BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

It seems like the cancellations are being felt more in the morning. They seem to be getting back on track as the day goes on.

According to the local TD in Bray, the NTA are already considering extending route L14 from the Palermo Estate in Little Bray to the Luas in Cherrywood.

https://www.facebook.com/TeachtaJohnBrady/posts/pfbid02W2mzxMwzJ2MVyrFRrh99BwcMRrqA9anEuPVp6BtT5xx5hBQuSxRXva6WH3tevpm7l

By Cherrywood, I'm sure he means the Brides Glen stop. Apparently the residents of Palermo aren't happy with the buses terminating in their estate. When the route (185) was Go-Ahead operated, they would lay over at stop 4420 (Maple Grove), but it seems since the route has gone back to Dublin Bus, the terminus has changed to stop 4419 (Raverty Villas) where there is more space. The old 185 under Dublin Bus (which was really like 4 or 5 different routes under one number) also terminated in the estate.

Personally, if they are extending a Bray route to the Luas, the L12 would be a better option in my opinion, but that doesn't solve the supposed problem in Palermo. If they do extend a route to the Luas and want to continue to serve Palermo, one route will have to come off the main road to do the loop of the estate.

I have mixed feelings on this proposal tbh.

The positives about it is that if the L14 gets the extension from Palermo to Brides Glen Luas approved by the NTA. Brides Glen Luas will have an additional L route to serve that stop. The L22, which comes in under the B Spine, will eventually cover some of the current 7 route going from Brides Glen Luas to Dun Laoghaire.

OTOH Dublin Bus themselves are probably very constrained with capacity within the Bray depot itself while they run the current L14 route along with the L12, the X1/X2 & the E1 at the moment. John Brady said in the article from that Facebook link above that extending the L14 to Brides Glen would not impact on it's frequency. I'm not so sure that sentiment is correct from him tbh. If the new L14 route to Brides Glen is eventually given approval by the NTA; I would suspect you would need additional drivers & buses to operate it.

Where are DB going to get the additional buses & drivers to run this extended route?

Work to rule impacts being felt alot more this morning across the network it would appear.

E1 hit quite hard this morning, after the 06:43 E1 from Bray to Northwood, the next full cross city service to leave Bray was the 07:50. Luckily the additional runnings to Parnell Square did operate.

Most of the services are running from Donnybrook so the impact does improve as morning service goes on, but TFI are getting bombarded on twitter. They're using operational issues as the reason, should really just be saying there's a work to rule on at DB.

Pretty much it's sole purpose is to cover off the E1 no longer serving Herbert Road. Bear in mind, the E1 was originally menant to terminate at Bray Station, like the 155 did, with the L12 (and to extent L11) being the only connection to that section of Killarney Road & Herbert Road. Its terminus was only moved to Ballywaltrim after feedback on one of the public consultation rounds.

IMO it makes sense for the L12 to do the Herbert Road detour. The 145 could easily get quite delayed on that section, which was bad enough when it only had to get to Heuston. With the E1 being a much longer route now (scheduled to take around 2 hours), the less detours the better!

I will admit though, the L12 in it's current form is a poor route overall. Its extremely short - it's only scheduled to take 10 minutes to do the full route, which is why I think it would be more suited to the Cherrywood/Brides Glen extension.

Is there any update on the core bus corridors? As in the infrastructure works? I would hope something gets underway this year.

Finglas luas won't be delivered this decade but the bus corridor might be done in 2027

Dublin Bus & SIPTU are going to have talks about this dispute later today.

The RTÉ News article gives a good summary of what routes are being impacted by the work to rule by DB staff over the last few days.

Donnybrook: 7, 14, 15, E1

(DB also mention an E11 route which is bit bizarre tbh as there's no such route in place)

Phibsboro: 9, 122, 39, C1

Summerhill: 15b, 41, 120, 123

I happened to be on the N11 this morning at 08:00. I know it is busy along there, but the crowds at each bus stop heading towards town were huge. Some stops looked like they could load a bus on their own. The E2s that I saw were just completely loaded and taking ages at each stop.

Does anyone know how the work to rule is working. Is it the "shunters" / depot people doing X amount of buses per hour or one bus at a time as per their agreement versus what they actually achieve during the night?

Not a great look for Bus Connects as the general public will presume this is the new E buses problem rather than the old 46A / 145 / 4 / 155.

Or maybe E2 in Roman numeral? 😉