lanes on them, and plenty of buses are already running on those roads. There are valid concerns around people travelling from town out to the interchange hubs with scheduling of the less frequent onward buses, but the spines work for buses now.
bk wrote: » Those are all definitely nice to have and many of them are part of the overall BusConnects plan, including the infrastructure side, the ticketing side, etc. But those aren't necessary to gain benefits from the network redesign side. They would certainly greatly enhance the usefulness of a redesigned network, but they certainly aren't a pre-requiste. It seems to me that some people aren't aware of what a big reduction in service Network Direct was and how just undoing that and doing some other enhancements that are planned under the network redesign of BusConnets would be very welcome in the short term. Yes, we then need to follow that up with the infrastructure side, but that will take 10 years. We can't wait 10 years to undo Network Direct and expand the fleet and routes. Action needs to be taken today.
LXFlyer wrote: » The fleet capacity will have been expanded pretty much back to pre-Network Direct levels by January 2019 and service levels increased across the DB and GAI route network. BusConnects really has nothing to do with that. What it does deliver is more orbital services, but at a cost of less radial services. There is a real danger that the capacity reductions on those radial routes (yes they are reduced overall, not increased, even based on the pre-current service expansion levels) will be too great, especially at outer ends - I honestly think they’re overestimating the numbers that will switch from radial services. If anything these current service expansions are going to make some of the BusConnects proposals even more difficult to implement as the service cuts on spines will have a greater impact compared to the newly improved service levels on many routes - are people going to be happy to gain services now and then lose them?
Stephen15 wrote: » Tbh I think some of the frequencies need to be increased on the radial routes. The revised plans need to take into account the increased service levels. We need to remember that the bus connects proposals were drawn up on the assumptions that the service levels would be at the same as they were as of last summer.
LXFlyer wrote: » This was a flaw that I identified from the outset. Knowing full well that there was going to be a massive service expansion in Autumn 2018 including new routes, particularly the 175 route which the NTA themselves were planning, it was quite misleading to be comparing proposed service levels against those existing service levels knowing full well that they were going to be massively changed within a couple of months. That will have to be addressed in the revised proposals. Otherwise the comparisons will be totally meaningless.
bk wrote: » It is important to keep in mind, that this isn't about building a network that would then be set in stone! It is about realigning the network to make more sense and to create a solid basis from which future changes and frequency increases would absolutely be built upon. Of course the new BusConnects routes would gain greater frequency in time as more buses are bought and levels of demand on the new routes are assessed. This seems to be a fatal assumption that people seems to be making and I don't understand why. It seems people think the BC changes will happen and then it is set in stone. Of course that isn't the case, what will happen is the BC changes happen, the NTA/DB/GA carefully monitor the impact, make tweaks and changes where they are needed and then expand on that BC network and routes over time and take advantage of the infrastructure changes as they come online too. BC certainly isn't a one time thing, it is just the start of a long and ongoing evolving process.
