Yeah it's not great. On another note, I had time to check out the progress of the main terminus this afternoon, structure is taking shape but definitely not going to be completed by the end of August I'd say.
Rough translation: It's your fault for believing that the information displayed was anything other than BS 😂
This may come as a shock to you and assorted public sector bods but people who don't use public transport regularly dont download the crappy apps just to double check the public display.
Did you use the TFI app? That shows cancellations and curtailments.
Unfortunately like every company in the country at the moment, the bus companies are suffering serious staff shortages due to the current Covid wave.
What the hell is that…sure you’d break your neck just looking up at the lights.
Had to use the bus at the weekend through no fault of my own. Left waiting for over a half hour in the middle of the day on on the new, great shiny routes populated by those C nummebrs
Real time info showed the buses as running despite them being curtailed due to staff shortages. Still a clownshow. I'll be back in the motor soon, thank god.
I just noticed today that the compulsory purchase order site notices have gone up on the Navan Road.
So I had reason to be in Liffey Valley today and spotted this after getting off at the stop on the N4 and walking up the ramp:
Going by the plans, this seems to be additional lay-bys. However , the main terminus doesn't seem to have started construction yet, so maybe this will be used as the temporary terminus of the G-spine for now? And yes, those are 4 traffic light poles for a pedestrian crossing of a cycle track.
For reference, here it is (in red), Vs the location of the proposed main terminus (blue)
All you need to know is here:
Which routes do the two planning applications apply to?
Thank you. It’s seems a fairly odd outlier in routes these days, useful but only to a certain point.
Why does any bus route exist? A need was identified for it.
The 65b was originally a variant of the 65 that was established to provide a bus service for Killinarden estate when it was built, and then subsequently was extended to Citywest.
It was re-routed from the N81 west of Spawell as a result of Network Direct to provide a direct service to and from the city centre for residents living south of Killininny Road. Other routes link Firhouse with Tallaght, so it could then route direct via Firhouse Road West to Killinarden and Citywest.
Does anybody have any info about the 65b, why it exists and why it’s both such an odd routing and bad frequency?
it’s always busy at peak, there’s definitely a lot of demand for more services.
bring on the A3
Just to add a further point - this will mean that people transferring between the L25 and S6 will have to walk from the Dundrum by-pass to either Taney Road or Upper Churchtown Road to transfer unless they are planning for the S6 to loop around the terminus, which would add to overall journey times somewhat, as it already takes the 14 an age to get out of the terminus onto Taney Road.
I was also told previously that the space under the bridge is unavailable for use as part of the bus station which makes options for redesign very limited.
To be honest, I have serious reservations about the realignment of the orbital routes in Dundrum. For a start, the routes are all being moved away from the Dundrum Town Centre, the main source of all public transport use in the area. The S8 replacing the 175, completely misses the main source of traffic for the route and the entire area, which is Dundrum Town Centre. Passengers using the 175 currently to go from Knocklyon or Ballyboden to Dundrum may now have an extended wait for a 74 (at least until the A2 is implemented) to complete their journey as frequencies don't match, and those going to UCD will have to use an alternative route from their areas to connect with the S6.
Personally, I would have changed the proposed orbitals so that they would intersect at Dundrum and actually serve Dundrum Town Centre:
S6 - Change route to Tallaght to Dún Laoghaire and take the planned L25 route to Dún Laoghaire
S8 - Change route to Citywest to Blackrock - use the 74 route from Grange Road to Dundrum and then as per planned S6
L25 - Still be Dundrum to Dún Laoghaire - Change routing to operate via Sandyford Road, Balally and then proposed S8 route to Dún Laoghaire.
A Liffey Valley style bus station should be a condition of any future redevelopment of the old shopping centre in Dundrum IMO
The 74 and L25 won’t use the existing terminus, but rather I understand will use a new bay on the bypass by the old shopping centre. There’s not enough space for them at the current terminus.
You’re completely right - it is a mess and God knows what it’ll be like with both the A2 and A4 terminating there.
Will any work be done on the Dundrum LUAS terminus in preparation for phase 5/bus connects as a whole, I wonder? I know it will only be the 74 and L25, along with the other existing routes using it as a terminus come October, but once all phases are done there will be 8 routes using it, with 5 of them terminating there (2 of them being high frequency spine routes). Currently it's quite a mess, especially at rush hour. It could definitely do with some form of reorganization/expansion imo
Three phases of the new network have been implemented now.
The first two planning applications for the twelve corridors have been submitted to An Bord Pleanála.
Apart from the introduction of two of the spines, and construction on the bus interchanges at Red Cow and Liffey Valley, has there been any progress made on this never-ending project?
There is certainly some consideration needed to intensification of development at the bus depots even if they remain in place.
This repeated idea of moving all bus depots out to M50 locations isn’t that reasonable to be honest, as it takes no account of the impact and cost it would have for day-to-day operations of the bus service. Bizarrely enough, you need a mix of garage locations to run a bus service efficiently - some at outer locations and some at inner locations.
You have to remember that buses start and finish their working day at outer termini but also across the inner city too.
Yes, you could probably close one or two of the smaller depots like say Conyngham Road, but the likes of Donnybrook in particular is a strategic transport infrastructure asset. Of all the depots, that location in particular allows quick access to both the city centre and the outer termini.
I think that there is far more merit in considering the option put forward by Ray Coyne of Dublin Bus a while back, which was that as the fleet is converted to all electric, and noise and fumes therefore become far less of an issue, that the possibility of large scale development and building over some of the depots be examined. That way, you don't lose operational flexibility, and you get the ability to add mixed use residential above them.
Lol - what a chancer. Offering to sell green belt land (with no development potential) for 160k per acre? While claiming this is a 40% reduction in price vs land in an area which allows "general development". Well, yes, but you're not really comparing like with like are you?
Having a single consolidated bus depot/garage is a farcical idea. Dublin bus operates about 1000 buses - lined up touching bumper-to-bumper is over 10km. All leaving from one site in the morning before returning in the evening? Not even remotely possible.
How does this type of nonsense get into the papers?
I do think there's merit to moving the city centre depots out of the centre without consolidating them, 'though. Donnybrook, Conyngham Rd, Grand Canal Dock/Ringsend Road, Broadstone, etc. should all be densely developed with residential and maybe some office/retail - it's a waste to use precious city centre land like this as a surface park for busses.
And it would benefit DB - they'd free up a huge amount of capital by exchanging high-value city centre land for say cheap sites in the semi-industrial fringes of the M50 or in the port.
I remembered reading something about this so googled it and a number of news articles came back: one from last year, and one from 2004, so I guess it's just another one of these reasonable sounding ideas that get floated every decade or so but never goes anywhere.
Agreed - it’s utter tripe.
One single garage location for the entire city?
Nuts.
I wouldn’t give it a moment’s consideration.
That's the biggest load of auld cobblers I've heard in a long time. Another way of putting that headline would be "small time developer begs CIE to swap subprime land for some of the most expensive land in Dublin." And as you mention, that's before you go near the operational aspect of things, with the inevitable impacts on start times due to only having one depot, which is no where near the majority of the route.
"MPL would allow eight months for CIÉ to run a public procurement process", lol.
Saw this in the Indo.
It talks about a massive new bus depot and charging station that could house the entire Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann fleets. Doubt that would work operationally?
That is a monumental f... up. It appears the issue wasn't even spotted for some time, though the passengers at bus stops probably did.
Once these things become standard they must be up 24/7.
There was an IT glitch for the DB times for the last few weeks seemingly - it was only displaying the scheduled times rather than applying the predictive times to the live position of each bus.
They fixed it this week and it is now displaying live times again.
This notice gave a brief explanation.
https://www.dublinbus.ie/News-Centre/General-News-Archive/RPTI-Customer-Update/
For info, at any stage you can see where a bus physically is by looking back along the route on the map on the TFI real time app, and clicking on the bus symbols, as they do still tend to appear even when the link is broken to the predictive times. It’s a clunky way of checking if and when the system is defective.
Click on the three vertical dots towards the bottom of the map and make sure that the “show live vehicle positions” is activated.
Was it the same bus?
I don't know if this is the place for this question, but has anyone else noticed the very poor correlation between the real-time information at bus stops, the apps and when the buses actually arrive? I recall last week waiting for a bus on the quays late in the evening and it stated 18 minutes for the next one. About 5 minutes later it showed up. Thankfully I was paying attention and was able to put my hand out, but I certainly wasn't expecting it.
Seems to be such a simple thing that is constantly broken.
Buses leave the depot with As Seirbhis and travel to the start of the route, then do their turn of duty, and return from the terminus with As Seirbhis empty. Now, it would make sense that they pick up passengers on their way from the depot, and on their return.
During busy times, they should run some buses on partial routes, turning and then running back. The route is busy in the middle, but less so as the reach the terminus. Now it complicates route numbers unless it gets to be widespread, and passengers become aware that not only is the route number important but so is the destination. This could apply when buses begin to bunch or are running severely late.
Just an idea.
One solution I've seen is that all buses going out of service take on a particular number depending on their depot rather than the route they have just served (500, say, for all buses to Conyngham Road, 600 for Donnybrook, etc.), so people can still take them if they are going broadly in that direction, at whatever time of the day. Of course, it helps if these buses take an acknowledged route back to their base, but this can be shown at each stop.
