Luas link-up - Where would the buses go?

armada104

This is currently being discussed in the Transport 21 thread. Much as I wish the two lines could be linked asap, I just do not see how it will work.



Presumably in this setup, track would not be shared with cars/buses, as letting trams sit in traffic on Dawson Street, Westmoreland Street, O Connell Bridge and O Connell Street would go above and beyond the joke that is the current city-centre red line, and would probably not be allowed for safety reasons anyway.

So if the trams have the streets to themselves, where in God's name will the buses go? The chosen route interferes with just about every bus route that touches the city centre, and would mean major reroutes for most of them. I cannot personally see any viable alternative to most of the current routes. It's no wonder Dublin Bus are kicking up a fuss about this.

bryanw

I suppose you have to ask why almost every route has to pass through O'Connell Street. Maybe allowing buses to terminate before their route would intersect the LUAS line might be a good idea where possible.

But I think the whole idea put forward by the city council regarding the pedestrianisation of that whole area may be the way forward...

We could allow only LUAS and some buses use the route.

Propellerhead

armada104 wrote: »

This is currently being discussed in the Transport 21 thread. Much as I wish the two lines could be linked asap, I just do not see how it will work.



Presumably in this setup, track would not be shared with cars/buses, as letting trams sit in traffic on Dawson Street, Westmoreland Street, O Connell Bridge and O Connell Street would go above and beyond the joke that is the current city-centre red line, and would probably not be allowed for safety reasons anyway.

So if the trams have the streets to themselves, where in God's name will the buses go? The chosen route interferes with just about every bus route that touches the city centre, and would mean major reroutes for most of them. I cannot personally see any viable alternative to most of the current routes. It's no wonder Dublin Bus are kicking up a fuss about this.

If it's such a rubbish deal for buses then why are the RPA bothering to promote the bizarre split routing north of the river?

Are DB doing anything at all to link the two existing lines? No.

gjim

The preferred route absolutely stinks in every way. By the RPA's own estimates it will cost 65% more than the straight forward A option and I think that's being conservative. It will involve digging up 5 extra streets and it will involve introducing a new intersection and set of lights along the quays killing the already poor flow of traffic - public and private - through that section. It will introduce a new intersection with buses at the Pearse/d'Olier/Townsend St junction killing movements in every direction. It will involve building a new bridge at a section of the Liffey already cluttered with bridges. It will make the southbound route longer and add a couple of tight slow 90 degree turns which will increase the journey time. It will require building a couple of extra stops increasing the cost and making it more confusing for users. It's so stupid, I actually hope that it's a sneaky ploy on the part of the RPA in order to kill the project. If the RPA actually believe that this route is preferrable, then the future of trams and light rail in Dublin is bleak indeed.

Xylophonic

Propellerhead wrote: »

Are DB doing anything at all to link the two existing lines? No.

Er, yes.

http://www.dublinbus.ie/news_centre/latest_news.asp?action=view&news_id=388

dRNk SAnTA

I am happy to see this thread because I feel there really hasn't been enough discussion about a long term objective/utopian vision for bus routes in the city center.

For instance, the situation on O'Connell street is bad for many often-stated reasons. But if Dublin City Councils regeneration policies have any success at all, the city center will stretch from the Docklands to Heuston Station and in that scenario we will surely need to change how we run bus routes through the city center, i.e. some go through docks, some centrally (o'connell bridge) and others cross the liffey at a more westerly location.

If we tore up the bus network and started again what would people like to do? I would love to see some diagrams of plans/suggestions about how to de-clog the grafton st - o'connell street axis and more effectively serve the rest of the city center.

AlekSmart

Its real nutty stuff ok :eek:
However I believe it`s a safe bet that this "Preferred" option will never see the light of day.
By the time 2009 comes around the availibility of funding will have been seriously compromised and a low key extended deferral will be quietly announced,probably over a Bank Holiday weekend.

The excuse will be that the Metro or some such will actually be doing the same job and available funding will be diverted into more Metro friendly projects.....

There`s NOBODY in charge and the sooner we realise and get comfortable with that notion the better for our collective sanity....

Heart

Apart from the fact that the Metro will follow the same route underground and give a link, how many people on the LUAS Green Line actually head towards O'Connell St.??? Have any surveys of passengers final destination been done?

H

paulm17781

Heart wrote: »

Apart from the fact that the Metro will follow the same route underground and give a link, how many people on the LUAS Green Line actually head towards O'Connell St.??? Have any surveys of passengers final destination been done?

Indeed, it is the determination to go to O'Connell st. that bothers / baffles me. Surely if they are going to insist on this link, they could take another route all together, via Temple Bar or some such and open more of the city to Luas.

loyatemu

its nothing to do with O'Connell street as a final destination - its to allow Green line users to easily connect with other transport modes. The Eventual plan is to extend all the way to Liffey junction allowing interchange with the Red line, the maynooth line and numerous bus services (as well as access to Connolly). It also provides a useful local service within the city centre. Sure, the metro also does this but would involve 2 changes in most cases and a lot of walking\escalators.

However I don't think this will ever be built - as it duplicate the Metro to some extent, its dispensible and will probably be dropped to save money.

paulm17781

loyatemu wrote: »

its nothing to do with O'Connell street as a final destination - its to allow Green line users to easily connect with other transport modes. The Eventual plan is to extend all the way to Liffey junction allowing interchange with the Red line, the maynooth line and numerous bus services (as well as access to Connolly).

Are these the bus services that will have to move because of the Luas

That is an awful plan (I don't mean that against you) but they would be far better having it go somewhere useful within walking distance of other modes of Transport. With everything else T21 apparently delivers this should be possible. Alternatively a decent reshuffle of bus routes would do the same thing at lower cost.

AlekSmart

The entire thing is simply yet another excuse for some Gravy Training.... :rolleyes:

Already we have had surveys,geotechnical work,planning analysis and of course the ubquitous "Consultancy" work all fully tendered for and paid for.

The usual band of "Proffesionals",both individual and corporate have been nosing round the trough and at the end of the day it matters little if any work is actually carried out because these folks WILL be paid.

Essentially it`s a repeat ot the RPA`s "Integrated Ticketing" programme which if nothing else is proving how the RPA should be placed in charge of sourcing "Consultancy" work for EVERY project in the State..... :eek:

trellheim

Just a point ;

we've discussed this several times. Each time you get the LUAS moaners [ I want to go from Red-Green etc ] who don't take into account the massive disruption to all the other forms

Also RPA want to get as much mileage as they can before a DTA tells them to stop messing and play with the other children.

1: Red-Green link not needed as Metro North will duplicate it.

Consider the upheaval

1 surface tram as planned line will mess up every city centre bus route and all the cross-city centre routes. If it is given traffic priority [ there's another question... if all Westmoreland and College Green is public transport, why should the LUAS get any priority ] all the other buses will be messed up.


Consider the upheaval


1: Years of Dawson, Suffolk, Colllege Green & O Connell being ripped up just as it's been finished for ANOTHER tram

2: The Green, and all the other Metro North Stations being constructed will do the same for another number of years.

3: The Interconnector [ the one that is actually needed ] doing the same just even deeper [ not much overground ]


DO NOT GET ME WRONG - INTERCONNECT IS A GOOD THING. But the plan as put down by RPA is moronic.


Put the damn thing on stilts and run it as an 'El' or make the Metro North tunnels wider and run it beside the Metro North trains and bring it up at Dorset St.

murphaph

AlekSmart wrote: »

Its real nutty stuff ok :eek:
However I believe it`s a safe bet that this "Preferred" option will never see the light of day.
By the time 2009 comes around the availibility of funding will have been seriously compromised and a low key extended deferral will be quietly announced,probably over a Bank Holiday weekend.

The excuse will be that the Metro or some such will actually be doing the same job and available funding will be diverted into more Metro friendly projects.....

There`s NOBODY in charge and the sooner we realise and get comfortable with that notion the better for our collective sanity....

My sentiments exactly. Don't believe this link up will ever appear, certainly not in this format.

D.L.R.

At the risk of sounding logical, build the metro with an extra stop around trinity, and move the o'connell stop north (to actually CONNECT with the red line). The green line can be upgraded to metro at a later stage.



The College Green stop could also be integrated with the Lucan Luas terminus, if that route is selected.

strassenwolf

AlekSmart wrote: »

There`s NOBODY in charge and the sooner we realise and get comfortable with that notion the better for our collective sanity....

But Alek, from what I'm aware, there's a section of the Department of Transport called the Public Transport Planning Division.

My guess is that the staff therein busy themselves planning public transport.

Presumably, the boss of this division is in overall charge of our public transport plans, and he then makes recommendations to the Minister.

Or is this not how it works? Please forgive my naivety.

armada104

Upheaval during the construction period is a non-argument as far as I'm concerned. It's hugely inconvenient but it's necessary.

What concerns me more is the gobbling up by Luas of the only sensible north-south spine that bus routes have.The proposed Luas route completely rules out Dawson Street and College Green for bus use, and would cause significant problems on Westmoreland St and O' Connell St. Not to mention the eradication of a bus terminus.It's all very well talking about a growing city centre and bus routes in the docklands, but at the end of the day, people want to get the bus to what is and will be the city centre for the forseeable future.

The argument for terminating buses before they interfere with Luas is ludicrous. Cross-city routes are extremely valuable - not everyone wants to go to the city centre. Even those routes that do terminate in the city centre should cross the river before doing so - not everyone from the northside works in the north city centre and vice versa. One tram line should not get priority over hundreds of buses daily.

On the other hand, the "don't worry - it won't happen" attitude is absolutely ridiculous. The green line should meet the red one - of course the green line should be part of Metro North, but realistically it never will be. Transferring to Metro North for one stop is not an acceptable means of interchange. A "sure it'll be grand" attitude won't change this.

Slice

Couldn't other routes in the city centre be prioritised for busses if cross city routes is the objective?

Heart

Why not send the line around by Merrion Sq./Westland Row across Pearse St. and cross the Liffey and join up along the extension to the Point, offering new links across the city to areas not served by the LUAS???

H

trellheim

I take your point completely. In the 10-50 year timeframe it won't matter regarding a construction upheaval if we have to effectively dig up the city centre for 8-10 years [ think Boston during the Big Dig, but with no cash for bypasses ]

why isn't it going around Pearse St ?
because the "Duh"-signers were told to skew it in favour of College Green.

Propellerhead

Heart wrote: »

Why not send the line around by Merrion Sq./Westland Row across Pearse St. and cross the Liffey and join up along the extension to the Point, offering new links across the city to areas not served by the LUAS???

H

Round and round the houses. What would be the benefit? Certainly none for any meaningful integration. One of the options for the BX public consultation was going via Merrion Square and Westland Row and crossing the river north of Westland Row. Rightly, this was dismissed.

Propellerhead

Xylophonic wrote: »

Er, yes.

http://www.dublinbus.ie/news_centre/latest_news.asp?action=view&news_id=388

You still have a five hundred metre walk from Westmorland Street to the Abbey Luas. Route 92 is not integration.

A single decker running from the Luas terminus to Abbey and Connolly on a five to ten minute headway would be.

trellheim

You are correct PH : round the houses. It is the only overground way that doesn't interfere with the existing majority of public transport. [ and even then it would hurt the area ]

For one line just so the RPA can have a bigger trainset ?

... reality check needed.

Zoney

I cannot believe people are still suggesting the two Luas lines do not need connected. It is irrelevant that Metro will be "duplicating the route" (not that it exactly will - Stephen's Green to O'Connell St.) or that buses already do. Each form of transport needs its own network, yes with connections to allow multi-modal travel, but it is not sensible for many journeys to have people switch modes just for the last bit in the city centre; especially if they are going to travel onwards on some other mode.

Look at cities with sensible transport systems, and they usually have trunk sections in the city centre where you have the same route followed by bus, tram, underground, commuter rail and other heavy rail.

Of course we all know the chaos that might result from putting in the new Luas connection. But come on, this is not despite the evidence a nation of thickos with no money - it is not impossible to sort things out that one can have the two luas lines connected and still have bus services run as efficiently (of course, considering that a better concept of a hub is needed, and the buses *aren't* that efficient at present - surely it's the buses that most need to be rerouted?)

Calina

Zoney wrote: »

... Each form of transport needs its own network, yes with connections to allow multi-modal travel, but it is not sensible for many journeys to have people switch modes just for the last bit in the city centre; especially if they are going to travel onwards on some other mode.

I would have said there needs to be greater integration of the different modes something which is sadly lacking at the moment, and evidenced by this debate. Do we need duplication or near duplication along that route?

The issue that we have - compared to other cities - is that very little long term planning is done and when you have several agencies doing it separately then you wind up with a disparate and not well thought out system. I see no evidence of any improvement here. We are also hamstrung because there are things in the way we can't demolish - I mean, how much easier would our lives be if we could demolish Trinity College and build a brand new 18 platform mainline railway station lining up all the intercity services and make it served properly by DARTS, Luases and buses. I suppose we could get rid of the Bank of Ireland as well, that's in the way too.

Unfortunately...Really, they should have built the central sections of the Luas underground like a load of people said they should 10 years ago...routing a connection between them might have been easier.

Planning Luas connections needs to be looked at in tandem with other transport modes including moving traffic around the place. Unfortunately I don't get any feeling for it being done.

trellheim

And as usual people don't read what I said.

No one is suggesting integration is not needed.


Why should the minority - i.e. the LUAS get priority over the buses ?

Calina puts it better than I can.

Until a situation exists where CIE [ IE/BE/DB] and RPA can play together happily for the greater good then everyone wants their own trainset.

Nothing worthwhile going to happen without a DTA with balls [ these were excised by Cullen two years ago ]



bet : RPA will dig it up anyway and it will go ahead. Morons to the fore and we've wrecked the city for another 10-20 years.

Zoney

Calina wrote: »

I would have said there needs to be greater integration of the different modes something which is sadly lacking at the moment, and evidenced by this debate. Do we need duplication or near duplication along that route?

The point is that we need both. It's not sane to have a gap in the middle of the different transport modes that people are supposed to walk, hop on a bus, hop on a Metro for one stop, it's just not sensible.

By the logic some are expressing here, one would shelve the Interconnector just cause there's the Luas red line. The entire point of connecting up the heavy rail network in this instance is to make it simpler to *interconnect* with other transport links!!!

Have people engaging in this debate actually been to somewhere that has loads of interconnected different transport modes converging on the city centre? Munich for example? We're not even looking for a similar scale of interconnection here, we are just talking about joining up our two tram lines - something that should have been in place from the start!

Mightn't joining the two Luas lines mean that someone out on the Green Line could travel up to where it would meet the Red Line and catch one of northside buses to continue their journey?

trellheim

1. Even if the RPA builds the "preferred" line you will still need to change to go Green-Red or vice versa so that doesn't matter at all. There is no concept of Cherrywood-direct-Citywest to take an extreme case.

Zoney the argument was the opposite. Metro North will duplicate BX so why build it overground at all to get the same integration ?


Here is my argument succinctly : it makes no sense to link the LUAS lines via the surface in the city centre. The disruption to "non-tram" public transport to allow the minority be linked up is not worth it.

steve-o

trellheim wrote: »

Here is my argument succinctly : it makes no sense to link the LUAS lines via the surface in the city centre. The disruption to "non-tram" public transport to allow the minority be linked up is not worth it.

Spot on. Some people seem to be dismissing the importance of cross city buses in favour of an O'Connell St Luas. Where's the consistency? Why should the lines meet in the most congested part of town? If routing the cross-city bus routes away from O'Connell St makes apparent sense, why does the same logic not apply to Luas?

I don't understand the obsession people have with connecting the Green line to the Red Line. Routing the Green line extension to Heuston, Pearse, Tara St, or even heading down Baggot St to Lansdowne Road would seem to me to be just as useful and far less disruptive.

Propellerhead

steve-o wrote: »

--snip--

I don't understand the obsession people have with connecting the Green line to the Red Line. Routing the Green line extension to Heuston, Pearse, Tara St, or even heading down Baggot St to Lansdowne Road would seem to me to be just as useful and far less disruptive.

I don't understand why Mary O'Rourke and a PD thinktank decided that the Luas was to be cut in two and no city centre interconnection was to be constructed at the time. Cui Bono? Who benefitted? No-one did apart from a few anti-rail obsessives in high places and presumably a few contributors to FF and PD funds.

Why not build another river crossing for road traffic and buses? Why not prioritise trams in the O'Connell Street axis? I believe that we are so bereft of imagination that clogging Westmoreland Street with terminating buses and shift changing buses without upsetting DB's unions is more important than taking a fundamental look at how all of us move around the city.

God forbid that we do anything interesting and radical in Dublin, eh? Some vested interests may not like it. :rolleyes:

paulm17781

steve-o wrote: »

I don't understand the obsession people have with connecting the Green line to the Red Line. Routing the Green line extension to Heuston, Pearse, Tara St, or even heading down Baggot St to Lansdowne Road would seem to me to be just as useful and far less disruptive.

I couldn't agree more. It would make far more sense to route the Green line past a DART station than to send it the quickest way to a congested street.

trellheim

According to a 2005 study [ Seen in "Chaos at the Crossroads" ]

17% of public transport is on the LUAS .... thus the minority claim.

50%+ on the buses.


to take a leaf out of Propellerhead's post. Why not actually prioritise buses at Westmoreland St/O'Connell Bridge ?

Then we can compare apples with oranges.

A similar argument might apply to the Hatch St/Harcourt St crossing

let's have a mini-trial to prioritise one over the other; oh,wait it's already there.

Calina

Propellerhead wrote: »

God forbid that we do anything interesting and radical in Dublin, eh? Some vested interests may not like it. :rolleyes:

being radical for the sake of being radical is likewise not very practical.

Slice

One way to connect the green and red line, while integrating with DART, without duplicating with Metro North would be to bring the Green line east towards Pearse and bring it over the about-to-be-built Maken Street Bridge and connect it with the Red line extension to the Point. The Maken Street Bridge was designed with provisions for a luas line anyway. If the requirement to bring the Green line north to Broadstone is there then it can share red line track towards O'Connell Street and spur off towards broadstone. This would meet all requirements, plus making full use of a bridge that's already planned, while at the same time providing better integration and opening up a greater part of the city to Luas.

strassenwolf

Right, lads, here's a suggestion about the LUAS link-up. It is certainly different to the other options that I've seen, so I'm giving it its own thread.:D

Apparently, a crazy one, but I'd love to hear your views.

A short, ca. 300 metre north-south tunnel under Christchurch Cathedral, i.e., between Patrick Street/Nicholas Street and Winetavern Street.

There are steep gradients on both of these streets, so trams would probably not be able to negotiate them. But by going through the hill you would negate these gradients.

So we bring the trams around Cuffe Street, Kevin Street (upper and lower), and around into Patrick Street. Through the hill onto Winetavern Street, over the bridge into Chancery Place - connection with the red line around the corner on Chancery Street - and up towards Broadstone along Greek Street, etc.

This offers connection with the red line. The tunnel through the hill at Christchurch could sit nicely on top of the proposed interconnector, allowing a link here.

Obviously the tunnel would increase costs. But we're only talking about 300 metres. Surely no great need for expensive tunnel boring machines.

Things might be a little tight at the junction of Wexford Street and Kevin Street, but it should still be doable. Apart from that, it's pretty much nice wide streets all the way.:D

Calina

(threads merged)

Propellerhead

Calina wrote: »

being radical for the sake of being radical is likewise not very practical.

Having a virtually all bus based transport system was very practical - it was also useless.

trellheim

Having a virtually all bus based transport system was very practical - it was also useless.

practical + useless.... [ intrigued ] isn't that an oxymoron ?

practical = real world application [ i.e. has a use ]

useless = no use...

You need to explain that last.

Propellerhead

To spell it out for those who don't remember the 1970s and early 1980s buses were slow, uncomfortable and relatively cheap to the exchequer. They therefore were of utility to those who did not want the State to invest in public transport.

They also facilitated urban sprawl, as an infrequent A, B or C variant on the original route could be created to service new estates, which were all built as four houses to the acre until the 1990s.

Garret FitzGerald justified the scrapping/long fingering of the second and later phases of DART (Tallaght, Clondalkin, Blanchardstown and the Airport) precisely on the basis that the areas now the subject of Tribunals were not built densely enough to justify proper transport to them.

On that basis, a bus based transport system was "practical", especially to those who paid for them but didn't have to use them. It was only a bit of cute hoor politics at the time of the three General Elections in 1981-2 that lead to the creation of the Maynooth commuter service and even more cuteness in 1979 lead to the electrification of the coastal railway that was more than life expired at the time. If the Doheny and Nesbitt School of Economics had its way we would not have had either service today. The Times and Indo archives are useful for examining this.

As for usefulness, even in the mid to late 1970s it was quicker to walk from the South Circular Road into town than to sit on a 19 or a 22 for half an hour between Kelly's Corner and Dame Street.

On that basis they were "useless".

Glad to have been of assistance.

Calina

Propellerhead wrote: »

Having a virtually all bus based transport system was very practical - it was also useless.

You're playing with reality. In truth, it was unimaginative. But so too is the idea of being radical for the sake of being radical.

In most cities with a functioning transport system, modes are integrated with the implications for the end users upper most in the minds of the designers. This is tragically not the case here.

No one in recent years said that an all-bus system was practical. What you have described is something which was politically expedient. There is a major difference between political expediency and practicality. If I am not mistaken - and I am too young - probably the most recent time an all-bus system was seen as practical was when the trams were taken out of service in the last century.

Most of what passes for transport planning in this country worries me because it is apparently more ideologically driven - viz the PDs' hamstringing of additional funding for DB because private is best, and the issues surrounding the routing of the 41X via Dublin Port Tunnel - and not practically driven.

I don't see the point in building a white elephant metro station as a tourist attraction. I want pragmatic considerations of what people in this city need outside antibus, anticar, anti-CIE, anti RPA considerations. Too much patch defending is going on.

Unfortunately, it is abundantly clear to me I am not going to get it.

Propellerhead

Calina wrote: »

You're playing with reality. In truth, it was unimaginative. But so too is the idea of being radical for the sake of being radical.

In most cities with a functioning transport system, modes are integrated with the implications for the end users upper most in the minds of the designers. This is tragically not the case here.

No one in recent years said that an all-bus system was practical. What you have described is something which was politically expedient. There is a major difference between political expediency and practicality. If I am not mistaken - and I am too young - probably the most recent time an all-bus system was seen as practical was when the trams were taken out of service in the last century.

Most of what passes for transport planning in this country worries me because it is apparently more ideologically driven - viz the PDs' hamstringing of additional funding for DB because private is best, and the issues surrounding the routing of the 41X via Dublin Port Tunnel - and not practically driven.

I don't see the point in building a white elephant metro station as a tourist attraction. I want pragmatic considerations of what people in this city need outside antibus, anticar, anti-CIE, anti RPA considerations. Too much patch defending is going on.

Unfortunately, it is abundantly clear to me I am not going to get it.

I've no patch to defend, I'm just a user of public transport. I am amazed about the White Elephant suggestion, I am sorely tempted to dig up an article on Wikipedia about fallacious argumentation. Where did I suggest doing anything as a tourist attraction? I am reminded of a piece by Niamh Connolly in the SBP written sometime in 2002 or 2003 where she claimed that one of reasons driving forward Luas was that un-named persons considered trams to be "quaint".

In any case, I can't "give" you the public transport or the sort of "debate" you want, I'm just someone with an opinion, same as everyone else here. I doubt that I will ever be convinced that bus based transport is a good thing, seeing as I grew up with the damn lousy thing. I'm sure that others will never be convinced about the effectiveness of Luas or whatever.

Calina

Mea culpa on the metro station - that was MetroBest in a different thread.

My other points still stand. The confrontational system of doing things (eg buses bad metro good or buses bad, luas good or luas bad, buses good) misses the point. Integration and considering the system as a whole rather than as its constituent parts would be more likely to be productive in the long term.

Your patch, incidentally, appears to be "buses were useless in the past, ergo they will not be useful in the future".

We are all public transport users anyway. I don't like the bus system for several reasons - I don't like the double deckers and I don't like the fact that there are far too many stops, I don't like the stage system. I don't like the fact that the Luas system was hamstrung before it ever got into operation and that this is used as ammunition against it.

I also don't like that residential planning appears to have been done with zero consideration for public transport issues - even where the building of new stations was mandatory for certain planning applications.

That being said, I absolutely agree that we need to look at what is necessary in terms of moving people around the place rather than what's expedient. In many respects, I suspect that you and I more or less agree in terms of our view of how things are done here.

Propellerhead

Calina wrote: »

Mea culpa on the metro station - that was MetroBest in a different thread.

My other points still stand. The confrontational system of doing things (eg buses bad metro good or buses bad, luas good or luas bad, buses good) misses the point. Integration and considering the system as a whole rather than as its constituent parts would be more likely to be productive in the long term.

Your patch, incidentally, appears to be "buses were useless in the past, ergo they will not be useful in the future".

We are all public transport users anyway. I don't like the bus system for several reasons - I don't like the double deckers and I don't like the fact that there are far too many stops, I don't like the stage system. I don't like the fact that the Luas system was hamstrung before it ever got into operation and that this is used as ammunition against it.

I also don't like that residential planning appears to have been done with zero consideration for public transport issues - even where the building of new stations was mandatory for certain planning applications.

That being said, I absolutely agree that we need to look at what is necessary in terms of moving people around the place rather than what's expedient. In many respects, I suspect that you and I more or less agree in terms of our view of how things are done here.

I fully agree. There's a role for everything in Dublin - while personally I use buses as transport of last resort, if some of the aspects of Dublin buses that have become fossilised get overhauled, specifically the fare stage system, inadequate numbers of doors and few genuine "QBCs" then buses do have a vital role to play.

Each bit of the system should have its specific role and integrate with all others.

trellheim

Yep. but we reiterate : noone arguing against integration

BX as currently planned not the way to do it.

zanardi

If Garrett hadn't used his IT column in the late 90's to argue against the Luas crossing the Liffey today I'm convinced that we would have a properly connected light rail system. But Mary ran scared and bluffed her way out with the Metro solution.

Luckily our usually spineless Government didn't bow to his opinions on the Red Cow interchange or we'd still be waiting for the 'on stilts' option.

Imagine being a tourist in Dublin today, staying near a Red line stop and running to catch a Green line tram to get back to their hotel - it makes me want to puke.

trellheim

they'd be getting the wrong tram line is that what you're saying ?

i.e. staying on Red Line and hotel on green line ? :eek:

A similar argument applies to a bus.


Even if we speeded up Luas to 60tph we would still not be able to beat the buses for numbers of passengers travelled since not everyone lives along the LUAS but most do live near a bus route

zanardi

Usually in a foreign country the mass transport system is your friend, once you see a station, you can make your way to any other station.

The only exceptions that I know are Dublin and Tokyo. Tokyo at least has two overlapping systems, Dublin not so much overlapping, more underlapping with Tumbleweed blowing between stations.

armada104

trellheim wrote: »

1. Even if the RPA builds the "preferred" line you will still need to change to go Green-Red or vice versa so that doesn't matter at all. There is no concept of Cherrywood-direct-Citywest to take an extreme case.

Zoney the argument was the opposite. Metro North will duplicate BX so why build it overground at all to get the same integration ?


Here is my argument succinctly : it makes no sense to link the LUAS lines via the surface in the city centre. The disruption to "non-tram" public transport to allow the minority be linked up is not worth it.

See, this is what annoys me. Metro North does not duplicate BX. Of course Luas should have been underground in the city centre, and of course the green line should be part of the metro. But it's just not. For whatever reason - political interference, lack of money, general Irish bull**** - it's just not.

I rarely use Luas, I sit on buses for an hour and a half every morning. And yet even I can recognise that in the great scheme of things, and if we are to have the integrated mass transit system we're aiming for, these two lines have to meet. They just have to.

And of course I appreciate that bus users - the majority - should get priority. But I started this thread to discuss alternative bus routes and alternative BX routes. And it's turned into a bus vs Luas argument. At this stage I'm surprised noone's dragged the ubiquitous RPA vs CIE "debate" into the whole thing.

One or two posters have posted interesting suggestions as to the rerouting of line BX and save for a couple of dismissive posts they have been largely ignored. In many ways this thread is a microcosm of the governance of public transport in this country. This is why nothing gets done. Why can noone see things both ways?

1. Bus transport forms the vast majority of public transport in this city at the moment, will do for the forseeable future and will always play a vital role.

2. Having two tram lines in to the city centre that don't meet is *ridiculous* and can't continue.

3. The current proposal for BX is a bit shíte, but there must be ways around it.

This whole arguent has been played out so many times and it's just boring at this stage.

trellheim

and if we are to have the integrated mass transit system we're aiming for, these two lines have to meet. They just have to.

Not at any cost. Too much pain for not enough gain.

Building it as BX is currently planned is worse than staying as we are; therefore do not build BX as currently planned.

Slice

What is the rationale for connecting the two lines without actually connecting them at all insofar as passengers would still need to change between the two lines at O'Connell Street? Wouldn't it make more sense to feed the green line into the red line and perhaps having the two share track with the green line terminating at Heuston or having the green line terminating at Connolly while the red line bypasses Connolly and go onwards towards the docklands?

ardmacha

If Garrett hadn't used his IT column in the late 90's to argue against the Luas crossing the Liffey today

Was he wrong? His comments have proved correct.