M11/N11 - M50 (J4) to Coyne's Cross (J14) [options published]

Kian Fast Photography wrote: »

One of the reasons I rarely use public transport is the time it takes - 4 bus stops in Newtown FFS. Every 2nd or 3rd bus can service these villages, even with park and rides, the busses will still need to service the villages for people that can't or don't want to drive.

The 133 cannot be a success as is, as BE are obliged to service these villages and townlands. They need to think along the lines of Bus Connect and have main routes, there can be another route that snakes through Ashford, Newtown, Kilpeddar, Willow Grove into Bray and maybe Greystones. If they continue as is, the 133 will be obsolete within a few years, as public transport needs to be fast, cheap and convenient.

Yeah, once its integrated properly. Keep the 133 route as is but introduce a 133x or similar Express service. But the main thing is, is has to be reliable and at present people don't trust it so they would rather take the risk of getting stuck in traffic in their private cars.
I wouldn't begrudge Newtown its numerous stops, its probably a 5-6km stretch road between leaving the n11 and rejoining at jn12 and seems to have people waiting at the bus stops so must have its regular users.

And yet, despite all that, the 133 has capacity issues. I probably wasn't clear - I wasn't proposing just the 133/ Wexford Bus, showing that buses are the solution in the relatively short term.

Despite the handicaps, the 133 is full, and a private company can make a success of two routes on the N11.

The potential with enforced bus lanes instead of hard shoulder is there now. And yes, it probably requires separate buses from the villages/ park and rides, at least at peak times. It'll still be cheaper and more effective than more roads.

josip

How would you go about surveying the users of the N11 at commute times about where they are coming from/going to, and if they would switch to bus public transport, were it available.
How reliable would the results of such a survey be?

Surely any decision will have to estimate the percentage of cars that could be taken off the road by carrotting an additional lane for buses only.

Mitch Connor

josip wrote: »

How would you go about surveying the users of the N11 at commute times about where they are coming from/going to, and if they would switch to bus public transport, were it available.
How reliable would the results of such a survey be?

Surely any decision will have to estimate the percentage of cars that could be taken off the road by carrotting an additional lane for buses only.

Just walk up to the car and ask them, they'll be stopped anyway. Set up shop around Kilmac, Barrys Bridge....

josip

Mitch Connor wrote: »

Just walk up to the car and ask them, they'll be stopped anyway. Set up shop around Kilmac, Barrys Bridge....

I also thought it would be as easy as that, since traffic was already stopped.
But if it was, wouldn't it have been done already and survey results made known?
So either it's not as easy as I thought or the data is considered too unreliable to be of any use?

Mindset has to change from one mode door to door - it should be N11 bus to connecting services (Dublin Bus/ Luas/ Dart). From bus connects, we can see that the public aren't evolved enough for that concept yet, and there's no political will to do it, or create an office with enough power to enforce it.

Pete_Cavan

If the bus service is fast and reliable people will use it. Bus lanes on the hard shoulders is the only thing that can be done with the N11 in any reasonable timeframe, offline road sounds great but is a decade away. The beauty with buses is that capacity can be ramped up fairly quickly to match demand.

https://www.wicklow.ie/Portals/0/Documents/Business/Business-Environment/Wicklow-Facts-Figures/Commuter%20Study%20Report.pdf

Here's a link to the commuter survey Wicklow coco did last year. Might be some figures in there relating to your question josip.

Has there ever been a situation where private car use has dropped even with the introduction of public transport? With all the proposed developments and people being squeezed out of the Dublin housing market will the volume ever decrease. Buses may stop it getting worse but would we see a reduction in actual car numbers.

adocholiday

Great points made about the buses. I drive the N11 each way every day to/from the Rathnew exit. Aside from a crazy 90 minutes in the morning (7.00 - 8.30) and 2 hours in the evening (4.30 - 6.30) the N11 is never an issue. I adjusted my work hours to start & finish a little later and honestly I rarely get caught up in anything too mental. I think pumping hundreds of millions into this road and the inevitable madness that the roadworks will cause for years is a massively regressive step.

This recent Irish Times article states that 20,000 of the 58,000 cars on the road south of Bray are from Wexford, and 14,000 of them recorded north of Gorey: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/commuters-to-dublin-face-years-of-road-works-in-wicklow-1.4078580

That's 25% of the N11 traffic recorded north of Gorey. Now imagine we had a functioning rail system where the large population centres of Gorey, Arklow and Wicklow Town had a decent park and ride facility on a rail line that takes ~1 hour to get into Connolly. Think how many people would be only too delighted to ditch the car and take the train. Of course you won't accommodate everyone but you'd take thousands of cars off the road.

I live near Rathdrum and the train should be a viable option to get into Dublin but it isn't. Takes about 80 minutes to get to Connolly which by car is a journey of 58km. My colleague lives near Templemore, 140km to Heuston, and the train takes the same length of time.

If the train can't be an option then the other alternative is the 133. According to Bus Eireann the 133 only leaves Rathdrum once in the morning at 8.30 and arrives at Custom House Quay at 10.35 so that's out of the question. Coming home only one goes to Rathdrum from George's Quay leaving at 5.15 and arriving in Rathdrum at 7.15. The only other alternative is I can drive to the Beehive and get the Wexford Bus from the Park and Ride there, or I could try to get the one from Arklow but both require the car to get to the pick up point. Now I'm not suggesting that a small place like Rathdrum should be the best connected location, but what I am getting at here is that for most people south of Greystones public transport isn't just crap, it's non-existent.

Widening roads has been shown time and time again to do nothing other than encourage people to use the road and you end up with the same problem again very soon. To take an extreme example look at the likes of L.A. where they have 6 lane freeways each way and the traffic is still standstill and getting worse, primarily due to the fact that the public transport is still less attractive that sitting in traffic. Only 11% of people use public transport in LA for commuting. Had the city invested in the public transport there rather than continuously adding lanes to the freeways then that figure might be a lot different. We can see it here with the M50, adding the third lane just made the road a better option for people than public transport and it's already at full capacity. Getting rid of the lights and access roads on the N4 around Leixlip similar outcome. I have no doubt that we'll see the M7 packed to the gills again sooner rather than later too. We need to invest massively in public transport in Ireland to fix our traffic woes, road widening is a waste of tax payers money.

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

If the bus service is fast and reliable people will use it. Bus lanes on the hard shoulders is the only thing that can be done with the N11 in any reasonable timeframe, offline road sounds great but is a decade away. The beauty with buses is that capacity can be ramped up fairly quickly to match demand.

They also need to look into bus lanes on Windgates and Southern cross to encourage people from Greystones to ditch the car but unfortunately thats not covered in this project.

Train is a long term solution, but will take longer than the road. And again, there's no political will/ enough political "hands off" to put the sort of money required. Dart Underground and the metro show that.

u140acro3xs7dm

Macy0161 wrote: »

Mindset has to change from one mode door to door - it should be N11 bus to connecting services (Dublin Bus/ Luas/ Dart). From bus connects, we can see that the public aren't evolved enough for that concept yet, and there's no political will to do it, or create an office with enough power to enforce it.

Too much messing around, it needs to be fast and convenient, or people won't leave their cars. E.g. Leave the house, drive to P&R, wait for the bus, get bus to another bus stop in Dublin, wait for bus, get 2nd bus then walk from bus stop to work. Direct busses into the centre of Dublin, preferably out to the airport, is the only way to go.

adocholiday wrote: »

I live near Rathdrum and the train should be a viable option to get into Dublin but it isn't. Takes about 80 minutes to get to Connolly which by car is a journey of 58km. My colleague lives near Templemore, 140km to Heuston, and the train takes the same length of time.

You are being generous there, it normally takes longer than that from Wicklow Town. On the 7:30 train, its often standing room only for the whole journey.

loyatemu

the speed of the train is unlikely to improve (the Dart has gotten progressively slower since it was introduced). But the frequency could certainly be improved south of Greystones and more park and ride provided.

rd1izb7lvpuksx

Kian Fast Photography wrote: »

Too much messing around, it needs to be fast or convenient or people won't leave their cars. E.g. Leave the house, drive to P&R, wait for the bus, get bus to another bus stop in Dublin, wait for bus, get 2nd bus then walk from bus stop to work. Direct busses into the centre of Dublin, preferably out to the airport, is the only way to go.

I agree totally. Trips from Wexford towns to areas in Dublin like Sandyford, Ballymount, Eastpoint all take 2-3 times as long on public transport as in private cars, even at rush hour.

adocholiday wrote: »

Great points made about the buses. I drive the N11 each way every day to/from the Rathnew exit. Aside from a crazy 90 minutes in the morning (7.00 - 8.30) and 2 hours in the evening (4.30 - 6.30) the N11 is never an issue. I adjusted my work hours to start & finish a little later and honestly I rarely get caught up in anything too mental. I think pumping hundreds of millions into this road and the inevitable madness that the roadworks will cause for years is a massively regressive step.

Due to my work, I regularly drive the N11/M11 from the city to the end of the new motorway extension, and I've come across spontaneous traffic jams at all hours from 0600 to 2300 at the Bray junctions, Kilmacanogue, and the Glen of the Downs. They can also appear anywhere with accidents, HGV breakdowns, etc, but at the above spots, I frequently come across daytime, non-rush hour slow-downs with no discernable cause.

Tinley Purple Turpentine wrote: »

I agree totally. Trips from Wexford towns to areas in Dublin like Sandyford, Ballymount, Eastpoint all take 2-3 times as long on public transport as in private cars, even at rush hour.

Due to my work, I regularly drive the N11/M11 from the city to the end of the new motorway extension, and I've come across spontaneous traffic jams at all hours from 0600 to 2300 at the Bray junctions, Kilmacanogue, and the Glen of the Downs. They can also appear anywhere with accidents, HGV breakdowns, etc, but at the above spots, I frequently come across daytime, non-rush hour slow-downs with no discernable cause.

Yeah, northbound can be a lottery anytime between 6.30 and 10am depending on whats happened during the commute, its next to impossible to schedule deliveries during this time, and if you need to go to Bray to get materials you often have to wait till after 10 so as not to loose too much time.

Kian Fast Photography wrote: »

Too much messing around, it needs to be fast or convenient or people won't leave their cars. E.g. Leave the house, drive to P&R, wait for the bus, get bus to another bus stop in Dublin, wait for bus, get 2nd bus then walk from bus stop to work. Direct busses into the centre of Dublin, preferably out to the airport, is the only way to go.

People in London seem to cope. Actually on reflection, when I was going to school as an 11 year old in Manchester, I managed just fine with a bus, change to a train and another bus.

Depends on frequency of the connections, but again, you sum it up - the mindset hasn't evolved to modern Public Transport. So we're caught in a vicious circle, as the money won't be put in due to the negative publicity of actually making people think.

We need a truly independent transport authority for the greater dublin area, that can implement and enforce without reference to politicians.

Pete_Cavan

Surely a bus serving Wicklow Town, Rathnew and Ashford then straight up the N11 would take plenty of cars off the road? It would need good frequency in morning and evening and a bus lane from north of Kilmac to start with, sorting out the junctions and closing accesses then to improve things further. Possibly two different services, one to city centre and another to Cherrywood and Sandyford. Bray and Greystones would justify their own services also making use of the bus lane.

sideswipe

Why not start a bus thread:)
Seriously though this should not be a case of putting buses and double tracks in place instead of fixing the road.....they all need to be done, having a motorway ending outside a village a few miles from the end of the M50 needs addressing.
As for double rail line, it’s badly needed but would only add to current capacity issues which need to be tackled on existing lines north of Bray.

First of all, the is the hard shoulder wide enough throughout the N11 section to be turned into a bus lane?

It seems bizarre that some are suggesting leaving a motorway gap in between the M11 from the M50 and the main section of M11, on a key national route like that. It also seems bizarre that the busiest section of N11 should be of the lowest standard. It also seems weird that some have suggested that handing most of the current route over to buses and cyclists - like I've suggested - while directing general traffic onto an actual motorway, would be so awful and bad because the current route is so awful and bad, but it's just fine to stick the buses into the hard shoulder, so it must not really not that awful and bad after all.

I don't think anyone views a major upgrade here including a continuous motorway as the only thing that needs to be done - most of us here see very serious problems all over the Dublin area. I suspect that literally anyone that has commuted in the Dublin area in the past 5 years could identify serious problems just from their commute, low speed, overcrowding, safety concerns etc. Whether that is riding trains or trams, cycling, or commuting by private car, from any angle.

But it must be borne in mind that transport infrastructure is not just provided for commuters - by kilometers, most of our railway network is not designed for commuters, and by km most of the motorways are not for commuters either. Transport infrastructure must be appropriate to a wide variety of purposes of which commuting is only one. Some people are proposing half-baked solutions that demonstrably fail to do this.

First of all, the is the hard shoulder wide enough throughout the N11 section to be turned into a bus lane?

In short, no certainly not in the Glen of the Downs section. But I don't know how a bus lane will work practically along the road with slip roads etc. Cyclists use this route a lot too so their safety has to be taken into account (and rightly so) if they go down the path of just turning the hard shoulder into a bus lane.
Some of the comments on social media are throwing some creative ideas around such as suggesting extending the Luas down the central median as a real solution without any consideration for the safety issues, real life integration or even how it would effect the capacity issues the green line already has.
Ultimately, even if they take the red online upgrade there are going to be changes and lifes effected. I just don't know if the people shouting against the offline routes really appreciate this or is it if a case of nimbyism.
There needs to be a pragmatic approach because as SeanW suggests the offline routes in the long run could offer the better solution.

donvito99

But what exactly is a motorway spec road on a new alignment going to deliver in reality?

A slightly speeded up commute by car? A marginally easier/comfortable drive thanks to motorway spec?

I am failing to see what the enormous benefit of it will be over the existing dual carriageway such that a new alignment is justified.

donvito99 wrote: »

But what exactly is a motorway spec road on a new alignment going to deliver in reality?

A slightly speeded up commute by car? A marginally easier/comfortable drive thanks to motorway spec?

I am failing to see what the enormous benefit of it will be over the existing dual carriageway such that a new alignment is justified.

A more appropriate type of road for a variety of traffic, including long distance travel.

Do people commute from Limerick to Naas? (The length of the M7) Not many, one suspects. How about all the other motorways? Most of them have little/nothing to do with commuting, they are needed for other reasons. What about all those railways, all that Intercity line. Do we maintain that because of all the commuters between Dublin and Galway? I don't think so. Because there's more to life than commuting.

Specifically, a new, offline motorway - in and of itself - will offer very little to commuters, as in, it would be basically just replacing a 2+2 with hard shoulders, with a 2+2 with hard shoulders, motorway designation and fewer junctions. The gains would come in two main areas:

1) Long distance travel (e.g. trucks to Rosslare) would be segregated from local travel on a safe and appropriate mode.
2) Handing 2/3s of the old road over buses and cyclists would be good for non-car travel. One lane each way left for general traffic on the current route might deal better with local travel.

Takes local traffic movements off the mainline, opens up the existing route for dedicated public transport, safer cycling routes, reduces traffic through a special area of conversation, takes 55k vehicles out of Kilpedder and Kilmacanogue, allows existing local roads not to lose access. To name a few reasons, I'm sure more will come to me.
I saw one ex local councillor saying on social media that there was 20-30m of scrub at the side of the Glen of the Downs that could easily be taken for extra lanes, this simply isn't the case. Any upgrading of the existing route whether to bus lane or 3rd driving lane is going to be difficult. The space is very limited along the whole route.

donvito99

SeanW wrote: »

A more appropriate type of road for a variety of traffic, including long distance travel.

Do people commute from Limerick to Naas? (The length of the M7) Not many, one suspects. How about all the other motorways? Most of them have little/nothing to do with commuting, they are needed for other reasons. What about all those railways, all that Intercity line. Do we maintain that because of all the commuters between Dublin and Galway? I don't think so. Because there's more to life than commuting.

Specifically, a new, offline motorway - in and of itself - will offer very little to commuters, as in, it would be basically just replacing a 2+2 with hard shoulders, with a 2+2 with hard shoulders, motorway designation and fewer junctions. The gains would come in two main areas:

1) Long distance travel (e.g. trucks to Rosslare) would be segregated from local travel on a safe and appropriate mode.
2) Handing 2/3s of the old road over buses and cyclists would be good for non-car travel. One lane each way left for general traffic on the current route might deal better with local travel.

prunudo wrote: »

Takes local traffic movements off the mainline, opens up the existing route for dedicated public transport, safer cycling routes, reduces traffic through a special area of conversation, takes 55k vehicles out of Kilpedder and Kilmacanogue, allows existing local roads not to lose access. To name a few reasons, I'm sure more will come to me.
I saw one ex local councillor saying on social media that there was 20-30m of scrub at the side of the Glen of the Downs that could easily be taken for extra lanes, this simply isn't the case. Any upgrading of the existing route whether to bus lane or 3rd driving lane is going to be difficult. The space is very limited along the whole route.

But we are talking about an existing stretch of dual carriageway that is approx. 15ish kilometres, maximum, that is an issue (apparently).

Would we be talking about this bypass of a bypass, worth hundreds of millions, if you removed the commuter traffic nightmare element? Is it really necessary to put massive sums of money in to make 'long distance driving' slightly easier, given that it only improves a fraction of the Belfast - Rosslare (as an example) drive? It is a good use of resources to make it life slightly easier for local traffic and leisure cyclists to navigate the area?

donvito99 wrote: »

But we are talking about an existing stretch of dual carriageway that is approx. 15ish kilometres, maximum, that is an issue (apparently).

Would we be talking about this bypass of a bypass, worth hundreds of millions, if you removed the commuter traffic nightmare element? Is it really necessary to put massive sums of money in to make 'long distance driving' slightly easier, given that it only improves a fraction of the Belfast - Rosslare (as an example) drive? It is a good use of resources to make it life slightly easier for local traffic and leisure cyclists to navigate the area?

The part of the scheme that would be offline would only be about 6-8km so less than half of the whole upgrade. But this will be the most contentious section for reasons outlined already.

And yes, i personally think it is a good use of resources to build a proper offline motorway and give the existing section back to locals, public transport, cycling and woodland walks.

donvito99 wrote: »

But we are talking about an existing stretch of dual carriageway that is approx. 15ish kilometres, maximum, that is an issue (apparently).

Would we be talking about this bypass of a bypass, worth hundreds of millions, if you removed the commuter traffic nightmare element? Is it really necessary to put massive sums of money in to make 'long distance driving' slightly easier, given that it only improves a fraction of the Belfast - Rosslare (as an example) drive? It is a good use of resources to make it life slightly easier for local traffic and leisure cyclists to navigate the area?

Even if you could - somehow - remove every single car commuter - all of them, the route would probably still justify motorway on the basis of its long distance usage, that's why there's motorway as far South as Enniscorthy. Second, I hope you are not seriously suggesting that the proposals here are for a "bypass of a bypass" because frankly that would call any credibility of your arguments into question. As I understand it, the N section was simply a single carriageway that had another carriageway built beside it. At any rate, I hope you aren't seriously suggesting that you can fix this mess with a bus lane.

donvito99

SeanW wrote: »

Even if you could - somehow - remove every single car commuter - all of them, the route would probably still justify motorway on the basis of its long distance usage

This is the part I still fail to understand, what is the problem with this road that justifies a motorway?

If this was a single carriageway, old fashioned N road, I would completely agree with the construction of a motorway, on any of the routes presently suggested.

But it's not, it's a dual carriageway. It may have at-grade elements, but it still functions perfectly well as a means of getting vehicles from end of the M50 to the beginning of the M11.

To my mind, this looks like a joining-the-motorways-on-the-map exercise. Of all the places in the country that need an investment in roads infrastructure, the area that already has the motorway in all but name does not seem to me to be the most deserving.

At any rate, I hope you aren't seriously suggesting that you can fix this mess with a bus lane.

Well the mess is certainly not going to be fixed by facilitating even more traffic!

Carawaystick

SeanW wrote: »

As I understand it, the N section was simply a single carriageway that had another carriageway built beside it.

This is not what happened, the dual carriageway was built over the existing road, taking some land to the west and more to the east in the Glen, and more land to the west nearer Kilmac

None of the original road remains

BraveDonut

Evening time southbound is going to become even more fun in the next few years when they add ~3500 homes and a shopping centre at Cherrywood.
I can see the Cherrywood off-ramp backing up beyond Carrickmines every day