New bus gates on Bachelors Walk and Aston Quay

Tues-Weds-Thurs are pretty busy for me on the trains. To the point of being much closer to pre lockdown busy.

I'll say I had gone back to driving before lockdown, because my trains were so overcrowded I'd had enough. With WFH the trains improved so I'm back on them. Also because the roads are a lot worse now driving isn't the option that it was.

How do you think that public transport can improve if road space is not allocated to public transport? Commuters to Dublin city centre are doing so overwhelmingly without a car.

Where to start with this?

Can I suggest that for a start that you might look at the timetable for trains serving M3 Parkway, as your assertions about the number of trains serving the station are completely wrong.

https://www.irishrail.ie/getmedia/b15a39a0-61ce-4aee-be4c-fb58530b4f52/14_m3_parkway-longford.pdf

Per the current timetable, there are from M3 Parkway

• 27 trains Monday to Friday
• 17 trains on Saturday
• 15 trains on Sunday

That's hardy "a very limited number of trains" and there certainly are trains at the weekend.

Beyond that, all of the rail improvements will take years to implement - hence we are going to rely on buses for many parts of the city. That's unfortunately a given. The bus service is now having to use more buses and drivers to maintain the existing schedules due to congestion, which in turn means more cancelled or delayed departures until the additional drivers and buses are added.

This earlier post by noelfirl (post 992) sums up the situation succinctly:

The thing that bothers me about the "we need a Metro/rail solution first" piece, is the following:

There is only one Metro line in development at the moment, and probably 10 years away from being operational. It's a single North-South line. It will have a very limited effect on East-West public transport traffic.

The only other 'tunnel'-based rail solution on the radar is DART+ tunnel/the Interconnector, which is deffered from consideration until at least 2042 onwards based on the current strategy.

Even if Simon Harris were to have a rail-based epiphany in his sleep tonight and announce a network of lines as an urgent priority for the city tomorrow, it would take 10 to 20 years before these would be realised.

In the meantime, I'd really like to know, for those who keep saying we need a widespread Metro solution first before we do anything to reprioritise road space to support more effective and efficient bus-based public transport - you're basically saying that bus passengers should remain deprioritised versus private traffic, for the next 20-30 years.

I agree you can work around the situation but ultimately what I find is that for the winter months you end up having to leave earlier and ultimately waste the benefit of a quick Luas ride by being at your destination 30 minutes earlier than you need to be.

My main point, however, is that the service is at capacity for a lot of the year and that it couldn’t accommodate loads of drivers leaving the car at home even if they were minded to. BusConnects is being delivered at glacial speed. I understand the issues around drivers but this has been the case for a number of years now and I don’t know if it will stay that way over the medium term.

Any time I've used the bus during the morning peak (which has only been a few times admittedly) post lockdown I've had no issues getting a seat. Prior to covid when I used the bus nearly everyday buses were regularly going past full in the morning.

I didn't know there was a mechanic shortage aswell as a driver shortage surely the bulk of the mechanical work can be done during the day so no need to have mechanics working unsocial hours.

"How is it that number of people using public transport keeps increasing at a fast pace, but we don't have enough bus drivers?" What? Do you think you could maybe take a stab at figuring that out yourself?

Some of them are becoming bus drivers. Do you think that rate is sufficient to keep up with the increase in demand on public transport? Why do we have a shortage of anything in Dublin? Surely the 30,000 contains doctors and construction workers and guards and teachers? Why are there still shortages in those positions?

Because enough of those 30k don’t find it an attractive enough proposition?

I’d rather be on the dole than work as bus driver around Dublin. They should be on way more than Luas and train drivers for having to deal with the public. And I say that as someone with no skin in the game.

It all comes down to the failure of FFFG to provide the economic engine of the state with the proper transport network to sustain the nation’s wealth.

You get what you vote for.

Well then the buses have nothing to worry about.

Does that logic only work in the city centre? Do private cars not limit roadway on the M50?

In other words, the majority of people in the GDA still need a car because they dont just drive to the city centre.

Quite arrogant to think that your experience applies equally to everyone else.

For many years we used to have loads of committments that required two cars.

That said I've always made a big effort to avoid things like schools, jobs that were reliant on the car. But it's not always possible.

That said some places are not viable by public transport. But equally some are no longer viable by car. It's the same in London. It's now true in Dublin.