Pedestrianise College Green for 2016

garrettod

Who do the DCC report to (externally, not "in house") ?

In my view, it's long past time that those of us unhappy with the DCC started sending in formal complaints about them, to whoever their masters are.

Thanks.

cgcsb

A complete bus ban is unworkable unless they start forcing buses through Templebar or build a bus tunnel at considerable expense. Should this have been sorted out years ago?

monument

MJohnston wrote: »

More talk about banning buses too: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/commercial-property/council-to-unveil-radical-vision-for-college-green-in-dublin-1.2519576

lxflyer wrote: »

More nonsense from DCC.

They need to realise that Dublin Bus will continue to carry far more passengers through College Green than the LUAS will ever do.

Where would all the routes that currently use Georges Street go? They would have a massive detour and extended journey times - it's just not a runner.

This suggestion is madness - it's only remotely viable if DART Underground and Metro North are in place.

We should remember that the above Irish Times article quotes/references a previous Irish Times which was corrected by the city council.

In terms of comparing bus vs tram however we need to look at how many people can by carried per mode per km and we need to be real that the tram tracks are going in already. Regardless of how many buses are moved, bus priority will be key.

Remember my starting view was that BXD should have went around TCD.

cgcsb

I think the reasoning for banning buses and not luas is not a mistaken case of assigning higher priority to more passengers, rather it's about reducing through traffic from what should be a public plaza.

monument

cgcsb wrote: »

A complete bus ban is unworkable unless they start forcing buses through Templebar or build a bus tunnel at considerable expense. Should this have been sorted out years ago?

"Through Temple Bar" makes it sound like there would need to be major structural changes, but Parliament Street is reasonably wide and could be made public transport, taxi, bicycle and walking only.

LXFlyer

monument wrote: »

We should remember that the above Irish Times article quotes/references a previous Irish Times which was corrected by the city council.

In terms of comparing bus vs tram however we need to look at how many people can by carried per mode per km and we need to be real that the tram tracks are going in already. Regardless of how many buses are moved, bus priority will be key.

Remember my starting view was that BXD should have went around TCD.

I really just see this as posturing by DCC - hopefully the NTA and Dublin Bus will give them a reality check.

For the record, I don't expect every route that used to use Suffolk Street to revert to Grafton Street and College Green. That just won't work, but DCC's concept of no buses won't work either, in the absence of DART Underground or Metro North. Realistically it would add way too much journey time, particularly to the routes using Georges Street.

But I do actually think that this is a good chance to redesign the Rathmines, Leeson Street and Blanchardstown routes a little and expand the coverage.

For example, for northbound buses, put in a contra-flow bus lane at the north end of Kildare Street, and let the 15a, 15b, 37, 38/a, 39, 68/a, 70 and 145 use it and operate then via Westland Row and Pearse Street. Maybe put a southbound contra-flow on Nassau Street between Lincoln Place and Kildare Street to allow those routes an alternative method of getting to St Stephen's Green having gone via Townsend Street and Westland Row.

Then let the 15, 39a, 46a use Dawson Street and Grafton Street, sharing with LUAS.

Leave the 14 and 140 via George's Street and Dame Street.

Some thinking outside the box is needed here - but at the same time DCC need to get in touch with reality.

garrettod

cgcsb wrote: »

I think the reasoning for banning buses and not luas is not a mistaken case of assigning higher priority to more passengers, rather it's about reducing through traffic from what should be a public plaza.

Hello,

I think you may be correct. However, why DCC think this should be a public plaza is beyond me, as I have not seen anthing but opposition to the concept from the business people in the area, the private transport operators using the area or the public.

Taking the traffic out of the city is all well and good, if there is suitable alternatives in place, but there are not and putting one tram line in place is not an adequate alternative.

monument

garrettod wrote: »

Hello,

I think you may be correct. However, why DCC think this should be a public plaza is beyond me, as I have not seen anthing but opposition to the concept from the business people in the area, the private transport operators using the area or the public.

Taking the traffic out of the city is all well and good, if there is suitable alternatives in place, but there are not and putting one tram line in place is not an adequate alternative.

Going by comments on online newspaper articles there's lots of people who want to see a plaza at College Green.

What business people have spoken out expect the usual suspects?

Khuitlio

garrettod wrote: »

Hello,

I think you may be correct. However, why DCC think this should be a public plaza is beyond me, as I have not seen anthing but opposition to the concept from the business people in the area, the private transport operators using the area or the public.

Taking the traffic out of the city is all well and good, if there is suitable alternatives in place, but there are not and putting one tram line in place is not an adequate alternative.

I actually think there's a significant portion of the general public that are in favour of a plaza at College Green.

Schadenfreudia

Khuitlio wrote: »

I actually think there's a significant portion of the general public that are in favour of a plaza at College Green.

Presumably they don't need to commute using buses that pass through the "bus-gate"?

Farotz

I for one pass by bus there twice a day, but i'd be willing to accept a slightly longer commute in order to finally see the capital city sporting a proper European-style square. As a native italian, even after 10 years here i have never got used to the absence of what i was brought up to think as an essential element of any city worth the name. I totally agree that this transformation would have been far smoother if MN and DU were already in place, but considering them as prerequisites means giving up any comprehensive regeneration of the area for a couple of decades.

cgcsb

garrettod wrote: »

Hello,

I think you may be correct. However, why DCC think this should be a public plaza is beyond me, as I have not seen anthing but opposition to the concept from the business people in the area, the private transport operators using the area or the public.

Taking the traffic out of the city is all well and good, if there is suitable alternatives in place, but there are not and putting one tram line in place is not an adequate alternative.

Local businesses like Starbucks, Hollister and Brown Thomas?

You're not talking about the main street in Cathirsiveen, these are global businesses with billionaire backing, they ain't going to be shutting shop because the local aul dears can't tripple park outside their door.

MJohnston

cgcsb wrote: »

Local businesses like Starbucks, Hollister and Brown Thomas?

You're not talking about the main street in Cathirsiveen, these are global businesses with billionaire backing, they ain't going to be shutting shop because the local aul dears can't tripple park outside their door.

Those multinationals probably love pedestrianized zones too.

Carawaystick

Farotz wrote: »

I for one pass by bus there twice a day, but i'd be willing to accept a slightly longer commute in order to finally see the capital city sporting a proper European-style square. As a native italian, even after 10 years here i have never got used to the absence of what i was brought up to think as an essential element of any city worth the name.

What is missing from
Smithfield, Garden of Rememberance, Wolfe Tone square, Georges Dock, Grand Canal Square, Temple bar square, Central Bank

Not to mention the Georgian squares, Mountjoy square, Merrion Square, Saint Stephens's Green?

Or not even a stones throw from College Green, Parliament square?

LXFlyer

I would not focus on businesses.

The bottom line is that this suggestion would result in significantly extended journey times for large numbers of people - that is already the case for routes diverted via
Westland Row and Pearse Street (despite the double bus lanes).

It wouldn't just be "a few extra minutes". Look at the knock on effects - how many extra buses would be needed just to maintain existing service levels due to the additional running time due to the diversions.

While I appreciate the aim of a public space, this suggestion (in my view) is not practical in terms of keeping public transport moving efficiently through the city, without the additional rail infrastructure I've mentioned before.

Keeping the city moving as efficiently as possible has to be the over-riding principle here. Sending core cross-city bus routes on meandering diversions around the city centre is not going to attract people onto public transport.

It just seems that we don't have any vision of how the bus services will work - instead it's a case of make it up as we go along. It is just nuts. As I've said before this should have been an integral part of the LUAS planning requirements.

monument

Let's not over egg the diversions too much. If Parliament Street was used as a bus only street, the diversion would only be ~500 metres added to cross-city routes.

This might be a disaster of a detour now, but if the planned context of removing through traffic on the north and south quays in the central area, it could would. Also the context would be comparably faster trips by bus than by car.

I know it's just me suggesting this at the moment but we have no read detail about what's to happen and we should not allow worst-case plans to develop which we're waiting for info.

LXFlyer

monument wrote: »

Let's not over egg the diversions too much. If Parliament Street was used as a bus only street, the diversion would only be ~500 metres added to cross-city routes.

This might be a disaster of a detour now, but if the planned context of removing through traffic on the north and south quays in the central area, it could would. Also the context would be comparably faster trips by bus than by car.

I know it's just me suggesting this at the moment but we have no read detail about what's to happen and we should not allow worst-case plans to develop which we're waiting for info.

I'm sorry Monument, but as a bus user I feel that bus users are just being trampled over. Any diversion is going to have a further negative impact on journey times, which may impact on fleet requirements, and which will lessen the attractiveness of the bus.

As a cycling journalist/lobbyist you (along with the cycling lobby groups) would be screaming blue bloody murder if cycling rights were removed from that area.

There's no bus user lobby group - and politicians seem to be only interested in things on rails, and they need to realise that buses are still going to be the mainstay of our public transport system, and should be treated as such, rather than as an afterthought.

I am not going to apologise for my opinion that these ideas are utter nonsense in the context of providing a proper bus service in this city.

monument

lxflyer wrote: »

I'm sorry Monument, but as a bus user I feel that bus users are just being trampled over. Any diversion is going to have a further negative impact on journey times, which may impact on fleet requirements, and which will lessen the attractiveness of the bus.

As a cycling journalist/lobbyist you (along with the cycling lobby groups) would be screaming blue bloody murder if cycling rights were removed from that area.

There's no bus user lobby group - and politicians seem to be only interested in things on rails, and they need to realise that buses are still going to be the mainstay of our public transport system, and should be treated as such, rather than as an afterthought.

I am not going to apologise for my opinion that these ideas are utter nonsense in the context of providing a proper bus service in this city.

There's no need to personalise it, you could simply ask me what would my view if bicycles were diverted. The answer is the same as buses being diverted: it depends on the quality and length of the diversions in mind. For cycling there's a number of possible if not tricky or difficult options for two-way diversions.

My view that Luas (and not buses) should have used a different route to start with, was mainly down to not affecting buses. Part of me would like to see on-street tram lines all over the place, but my realistic and short-term side of my brain would push for more and more bus and bicycle only streets.

My overall point in reply to your second last post is that we don't know what the plan is and we should not overreact when we don't. The last word from the city council is that not all buses will be diverted (the more recent Irish Times only referenced their previous article which the council already clarified / corrected. The Irish Times has (1) a history of getting in wrong on transport plans and (2) a major fault in not wanting to correct its self (sometimes in things more important than transport matters).

In the overall scheme of things, the city centre plan is very focuses on buses and cycling was an afterthought. If somewhere between half or most of the city centre plan was done, attractiveness of buses would jump to a new level unseen in Dublin before.

And it's unfair to councillors to claim that politicians are not interested in buses -- from watching councillor meetings, they seem fairly clear on the fact that buses should get priority and look to be worried with buses are impacted on.

Re a bus lobby -- only bus users can do that.

Schadenfreudia

Farotz wrote: »

I for one pass by bus there twice a day, but i'd be willing to accept a slightly longer commute in order to finally see the capital city sporting a proper European-style square.

There is always the exception the proves the rule....

Schadenfreudia

lxflyer wrote: »

As a cycling journalist/lobbyist you....

One learns something not unexpected every day!

(along with the cycling lobby groups) would be screaming blue bloody murder if cycling rights were removed from that area.

And then some, I suspect.

But sure, don't buses only carry 30% of the people travelling to work in Dublin every day or something trivial like that (a transport mode only exceeded by private cars), whereas those cycling to work are a whopping 5% and the Luas an astonishing 6% :rolleyes:

We'd rather have our Plaza - then wonder where it all went wrong in five years time when we are putting a new road through the Plaza!

monument

Schadenfreudia wrote: »

There is always the exception the proves the rule....

Look at this thread in full and the thread in commuting and transport, and comments a attached to online newspaper articles -- he's not alone.

Schadenfreudia wrote: »

But sure, don't buses only carry 30% of the people travelling to work in Dublin every day or something trivial like that (a transport mode only exceeded by private cars), whereas those cycling to work are a whopping 5% and the Luas an astonishing 6% :rolleyes:

Your figures are wrong / don't relate to the area (for example buses carry far more people this area and private cars are next to irrelevant here), but it does not matter, plazas are not for transport really and not there's more to cities than transport. Cities are for living and enjoying, not just getting getting from a to b.

Arguing over how many people Luas carries city wide is also next to irrelevant now as the tracks are going in and that's not going to be changed, never mind issues such as Luas carrying more people per KM... And did I mention I think Luas should not have been routed this way?

Schadenfreudia wrote: »

We'd rather have our Plaza - then wonder where it all went wrong in five years time when we are putting a new road through the Plaza!

This kind of rhetoric is played out all over the world -- Dublin with Grafton Street, Copenhagen with their far wider pedestrian area, and New York's new Times Square plaza is probably a prime example where people claimed bus times were going to be negatively affected and Bloomberg proved them wrong.

MJohnston

Best of both worlds? http://irishcycle.com/2016/02/08/breaking-college-green-first-look-at-the-new-plan/

Maintains north-south bus routes (I'd like to see taxis completely banned from there too but whatever) and there's a nice large plaza area involved.

MJohnston

Best of both worlds? http://irishcycle.com/2016/02/08/breaking-college-green-first-look-at-the-new-plan/

Maintains north-south bus routes (I'd like to see taxis completely banned from there too but whatever) and there's a nice large plaza area involved.

LXFlyer

MJohnston wrote: »

Best of both worlds? http://irishcycle.com/2016/02/08/breaking-college-green-first-look-at-the-new-plan/

Maintains north-south bus routes (I'd like to see taxis completely banned from there too but whatever) and there's a nice large plaza area involved.

No - it's worse for anyone using cross-city bus routes. It will mean longer journey times and more convoluted routings.

As it is all of the bus routes that previously used Dawson Street and Suffolk Street will not be able to route via Dawson Street and Grafton Street - there simply won't be the capacity.

Every bus now from the south and west of the city will in all probability now end up on the Quays rather than being split along different routings. Any bus route coming down Georges Street will have a longer routing involving doubling back on itself.

As I said above, I'm in favour of redesigning the bus network, but not by ideas like this that will inevitably mean longer journey times.

cgcsb

I'm wondering how exactly the cycle lane in the photo will work, are you supposed to get off your bike and walk the pedestrian section? can't see it happening.

Also without high capacity rail infrastructure a suburb-city centre commute will become a near impossibility. But I suppose that needs to happen in order to get Dublin rail projects on the table, some candidates e.g. Paschal will have to be unseated to get the message across.

stop

1. Create more cross-city bus routes
2. Remove one of the major cross-city paths for buses
3. ???????

monument

lxflyer wrote: »

No - it's worse for anyone using cross-city bus routes. It will mean longer journey times and more convoluted routings.

As it is all of the bus routes that previously used Dawson Street and Suffolk Street will not be able to route via Dawson Street and Grafton Street - there simply won't be the capacity.

Every bus now from the south and west of the city will in all probability now end up on the Quays rather than being split along different routings. Any bus route coming down Georges Street will have a longer routing involving doubling back on itself.

As I said above, I'm in favour of redesigning the bus network, but not by ideas like this that will inevitably mean longer journey times.

Is your post comparing this to the current pre-Luas setup or an undefined post-Luas setup?

The plan from today will speed up at least some cross-city bus flows compared to now and is a vast improvement on the original Luas BXD idea of traffic conflicts at College Green and Suffolk Street. There's extra north-south capacity here than in any of the previous designs for Luas meeting buses.

The current movement of buses from Suffolk Street and swinging back onto College Green slows those buses up compared to the direct route straight into Lower Grafton Street and onto College Green.

cgcsb wrote: »

I'm wondering how exactly the cycle lane in the photo will work, are you supposed to get off your bike and walk the pedestrian section? can't see it happening.

The design of the plaza section is to be tender out to an international competition.

Cycling will be allowed traffic and transport officials said, but that the plaza design is a matter for the city architects and their international competition. A number of councillors made it clear that there should be segregation.

cgcsb wrote: »

Also without high capacity rail infrastructure a suburb-city centre commute will become a near impossibility.

I think that's a vast over exaggeration by a long shot. Buses will still be going cross-city on a number of routes (see one of the last updated images) and there's also Luas and Dart and commuter rail too.

stop wrote: »

1. Create more cross-city bus routes
2. Remove one of the major cross-city paths for buses
3. ???????

One half of the major inverted Y fork is being diverted. It will require bus priority measures elsewhere to support this and some of those priority measures are already planned in the city centre transport study.

LXFlyer

monument wrote: »

Is your post comparing this to the current pre-Luas setup or an undefined post-Luas setup?

The plan from today will speed up at least some cross-city bus flows compared to now and is a vast improvement on the original Luas BXD idea of traffic conflicts at College Green and Suffolk Street. There's extra north-south capacity here than in any of the previous designs for Luas meeting buses.

The current movement of buses from Suffolk Street and swinging back onto College Green slows those buses up compared to the direct route straight into Lower Grafton Street and onto College Green.

It's robbing Peter to pay Paul to be honest.

The routes currently diverted via Westland Row and Pearse Street will have a faster better routing (well those that revert to the Nassau Streeet/Grafton Street route).

However, the routes currently that come down George's Street and Dame Street will have a longer routing with doubling back on themselves at least once in either direction and possibly twice and at least one (the 83) will likely not serve the city centre any closer than the western end of Dame Street.

How buses will route to/from O'Connell Street will be interesting.

Nor do I expect all of the routes to be able to revert to Nassau Street/Grafton Street - they simply will not fit.

Bear in mind that the northbound bus routes off Dame Street/College Green shouldn't have had an impact on LUAS, while the southbound buses would only have to cross the northbound line to turn right (already being outside the southbound LUAS line).

monument wrote: »

I think that's a vast over exaggeration by a long shot. Buses will still be going cross-city on a number of routes (see one of the last updated images) and there's also Luas and Dart and commuter rail too.

For the vast majority of bus users affected by this proposal neither LUAS nor DART/Rail are an option - let's not try to go off on daft tangents here. The cross-city bus service is the only real option for most public transport users in Dublin.

monument wrote: »

One half of the major inverted Y fork is being diverted. It will require bus priority measures elsewhere to support this and some of those priority measures are already planned in the city centre transport study.

And it's a significant half - it's going to put a lot of pressure on other streets (especially the Quays).

Don't get me wrong - I do like the idea of a plaza, but I think that the cost is going to be significant in terms of overall cross-city bus journey times and consequently resources to maintain schedules. I think doing this without putting the alternative rail infrastructure in place is just crazy.

strassenwo!f

I haven't had a huge amount of time yet to analyse the most recent posts, but my feeling is that the poster lxflyer is essentially right.

As a Dubliner who lives abroad, what I'm not seeing, or not hearing, or perhaps especially not feeling, on the threads on this board, is that there is very extensive contact between the City Council and the public transport providers, like Dublin Bus, Irish Rail, etc., about the major public transport issues which confront Dublin

There obviously must be some contact, for day-to-day issues.

But I'm just not getting the impression that they're meeting a lot about how to move the city's public transport forward.

I may well be very wrong on this, and I hope I am.

crushproof

Overall, it's a bold statement, a huge leap for the city and I'm delighted. Nonetheless, the bus system needs to be radically sorted out beforehand. Too many diversions planned that may - and will - impact thousands of commuters. Off topic - I'm not an engineer but IMO a simple two lane cut and cover tunnel for buses from Dame Street to Westmoreland / College Street should have been built years ago.

What's the deal with both the Bank of Ireland and Trinity college railings? Could they be knocked back...adding even more space? Especially at Trinity, as I imagine it's going to be a tight squeeze for pedestrians between LUAS trams and the railings. I'm sure the Trinners will kick up an almighty fuss, but if you look at satellite images there's a substantial amount of space to be utilised.

Also, I hope Suffolk Street remains pedestrianised - back in Dublin last year I was amazed at the transformation from a choked, clogged street to an open, pleasurable street.