Bus lane on ennis road

MarkR

Been briefly mentioned in a couple of posts, but this thing has been bugging me for weeks.

• No buses in it. Ever. Except for the shannon ones, but that's it!
• Congestion is brutal there now
• Signs are up so I presume it's active, but people are still racing up there willy nilly
• I have never seen such terrible driving since this has opened.

I saw a woman coming up from the coonagh roundabout on the wrong side of the road to beat the traffic. Then of course she meets some oncoming traffic at the junction before ivans. Instead of pulling in (or at least trying to) she goes farther on the wrong side of the road to get past!

No different on the other side either, with the usual race up the inside and casually try to slide in at the lights coming in from the wrong lane. Twice now i've had someone try to bully their way in.

What bus services actually use this? Is it active now, and if so is it a 24/7 one, or only certain hours. (Nothing sign posted about times)

Limerick Dude

Bus lane is used by the coonagh roundabout bus, which is once every hour.......

PonderStibbons

I'm impressed, in a perverted sort of way. It's like they sat down and thought: "Right, where can we put a bus lane that will serve the absolute least number of buses possible, and at the same time cause the maximum amount of inconvenience to drivers?"

It must have taken some planning - if they had just thrown a dart at a map of Limerick and put a bus lane wherever it landed it would be almost certain to have been more beneficial. I don't have a car, and I'm all for bus lanes, but the stupidity of this one (one of the only ones in the whole bloody city!!) is mind-boggling. The service stops at 6.30pm and doesn't even run on f**king Sundays!

Errm, sorry about that rant...

MarkR

Glad to see I'm not the only one marvelling at the uselessness of it!

bazz26

It also only goes from the Coonagh roundabout into Ivans. The road further in towards town is too narrow for a bus lane. So the lane saves 5 minutes for the bus before it has to merge back into regular traffic that is backed up to the Coonagh roundabout.

Only Ireland would you see this.

sioda

Yet again another example that the people who make decisions for roads on Limerick city and county only own helicoptors

Limerick Dude

I presume with the new coonagh shopping centre opening, the coonagh roundabout service will be more popualr.

ninty9er

Limerick Dude wrote:

I presume with the new coonagh shopping centre opening, the coonagh roundabout service will be more popualr.

Bingo, beat me to it. I think it requires a change of route too. It'd probably be better to send the bus up the link road where they can at least knock a bus lane out of the margins!!

This is proving a paoin in the ass at the moment but I'd imagine it'll run better when we see the shopping centre opened

Insect Overlord

I actually wrote about this in my LCVP exam for the Leaving Cert today. As things stand the bus-lane represents one of the worst planning decisions I've ever seen. Access to the Ennis Road from where I live has always been challenging, but it's nearly impossible now (unless you get lucky and a friendly motorist lets you out). The Coonagh Roundabout (305) bus runs very rarely, and even then you'll see no more than 5 or 6 people using it.

hobie

I first saw it on Sunday ....... a guy in front of me, but in the Bus lane, suddenly realized where he was and swung violently over into my lane .... don't know how I missed him :eek: ...... we then proceeded towards Ivans with literally dozens of cars passing us out by driving in the Bus lane .... :cool:

I was going to ask some of the questions posted above but then decided it must have just been my imagination ...... there couldn't possibly be a big enough egit designing such road schemes .....

Aesop

Ah it's nice to know I am not the only one tearing my hair out on this one

Really we should form some kind of support group for putting up with Limerick city (and county) road planning decisions. Could we come up with a top 5 most ridiculous ideas and send them to Limerick Blogger or somewhere...

ninty9er

I had this explained to me lastnight, but I'm not sure if I've got it right:

The bus lane is to be reclassified peak or off peak, which means it will be a normal traffic lane a lot of the time. The council should notify of this within 4-5 weeks!!

How it's gonna take that long to write a notification I don't know but that's what I was told. It could be sooner. You never know. pigs might fly or an engineer at County Hall might get a burst of efficiency!!

Jumpy

Aesop wrote:

Ah it's nice to know I am not the only one tearing my hair out on this one

Really we should form some kind of support group for putting up with Limerick city (and county) road planning decisions. Could we come up with a top 5 most ridiculous ideas and send them to Limerick Blogger or somewhere...

Closing the road from the southern ring road past the quality hotel has to be number one.

hobie

Did we all notice the new Cycle lane on the other side of the road .....about 6 feet wide, it runs from Ivans out the the Elm Motors roundabout ..... presumably to allow cyclists to get a clear run out of town so they can go and buy a car from EM !!!!

the Cycle Lane was full of parked cars today ..... Casey Motors .... the Tyre place ...... peeps poping into Ivans to collect lunch etc etc ...... and of course the Bus lane was full of cars and trucks ..... didn't see any bus traffic atall ....

MarkR

I saw a bus in the bus lane today! Of course it was getting out of it, moving back into traffic, as it felt uncomfortable out of it's natural habitat, the traffic jam.

*shakes fist at limerick*

hobie

MarkR wrote:

I saw a bus in the bus lane today! Of course it was getting out of it, moving back into traffic, as it felt uncomfortable out of it's natural habitat, the traffic jam.

Maybe the driver was getting way ahead of his schedule ? .....

I read recently somewhere that a number of Bus drivers were being threatened with the sack because thay were frequently arriving ahead of scheduled times at stops and final destination .....

I suppose he could have simply slowed down, but that would have angered all the cars driving behind him down the Bus lane !!! ....

zilog_jones

Any news with this? I live in Caherdavin and the last two times I've driven home via the Coonagh roundabout I just drove on it anyway. I really don't care, and both of those times were after half 6 (as someone else said, when the 305 stops running) anyway.

How often does the Shannon bus run? I know the Ennis and Kilkee (and probably a lot of other buses) buses also go down there, but they're not exactly frequent either.

Irish Wolf

zilog_jones wrote:

Any news with this? I live in Caherdavin and the last two times I've driven home via the Coonagh roundabout I just drove on it anyway. I really don't care, and both of those times were after half 6 (as someone else said, when the 305 stops running) anyway.

How often does the Shannon bus run? I know the Ennis and Kilkee (and probably a lot of other buses) buses also go down there, but they're not exactly frequent either.

The Shannon bus runs maybe 2-3 times an hour during rush hour after that it's once every hour... I think the Ennis bus goes in over the Shannon Bridge so it doesn't use the Ennis Road at all...

They've made a right balls out of it tbh... and as hobie said the cycle lane on the opposite side is constantly blocked with parked cars... just imagine a cyclist having to swing out of the cycle lane and into traffic multiple times... it's an accident waiting to happen.

Carragh Avenue and Sheelin Road, which have always to a certain extent been used as rat runs, are now being used much more by motorist to avoid the jams... during the summer (well whenever the sun shines ) these roads will always have kids playing out on the footpaths etc.

I remember Peter Power had some blurb about changing the status of the bus lane and getting the large volume of rat runners off of Carragh Avenue and Sheelin Road - it'll be interesting to see if this happens.



rant over - I'm off to watch some kites

hobie

Maybe Limerick is trying to keep up with Dublin ..... :rolleyes:

Bus lane on busy road unused for two years
A 24-hour bus lane stretching for two kilometres on one of the most heavily congested roads in Dublin has not carried any scheduled bus services for more than two years, Dublin City Council has confirmed.

24/5/2007 IT

oh well

I thought I was the only one who thought the bus lane and the opposite cycle lane were absolute rubbish. trying to turn into or out of Caherdavin has become a joke. There is a yellow box near Greenhills, persumably to allow drivers come out of Na Piarsaigh side but it doesn't allow drivers turn into the Greenhils coming out of town. definately one of Limerick's planners best planning decisions!!!!!

hobie

Went in and out of town today via Ivans cross ..... not one bus in the Bus lane ..... Cycle lane half full of cars .... so nothing new ....

Have faith .... the master plan will work .....

one day !!!!

Irish Wolf

NEWS FLASH*

Either I was seeing things this evening - or the bus lane is no more.. solid white line seems to have been blasted to a broken line and the BUS LANE sign that was on the road is also blasted..



*may or may not be news - I'm not long back from holidays

hobie

Irish Wolf wrote:

NEWS FLASH*

Either I was seeing things this evening - or the bus lane is no more.. solid white line seems to have been blasted to a broken line and the BUS LANE sign that was on the road is also blasted..

*may or may not be news - I'm not long back from holidays

You mean to say they recognised they $$$$$ up big time ....

I'm amazed !!!!! ......

Aesop

Read a report in The Post that said they were considering making the bus lane on the Ennis Road only active from 10am until 3pm following numerous complaints.

BTW anyone know what roadworks are planned for the parkway roundabout. Signs were on the side of the road this morning but I couldn't find any reference on the city or county council websites. Not surprising I guess as the city council webiste says the Corbally link road will be open by June 22nd. :mad:

highlydebased

Anyone know whats going on with the roadworks opposite ivans? Looks a bit like pipes or something. That spot at ivans is constantly being dug up, causing chaos!

talkingclock

The rumour has it that M&S (rumour #565448) will go into Ivans.

SCNR

rok

Irish Wolf wrote:

NEWS FLASH*

Either I was seeing things this evening - or the bus lane is no more.. solid white line seems to have been blasted to a broken line and the BUS LANE sign that was on the road is also blasted..



*may or may not be news - I'm not long back from holidays

I had the pleasure of using the "bus lane" yesterday after 5pm + the LANA BUS signs + solid line were there

oh well

definitely one of the "bus lane" signs were sand blasted up this morning. as to the pipes ??? or whatever they are laying beyond Ivans on the Clonmacken Road - the new grass there never even got a chance to grow before they dug it up again. The original digging up was to lay pipes to facilitate the tunnel works - they made a total mess of front of Aylesbury area doing that and since then, they must have dug it up another 4 times at least. why oh why can't they do it all in one go.

MarkR

I drove by there this morning, signs seemed there. I was momentarily distracted though by the idiot halfway over into my lane, overtaking. All I had time to do was shout "He's coming right for us!" and swerve. *shakes fist at memory of stupid dangerous driver*

Irish Wolf

I really haven't a clue what's going on tbh.. the signs are still up on the posts and the little stretch from the turn off to Whitty's, to Ivan's still has the LANA BUS sign on the road - but the rest seems to be "ammended". Soon there'll be so many signs and lines on that stretch of road no-one will know wtf is going on..

Still though, didn't they make a great job of the car parking on the opposite side of the road... Worst. Cycle Lane. Ever.

Insect Overlord

Irish Wolf wrote:

Still though, didn't they make a great job of the car parking on the opposite side of the road... Worst. Cycle Lane. Ever.

QFT. I nearly got hit by a truck last Monday when I had to move out to avoid the line of parked cars and 4x4s. I used to like riding my bike