BusConnects Dublin - Big changes to Bus Network

sharper · 28-02-2019 9:32pm

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

we need massive P&R facilities with a luas/DART running parallel to the M50 and hubs to local services at the main junctions - M1, M3, N4, N7, N11 - along with looking at upgrading some of the link roads between the M3-M4-M7 (an outer half M50)

How are this plan going to get implemented without anyone opposing it? How will it stop politicians winning votes by lying about it?

I generally reject the idea that Ireland is special or unique or that we need "Irish solutions" to problems that are common elsewhere. If you're going to cede that of course busconnects will fail because of opposition I don't see how you can then propose an alternative plan that needs the same things as busconnects in order to happen.

A different way of looking at it is every infrastructure plan will be opposed so you may as well come up with the best plan you can and then plough on ahead. Ultimately something like busconnects will happen, the only question is whether it happens before or after the existing transport infrastructure becomes a crisis with similar attention as currently placed on housing and health.

MJohnston · 28-02-2019 9:57pm

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

With me so far?

Honestly my eyes glazed over in the first sentence when I realised you'd missed the joke.

_Kaiser_ · 28-02-2019 10:14pm

MJohnston wrote: »

Honestly my eyes glazed over in the first sentence when I realised you'd missed the joke.

D'oh! Apologies.. My bad!

Although, it's genuinely hard to tell as the motorist seems to get blamed for everything transport-related these days

sharper · 11-03-2019 3:31pm

Community forum dates for phase 3 are up https://www.busconnects.ie/initiatives/community-forum/

Bray to City Centre Corridor in the Talbot Hotel Stillorgan (Park Hotel), Stillorgan Road, Blackrock, Dublin, A94 V6K5, on Monday 8th April from 18:30 – 20:00.

Ballymum to City Centre & Finglas to Phibsborough Corridors in the Ballymum Axis Arts Centre, Main Street Ballymun, Dublin 9, D09 Y9W0 on Wednesday 10th April from 18:30 – 20:00.

UCD Ballsbridge to City Centre & Blackrock to Merrion Corridors in the Clayton Burlington Hotel, Leeson Street Upper, D04 A318 on Tuesday 16th April from 18:30 – 20:00.

Ringsend to City Centre Corridor in The Convention Centre, Spencer Dock, North Wall Quay, North Wall, Dublin 1, D01 T1W6 on Thursday 18th April from 18:30 – 20:00.

sharper · 05-04-2019 11:39am

A couple of letters in the Irish Times over the last couple of days in support of the Bus Connects project. It's kind of a shame we have to rely on people writing in to get the obvious printed

BusConnects is Essential

Sir, – Can everyone in Terenure and Rathgar who is opposed to the BusConnects plan please sit on a bus from Rathfarnham to Dublin city centre every morning and evening and tell me that improvements to the service are not necessary?

Even getting the bus at 6.30am means it takes up to an hour to get to Pearse Street.

Rathgar has posters all over it to say it is village not a corridor, but house prices in this area do not reflect a village setting.

They can’t have it all. They need to think about the bigger picture not just for their communities but for all the communities beyond Dublin 6 who are as much a part of Dublin.

BusConnects needs to happen. – Yours, etc,

Keeps the trees, remove the cars

Sir, – Dedicated bus and cycle lanes are not the cause of road realignments requiring tree removal and other anguish. The choice to maintain car lanes at all costs is the culprit. – Yours, etc,

Dyr · 05-04-2019 1:32pm

There's no such thing as a car lane

Lets be honest here, it is the Bike Connects dedicated cycle lanes that are going to chop down whatever trees are left on our streets

sharper · 05-04-2019 2:10pm

Bambi wrote: »

There's no such thing as a car lane

Lets be honest here, it is the Bike Connects dedicated cycle lanes that are going to chop down whatever trees are left on our streets

I'm not really sure how to respond to your first point.

On your second, do you support restricting cars instead so the important trees can be retained?

MJohnston · 05-04-2019 4:15pm

The audacity of using trees as a reason to keep car access is astounding, or terminally ignorant, can't decide which.

Dyr · 06-04-2019 11:40am

You can agree that my first point is correct and that's about the only response that's valid.

They're not chopping down trees to make space for plain vanilla roads lads, those lanes for ALL trafiic types that everyone who's not somewhere beyond Eamonn Ryan levels of deluded understands we still need for a functioning transport system rather than just a commuting system

Those lanes already in place

They're not even chopping the trees down to make space for bus lanes.

By and large, those lanes are already in place

The trees are being felled to put in the additional cycle lanes.

That's just the reality of Bus Connects lads

CatInABox · 06-04-2019 12:48pm

Bambi wrote: »

You can agree that my first point is correct and that's about the only response that's valid.

They're not chopping down trees to make space for plain vanilla roads lads, those lanes for ALL trafiic types that everyone who's not somewhere beyond Eamonn Ryan levels of deluded understands we still need for a functioning transport system rather than just a commuting system

Those lanes already in place

They're not even chopping the trees down to make space for bus lanes.

By and large, those lanes are already in place

The trees are being felled to put in the additional cycle lanes.

That's just the reality of Bus Connects lads

Remove cars from those roads and you'd still have a functioning transport system.

hmmm · 06-04-2019 1:36pm

This "urban village" idea which is being spread is an interesting notion, and yet another consequence of our bad planning which has discouraged the building of high rise and density in the city centre. Now every location with bungalows and small houses within sight of Grafton street are getting a notion that they are a "village', and shouldn't be bothered by things like traffic while retaining all the benefits of living close to the city centre.

Dats me · 06-04-2019 2:05pm

Particularly in the SW, BusConnects could knock 45 minutes off your bus journey. That is absolutely massive considering the hundreds of thousands of people who use the bus to commute in Dublin everyday - this project could give you an extra 45 mins in bed or time for an extra pint in the evening with your friends. Cycling is also amazing. Quicker, great for your health, there are loads of people who would love to cycle but they're (legitimately) scared of getting injured. This our chance to solve that for a lot of people.

Regarding road widening and tress. If you recognise the need for bus and cycling infrastructure, and that less people will be driving when these are both safe, reliable and quick options, but oppose road widening and felling trees then I think advocating in favour of making these routes one way or bus and cycle only is completely legitimate as an alternative. It's keeping private car space that is causing the road widening, not the very necessary sustainable transport infrastructure.

Opposing the project flat out because you're happy with high levels of Co2 emissions, chronic air pollution (a Trinity study said 6,000 people will die prematurely between 2015 & 2024 in Ireland due to private car emissions - mainly diesel) and long, long commutes in your car is not legitimate in my view. We've the most congested city in Europe and we're facing a climate crisis.

Slutmonkey57b · 09-04-2019 11:38am

You can all give up on the bray corridor based on the meeting last night. 2 hours of people from Shankill frothing at the mouth. There was a lynching atmosphere, the whole plan is going to cause traffic chaos and buses in Shankill are "fine" apparently.

Giving up some of their cars and taking the bus is apparently too great a mental leap in solving the whole traffic issue.

Dyr · 09-04-2019 11:59am

CatInABox wrote: »

Remove cars from those roads and you'd still have a functioning transport system.

Well you can certainly put forward the idea of banning cars from the roads and see how far that kind of extremist carry on gets you.

But that's not what you're actually proposing, you're talking about replacing the road with reserved lanes, so you're actually banning, lorries, vans, motorbikes, taxis etc. etc.

That's not a transport system any more.

loyatemu · 09-04-2019 12:44pm

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

You can all give up on the bray corridor based on the meeting last night. 2 hours of people from Shankill frothing at the mouth. There was a lynching atmosphere, the whole plan is going to cause traffic chaos and buses in Shankill are "fine" apparently.

Giving up some of their cars and taking the bus is apparently too great a mental leap in solving the whole traffic issue.

simple solution - run the frequent buses via the M11 J5 and just run one bus an hour through Shankill. Everyone wins.

Slutmonkey57b · 09-04-2019 1:10pm

The point of busconnects is to link the city together, not wall parts of it off into bus - free islands.

CatInABox · 09-04-2019 2:05pm

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

The point of busconnects is to link the city together, not wall parts of it off into bus - free islands.

At some points, that's exactly what's happening. Not sure on the new plans, but in the original plans, Chapelizod would have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of buses, with the rest of them using the bypass.

Counter-intuitively, this probably would have resulted in an increase in capacity going through Chapelizod, as people won't be getting on the Chapelizod buses anymore.

hmmm · 09-04-2019 7:57pm

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

You can all give up on the bray corridor based on the meeting last night. 2 hours of people from Shankill frothing at the mouth.

These public meetings are unfair on the commuters who take these buses. Many will have young families, and the last thing they are going to do is give up 2 hours of their lives going to one of these things. It's the usual grey haired crowd who have little else to be doing.

We have cowards as politicians - instead of stepping up and leading, they are hiding. That's the problem.

Dats me · 09-04-2019 9:36pm

hmmm wrote: »

These public meetings are unfair on the commuters who take these buses. Many will have young families, and the last thing they are going to do is give up 2 hours of their lives going to one of these things. It's the usual grey haired crowd who have little else to be doing.

We have cowards as politicians - instead of stepping up and leading, they are hiding. That's the problem.

Exactly, and of course people are far more likely to attend a meeting to give out about something than praise it.

Guy on the MetroLink thread said that an engineer at a consultation meeting yesterday said a year ago everyone at the meeting was complaining that they were doing the upgrade, now everyone at the meeting was complaining that they are not doing it!

They're great as information sessions, but an abysmal thing to base decisions on. Completely unrepresentative as you say.

howiya · 11-04-2019 5:34pm

I know the original plan for the rollout of Bus Connects was for a Big Bang all at once rollout but my own commute has got me thinking.

More often than not it involves getting any bus from outside the city centre (as defined by dublin bus, I wouldn’t consider it outside the city centre) as far as the Malahide Road to link up with a 14 or 104. It’s often impossible to get on a 14 at the stop I use.

Now it’s hard to link up with the 104 due to its frequency but I managed it tonight.

Anyway back to the point, I think it would help people in my area if they introduced the two routes that are going to bring people to/from the Malahide Road. One on Collins Avenue and the other uses Kilmore Road I think.

People are already having to transfer and make connections. May as well make it easier for them.

Obviously extra buses/drivers would be required. Would that be the biggest obstacle?

sharper · 19-04-2019 10:23am

Something to keep in mind in relation to road space

https://www.nationaltransport.ie/news/more-people-than-ever-using-public-transport-to-get-into-dublin-city/

The number of cars has fallen for the tenth successive year with 48,820 vehicles coming into the city carrying 60,537 people. This compares to 2008 when 59,000 vehicles carried 67,700 people into the city centre. The car now accounts for just 28% of journeys compared to a 2010 peak of 39.8%.

The numbers on public transport on the other hand, continue to increase. 112,512 people came into the city on bus, train or Luas in 2018 compared to 107,160 in 2017 and just 83,000 in 2010. All three modes grew in 2018 compared to the previous year. Luas posted an increase of nearly 2,000 morning peak passengers from 11,953 to 13,835, a jump of 15%. (This is the first year that the Cross City segment of the Green Line has been operational for this survey.)

This means that more than half of all commuters – 52.6% to be precise – are using public transport compared to 45.9% in 2010.

Cycling and walking numbers remain strong. 12,227 people cycled into the city centre – the second highest number ever – although down very slightly from last year. Walkers accounted for 23,858 a slight drop from last year’s record high. Mode share for cycling is at 5.7%, with walking at 11.2%.

Of the 213,920 people recorded coming into the city centre, 150,753 – or 70% – used sustainable modes such as public transport, cycling and walking.

That’s up from 106,415, or 59%, in 2010.

yer man! · 20-04-2019 1:57pm

After reading the articles in the Irish times about this project, I have no confidence that this well get built. If it is it's going to severely watered down in critical parts.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/busconnects-what-is-next-for-the-controversial-plan-1.3866158

This is exactly the same as the cancelled metro to sandyford.

Qrt · 20-04-2019 6:48pm

yer man! wrote: »

After reading the articles in the Irish times about this project, I have no confidence that this well get built. If it is it's going to severely watered down in critical parts.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/busconnects-what-is-next-for-the-controversial-plan-1.3866158

This is exactly the same as the cancelled metro to sandyford.

To be fair, the Sandyford Metrolink debacle is far more complicated than the closure of Dunville Avenue considering the sewer became an issue.

The first bus route redesign had some serious deficiencies, not acknowledging that is just shooting yourself in the foot, but most of them can be ironed out fairly easily. The standout issues were the Drimnagh issue (the proposal was ridiculous, why they chose to use Galtymore Road, which is right beside the Luas, instead of Mourne Road, leaving a massive gap in Drimnagh, is beyond me).

Edenmore stands out too, the hourly bus proposal was wholly inadequate.

I’m fairly confident we’ll get a better bus network, it might be watered down a bit, but I can still imagine great change happening.

yer man! · 21-04-2019 1:15am

Qrt wrote: »

To be fair, the Sandyford Metrolink debacle is far more complicated than the closure of Dunville Avenue considering the sewer became an issue.

The first bus route redesign had some serious deficiencies, not acknowledging that is just shooting yourself in the foot, but most of them can be ironed out fairly easily. The standout issues were the Drimnagh issue (the proposal was ridiculous, why they chose to use Galtymore Road, which is right beside the Luas, instead of Mourne Road, leaving a massive gap in Drimnagh, is beyond me).

Edenmore stands out too, the hourly bus proposal was wholly inadequate.

I’m fairly confident we’ll get a better bus network, it might be watered down a bit, but I can still imagine great change happening.

I do hope the network will be a lot better, I just worry that the people living along some of these routes will not change their attitude to see the bigger picture. Right now they seem to see this as an attack on their car motoring. The guy in the video on the Irish times mentioned that having a better bus service in front of his business would be bad for his business as less people could get there by car. Like come on! A monumental attitude adjustment is needed for vast regions of Dublin city.

Qrt · 21-04-2019 2:22am

yer man! wrote: »

I do hope the network will be a lot better, I just worry that the people living along some of these routes will not change their attitude to see the bigger picture. Right now they seem to see this as an attack on their car motoring. The guy in the video on the Irish times mentioned that having a better bus service in front of his business would be bad for his business as less people could get there by car. Like come on! A monumental attitude adjustment is needed for vast regions of Dublin city.

I’m fairly sure that mindset is a global phenomenon, happens in Dublin, definitely happens in America. I’m sure you’d even find it in the Netherlands if you searched hard enough!

Dats me · 21-04-2019 11:17am

Qrt wrote: »

I’m fairly sure that mindset is a global phenomenon, happens in Dublin, definitely happens in America. I’m sure you’d even find it in the Netherlands if you searched hard enough!

This is true - I saw a tweet about people being furious in Amsterdam even about removing parking spaces.

We need politicians to stand up and face the climate crisis though - diesel cars are also terrible for air pollution, you can see it around dublin the last few days here. it looked like fog but the EPA were tweeting about high levels of NOx.

Things can change quite quickly though, at the presentation to DCC for the Liffey Cycle Route there, there were stats showing that since bus lanes and stuff were put onto the quays, car traffic during the morning peak was down about 45% along the quays. If we could do this with BusConnects too it could be amazing, make all the routes one way - it would get rid of the road widening too!

Qrt · 21-04-2019 2:36pm

Irish Times at it again, but the comments on the Facebook post were interesting to say the least, considering Facebook is usually where the misinformed tend to express their opinions.

Dats me · 21-04-2019 11:18pm

Qrt wrote: »

Irish Times at it again, but the comments on the Facebook post were interesting to say the least, considering Facebook is usually where the misinformed tend to express their opinions.

This sums from the article sums it up really doesn't it?

Commenting on the proposed compensation, Sharon Crosadell from Jobstown joked: “Do they want some of my garden?”

However, as far as Michael Daly from Terenure Road East is concerned: “Some things you can’t compensate for.”

These are rich people who don't care about public transport, the environment other people. They're not trying to improve the plan, or make sure it works for them, they're trying to kill it.

Hurrache · 23-04-2019 10:19am

Dats me wrote: »

These are rich people who don't care about public transport,

I doubt you'll be finding too many rich people in Jobstown.

Dats me · 23-04-2019 10:23am

Hurrache wrote: »

I doubt you'll be finding too many rich people in Jobstown.

Read the quote again haha, that was my point

BusConnects Dublin - Big changes to Bus Network

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