Dublin Bus Network Review

KC61

xper wrote: »

Ah yes, what clowns. The change of mind that is leading to the lap of honour around Cherrywood Luas we had already been informed about. What I didn't anticipate was the retention of the diversion into Stillorgan village (where no customers will be waiting because now both the 46A and 145 will be sticking to the dual carriageway) is a master stroke in turning the screws on the 84.

As I understand it they came under pressure (yes you've guessed it!) from local politicians to retain some service through Stillorgan Village, and it was never going to be the 46a or 145.

loyatemu

maybe Fine Gael can take out some advertising space on the side of the 84 as it meanders through every suburb between Newcastle and UCD - "Want slow indirect infrequent public transport? Vote FG!"

The clockface timetabling is an improvement, everthing else about the new timetable is a joke, and I also notice they've cancelled some of the off-peak 84x services (not sure how heavily used these were though).

I've said this several times before - IME the 84 is mostly used as a local north-Wicklow service. Curtailing it to Cherrywood or even Bray would've been a much better solution than this hodge-podge.

stop

as regards all the changes happening next week - are they all for Donnybrook based routes? (except 92?)

KC61

They are all Donnybrook routes except the 4/4a (Harristown) and 92 (Conyngham Road).

markpb

This doesn't bode well for the rest of the (now very much delayed) plan.

Gutting the 4 is a disaster.

Giving people 4 working days notice shows just how much contempt DB have for their customers. A proper company would have given people 2 weeks notice, would have been giving out flyers on the affected buses and would have made sure that the maps on their website wouldn't be broken the day you announce large changes (yes, all the affected route maps are broken!).

Whatever hope I had for DB has been dashed - they're just as inept as usual. I'm speechless. Don't forget this is from the company who claimed they could do more with less (buses) and simultaneously put up the ticket prices so everyone in the €1.15, €1.60 and €1.80 zones will all be paying cash for their trips, slowing the buses down even more.

Cookie_Monster

Is the 4 really that big a deal, I mean for the whole southern part of the route its covered by the frequent 7 (and others). granted the 7 reliability is close to zero but still
Is there any similar northside route?

markpb

In Ballymun there's the extremely windy 13 and 13A. Further south there's the 19A and 11. All of those routes are busy but the 4/4A were very popular, even at weekends, which should tell you a lot.

devnull

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Is the 4 really that big a deal, I mean for the whole southern part of the route its covered by the frequent 7 (and others). granted the 7 reliability is close to zero but still
Is there any similar northside route?

Yes - the problem is during morning peak there can be 40+ people waiting at O'Connell Street stop, 50+ at O'Connell Bridge and normally in excess of that at Trinity. I've been on a bus many a time that is almost empty at O'Connell Street, but is full before it even gets to Trinity, or in some cases on the 7, if the driver has room for about 15-20 people, and there are over twice that standing there, he'll simply just not stop, this is a problem that plagues the 7 more than the 4.

If you ever been on an AW during morning peak, some mornings they literally are crammed with well over 100 passengers, to someone at the trinity stop, the current frequency with the bendys and the new frequency without them is going to be the difference between seeing a few buses sail past without stopping and getting on.

Whilst the 47 will be of a small help for pax coming inbound, generally it will not be of help for people going outbound as it does not serve the three stops in the city centre that generate a huge number of passengers.

patrickbrophy18

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Is the 4 really that big a deal, I mean for the whole southern part of the route its covered by the frequent 7 (and others). granted the 7 reliability is close to zero but still
Is there any similar northside route?

As you so often suggest, a large portion of the 45, 8, 4/a and 7 routes are already covered by the DART. In fact, The Blue Pool on Monkstown Avenue is within walking distance of the DART and Stradbrook which makes this extension to The Blue Pool rather pointless. I'm able to walk to The Blue Pool from Stradbrook in 5 minutes. On the other hand, I can understand why people would be upset at the rather large scaling back of the routes frequency as it seems to be the only connection to DCU from the coastal southside suburbs. I am aware that routes such as the 19a and the 11 variants connect DCU to Terenure and Kilmacud respectively. However, this is beside the point as these termini are way out of reach from the 4 terminus.

From earlier proposals of the Network Direct project, I was given the impression that the 46E service from Blackrock was going to be made into an all day service as indicated by the colour coding and corresponding frequencies. However, this doesn't appear to be the case as the 46E is being scaled back. Nevertheless, I do think that the idea of more cross city routes is a brilliant idea as it does make better use of resources and reduces the amount of connections that one would have to endure while travelling from a southside suburb to a northside suburb. In hindsight and in this regard, I do think that the cancellation of the 746 is madness as I am aware that it connects two very prominent QBC's on the north and southsides of the city. In fact, if Dublin Bus are trying to amalgamate certain routes to reduce the use of rescources, it is quite ironic that they are doing the opposite of captilizing on the sensibility of the 746 routing.

Cool Mo D

devnull wrote: »

Yes - the problem is during morning peak there can be 40+ people waiting at O'Connell Street stop, 50+ at O'Connell Bridge and normally in excess of that at Trinity. I've been on a bus many a time that is almost empty at O'Connell Street, but is full before it even gets to Trinity, or in some cases on the 7, if the driver has room for about 15-20 people, and there are over twice that standing there, he'll simply just not stop, this is a problem that plagues the 7 more than the 4.

If you ever been on an AW during morning peak, some mornings they literally are crammed with well over 100 passengers, to someone at the trinity stop, the current frequency with the bendys and the new frequency without them is going to be the difference between seeing a few buses sail past without stopping and getting on.

Whilst the 47 will be of a small help for pax coming inbound, generally it will not be of help for people going outbound as it does not serve the three stops in the city centre that generate a huge number of passengers.

But it's at weekends that the 4 is being cut back.

Cookie_Monster

The 746 was a disaster. took nearly 2 hours from Dl to airport. Was used as a 46a by many meaning it was frequently full and of no use to people who wanted to get the airport and couldn't get on. And it was only every hour anyway so too infrequent to wait for after getting off the plane.

Minimum fare would have partially solved this but it was still a stupidly tedious way to get to the airport.

markpb

Cool Mo D wrote: »

But it's at weekends that the 4 is being cut back.

It's also reduced from a 10 minute headway to a 15 minute headway during the week.

Daily departures are reduced from 96 to 65 - 32% cut.
Saturday departures reduced from 64 to 32 - 50% cut.
Sunday departures reduced from 49 to 17 - 65% cut.

devnull

Cool Mo D wrote: »

But it's at weekends that the 4 is being cut back.

It's being cut back during the week as well, yes there is big cutbacks at weekends, but there is a cut back of around 30% during the week as well. In peak there are buses mostly every 10 minutes, but up to five minutes in some cases right now. From the new timetable it's every 15 minutes regardless of peak or off-peak.

Bearing in mind the fact we will also have lower capacity buses than we have now, when the artics are withdrawn, and what I have said above, there is already overcrowding and buses flying past stops, it's going to be worse when we have a lower frequency and fitting less people on each bus.

thomasj

Am I the only one that thinks the new 4 weekday timetable is not that bad? 10 minutes down to 15 minutes I think is not the worse

It's the 30 minute frequency on Saturday and 60 minute frequency on Sunday that is horrendously bad. What were these people thinking? They should have tried taking a 4 at the weekend

Let's just hope they don't put the axe to the 7s or the 13s/19s at the later stage!

devnull

thomasj wrote: »

Am I the only one that thinks the new 4 weekday timetable is not that bad? 10 minutes down to 15 minutes I think is not the worse

I gather you do not get the 4 very often during morning peak to the southside then? or evening peak to the Northside? Because whilst on the face of it, it is not a big problem, in reality it is.

At the moment, with articulated bendy buses that fit well over 100 on, it is not unusual in morning peak to see either a 4 or a 7 fly past and having to wait say nearly another 10 minutes or so.

I was at Trinity a few occasions in the last few weeks and I saw not one, but two buses in a row fly past as they were full. Occasionally I've seen three buses do the same, although not for a month or two now.

Now with a 30% lower frequency, vehicles that hold about 30% less people on average on almost all of the 4 services what do you think is going to happen?

Cookie_Monster

I can see the 7 being expanded tbh

Drummerboy2

thomasj wrote: »

Let's just hope they put the axe to the 7s or the 13s/19s at the later stage!

Why would you want to put an axe to these routes. I was on the 7.25 19 this morning and it was full by the time it got to Glasnevin. Surely this should not be axed.

Dyr

markpb wrote: »

It's also reduced from a 10 minute headway to a 15 minute headway during the week.

Daily departures are reduced from 96 to 65 - 32% cut.
Saturday departures reduced from 64 to 32 - 50% cut.
Sunday departures reduced from 49 to 17 - 65% cut.

That's going to be harsh, when the 13/a buses don't show up in ballymun on weekday mornings The frequency of the 4 takes up the slack and keeps the queues manageable. Without a regular 4 the bus stops will be jammed

Cookie_Monster

Drummerboy2 wrote: »

Why would you want to put an axe to these routes. I was on the 7.25 19 this morning and it was full by the time it got to Glasnevin. Surely this should not be axed.

one of the 19/19a is being axed, there's a thread on it here. I got an email from Griffith about it as it affect their students (apparently)

schemingbohemia

devnull wrote: »

I gather you do not get the 4 very often during morning peak to the southside then? or evening peak to the Northside? Because whilst on the face of it, it is not a big problem, in reality it is.

At the moment, with articulated bendy buses that fit well over 100 on, it is not unusual in morning peak to see either a 4 or a 7 fly past and having to wait say nearly another 10 minutes or so.

I was at Trinity a few occasions in the last few weeks and I saw not one, but two buses in a row fly past as they were full. Occasionally I've seen three buses do the same, although not for a month or two now.

Now with a 30% lower frequency, vehicles that hold about 30% less people on average on almost all of the 4 services what do you think is going to happen?

What times and where were you trying to get on the 4/7? The only time a 4/7 has gone past me full is when there's something on in the RDS. Now maybe I was getting a later bus into town in the morning than you but I've very very rarely had totally full buses on those routes.

thomasj

devnull wrote: »

It's being cut back during the week as well, yes there is big cutbacks at weekends, but there is a cut back of around 30% during the week as well. In peak there are buses mostly every 10 minutes, but up to five minutes in some cases right now. From the new timetable it's every 15 minutes regardless of peak or off-peak.
.

Is the 5 minute gaps from the southside not more to do with the difference in the terminus and the extra time required to get from stradbrook to blackrock, it might as well be a 10 minute frequency!

markpb

schemingbohemia wrote: »

What times and where were you trying to get on the 4/7? The only time a 4/7 has gone past me full is when there's something on in the RDS. Now maybe I was getting a later bus into town in the morning than you but I've very very rarely had totally full buses on those routes.

I regularly see those buses completely full passing through the city centre (south-bound) in the mornings.

thomasj

Drummerboy2 wrote: »

Why would you want to put an axe to these routes. I was on the 7.25 19 this morning and it was full by the time it got to Glasnevin. Surely this should not be axed.

Sorry typo (or lack of) dont should have been there!

KC61

schemingbohemia wrote: »

What times and where were you trying to get on the 4/7? The only time a 4/7 has gone past me full is when there's something on in the RDS. Now maybe I was getting a later bus into town in the morning than you but I've very very rarely had totally full buses on those routes.

Stand at the bottom of Grafton Street from 0730 to 0830 and observe the loadings on outbound 4 and 7 buses - then you'll see what people mean.

KC61

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

one of the 19/19a is being axed, there's a thread on it here. I got an email from Griffith about it as it affect their students (apparently)

The plan (last I heard) was to merge the 83 and the 19, while the 19a would also serve Wadelai covering the 11 service there.

markpb

KC61 wrote: »

The plan (last I heard) was to merge the 83 and the 19, while the 19a would also serve Wadelai covering the 11 service there.

So instead of having buses use the main roads (Ballymun rd/Glasnevin ave) and leaving people with a 5 minute walk, they'll wind through residential housing estates with badly parked cars and speed ramps?

Cookie_Monster

markpb wrote: »

So instead of having buses use the main roads (Ballymun rd/Glasnevin ave) and leaving people with a 5 minute walk, they'll wind through residential housing estates with badly parked cars and speed ramps?

yeah, you know direct, like.
:rolleyes:

AlekSmart

KC61 posted....

Just to add that the 47 will help out, but at every 35 minutes not that much!

True,to a point,but,the 47 also sees a bit of a route alteration which may detract somewhat from it`s reliability at peak times.

With the demise of the 46B the new routing for the 47 entails a diversion along North Avenue to Fosters Avenue before rejoining the N11 and serving UCD flyover.

However after that,we may see some hi-jinks,as the route follows the Number 3 alignment along Nutley Lane to Merrion Road and thence via the 4/7 corridor to Pearse St.

Nutley Lane is currently a most unfriendly zone for a Bus service especially at peaks,with no active Bus Priority whatsoever and I cannot envisage it adding greatly to the functionality of the 47 at those times.

RayM posted.....

Comparing the new 84 timetable with the old one, I can't really see many positives. Overall, they've made an unattractive service even more unattractive. Quite the achievement.

Furthermore, with all 84s now serving Bray Station, Cherrywood Luas and Stillorgan village, it's completely laughable for Dublin Bus to claim that they've made this part of their Network more Direct in any way.

By pandering to the short-sighted whims of self-interested local politicians from Greystones, and opting to run the 84 to Belfield (presumably largely empty for most of the year), rather than terminating it at Cherrywood Luas station,

RayM makes some very pertinent points which,I feel,merit a response from the Network Direct team,if only to retain their credibility in relation to understanding the concept behind the plan.

When I first read the ND route 84 proposals I was quite surprised and happy to see that finally somebody in authority had managed to display an understanding of what effective and efficient multi-modal public transport was about.

The Cherrywood Interchange was our first example of the type of infrastructure so prevalent throughout Europe allowing for a seamless interchange between modes at a location free form conflict with private motoring.

The location of Cherywood and its ease of access offered IMO huge potential to drive the Route 84 to perhaps become a major Local Trunk route in its own right.
This potential could only be inhanced by the decision to delay the extension of Luas to Bray,something I feel the private operator,Finnegans,will have already noted.

The length of the UCD acedemic year is of some importance here too,as RayM notes.
This has been particularly notable this year as the fall off in visitior numbers staying at the various residences in the campus is quite obvious.

Effectively UCD is a viable location on a 6 month basis with very little business existing in between.

However,I remain convinced that a 30 minute frequency 84 route to/from Cherywood offered substantial gains and marketable service levels particularly to new users of public transport

We really did need to hitch our wagon onto the back of the "Shiny New Luas Extension",which is now beckoning enticingly at those North Wicklow residents who may still use the present 84....

The presence of a large scale Park & Ride at Cherrywood allied to Motorway access may well see these folks decide to drive their car to the Luas...we really needed to short-circuit that possibility with some aggressive and targeted marketing of the sort also badly needed by the 84X route.

An hourly service with a serpentine routing has,IMO,little to offer a person seeking a reason to try Public Transport on a regular basis.

From my own point of view I can only concur with Loyatemu`s opinion...

.I've said this several times before - IME the 84 is mostly used as a local north-Wicklow service. Curtailing it to Cherrywood or even Bray would've been a much better solution than this hodge-podge.

A missed opportunity ?

patrickbrophy18

What do y'all reckon should happen to the 8, 7d and 59? Just as a matter of interest!:D

I think the 8 and 7d should be merged into a semi-frequent hourly service covering the N11 and the 59 be exteneded to one of the Luas Green Line stops. Therefore, less routes with a more sensible purpose!

Cookie_Monster

AlekSmart wrote: »

The presence of a large scale Park & Ride at Cherrywood

where's that then?
There is none planned