Luas Cross City (Line BX/D) [now open]

robd

Wild Bill wrote: »

Be interesting to compare those speeds with a DART...seems like a good argument for more heavy rail/DU solutions than trams

Not really and argument for a heavy rail solution. The actual problem is due to interaction with traffic and pedestrians. It is an argument for running certain sections of Luas underground.

Doing a cheaper cut and cover along the proposed future Dame Street section for example or the BXD line, rather than overground.

Alternative would be to take a more realistic approach, and CPO carparks that are incompatible with Luas routing. Jervis centre and Arnotts being the 2 main culprets at the moment. Then pedestrianize roads from O'Connell street to Church Street, Henry Street and Keys, including Capel Street.

AngryLips

What are the speed restrictions of on-street Luas? Were they reduced after the Luas accident involving Dublin Bus on O'Connell Street?

Luas speed restrictions shouldn't be anything less than those imposed on normal traffic IMO.

robd

AngryLips wrote: »

What are the speed restrictions of on-street Luas? Were they reduced after the Luas accident involving Dublin Bus on O'Connell Street?

Luas speed restrictions shouldn't be anything less than those imposed on normal traffic IMO.

Don't know exact speed restriction. There are sign posts for Luas speeds on route though.

There's a huge problem at junctions (particularly O'Connell Street) with pedestrians crossing in front of oncoming Luas. No amount of ringing of the bell or blowing of the horn seems to change this. Both cars and buses are known to block yellow boxes also.

That's not a speed restriction problem, it's a behaviour problem. Hard one to change, particularly given best practices (and latest Dublin traffic plan) recommend giving priority to pedestrians.

Only real solution is complete segregation.

cgcsb

an urban level crossing system could be an option.

A more expensive option would be to use the vacant land immediately east of the smithfield stop as a tunnel entrance and tunnelise the red line as far as NCI

A slightly less expensive option than that(and my personal favourite) would be to use the gradient of Stephen's lane(south of Heuston) to put the luas on stilts from that point until the docklands. Of course this would result in a limited stopping pattern, perhaps merging Smithfield and Four courts, and merging Busaras-George's dock and Connolly. Rialto and fatima could be merged also.

It was originally envisaged that DART underground would relieve pressure on the central section of the red line. People wishing to access the docklands or grafton street area from, say Heuston, would opt for DART instead of red line. Although DARTu is just pillow talk for another few years. I suppose all the other options I discussed are also pillow talk.

It'll be interesting to see how the red line copes after the construction of BXD, I'd expect a serious spike in ridership once the two are connected.

Aard

monument wrote: »

Wow Monument, what a fantastic graphic! It's obvious where you hit James's area around the 15 minute mark. After that, your speed averages less than 10 kmh -- you could almost jog that fast!

Further out, though, the Red line seems to function relatively well as light rail. I agree with An Cuinneach about the stop spacing. I've always thought too that Goldenbridge broke the nice even spacing of stops from Blackhorse to Rialto.

Victor

An Cuinneach wrote: »

Tallaght Hospital - this stop just isn't justified. And it's not even at the Hospital entrance. I can see the entrance from the Tallaght stop and it would take me an extra 60 seconds to get from there to the hospital than the actual Hospital stop. Furthermore, the entrance into the housing estate is between Hospital and Cookstown so if you were a resident, you could just as easily walk to Cookstown. A lot of the time coming home, no on even exits at Hospital.

Yes, relocating the stop and/or the entrances to the hospital / housing estates would be useful

Fatima - either this or Rialto. The stops on this section are far too frequent and slow down the speed. These two in particular are ridiculously close together to justify two stops.

Lots of people use these stops.

Four Courts - Again, it's so close to Smithfield that it's laughable. The tram should just run from Smithfield straight to Jervis. I'm by no means a snob, but because of the courthouse, there are a fair few 'unsavoury' people around. I don't know how many times I've seen Gardaí shuffling people in handcuffs around here. Why have a stop here?

There si a Garda station and serveral courts, what do you expect?

Anyway, that's just my two cents. There's a few too many stops in my opinion. My other one to cut would be Connolly, seeing as how you could throw a shoe from Busáras to it, but there's not a chance of it being cut.

It should never have been built. they should have put in a travelator from Busáras.

robd wrote: »

Not really and argument for a heavy rail solution. The actual problem is due to interaction with traffic and pedestrians. It is an argument for running certain sections of Luas underground.

Doing a cheaper cut and cover along the proposed future Dame Street section for example or the BXD line, rather than overground.

Given the routing and the archaeology, it might be cheaper to put the existing Red Line underground than F1.

AngryLips wrote: »

What are the speed restrictions of on-street Luas? Were they reduced after the Luas accident involving Dublin Bus on O'Connell Street?

Luas speed restrictions shouldn't be anything less than those imposed on normal traffic IMO.

The restriction is down to how to get across the junctions safely. They've put in some red light cameras to discourage people.

Church Street to Busáras was mostly 35km/h which was reduced to 30km/h to bring it in line with other traffic.

monument

lxflyer wrote: »

To put the answer to your question Aard in perspective, the 69 bus is faster from Red Cow to the city centre than the LUAS, as are any of the buses from Heuston Station to the city centre.

Yet, so many people choice Luas.

The buses from Heuston can be quicker in a lot of cases, but if you add in waiting time for a bus, Luas becomes more attractive most of the time for most people.

AngryLips wrote: »

Luas speed restrictions shouldn't be anything less than those imposed on normal traffic IMO.

Yes, it should be. Luas like most light rail systems like it (and rail in general) operates to far more changing speed restrictions than normal traffic.

robd wrote: »

Don't know exact speed restriction. There are sign posts for Luas speeds on route though.

There's a huge problem at junctions (particularly O'Connell Street) with pedestrians crossing in front of oncoming Luas. No amount of ringing of the bell or blowing of the horn seems to change this. Both cars and buses are known to block yellow boxes also.

That's not a speed restriction problem, it's a behaviour problem. Hard one to change, particularly given best practices (and latest Dublin traffic plan) recommend giving priority to pedestrians.

Only real solution is complete segregation.

It might sound counterintuitive, but priority to pedestrians actually may help. The pedestrian lights at the Luas crossing on O'Connell Street are northing short of a sick joke.

A sick amount of green light time is given to the overall very little amount of traffic turning left off O'Connell Street into Middle Abbey Street, while pedestrians on one of the busiest pedestrians routes in the country are given little green light time given the volume of pedestrians. This affects how long people are willing to wait. The problem is the same on the other side of the road but not as bad.

It's not helped by the lack of priority for Luas. I know buses need priority too, but when the Luas turns up at a junction often what happens is like this: The people walking stop to let the tram pass, but the tram sits still, so then the people cross on front of it as they don't know how long the tram will be stopped there (it varies) -- sometimes a tram will start crossing in seconds after stopping, sometimes it will over 30 seconds plus.

cgcsb wrote: »

an urban level crossing system could be an option.

A more expensive option would be to use the vacant land immediately east of the smithfield stop as a tunnel entrance and tunnelise the red line as far as NCI

A slightly less expensive option than that(and my personal favourite) would be to use the gradient of Stephen's lane(south of Heuston) to put the luas on stilts from that point until the docklands. Of course this would result in a limited stopping pattern, perhaps merging Smithfield and Four courts, and merging Busaras-George's dock and Connolly. Rialto and fatima could be merged also.

It was originally envisaged that DART underground would relieve pressure on the central section of the red line. People wishing to access the docklands or grafton street area from, say Heuston, would opt for DART instead of red line. Although DARTu is just pillow talk for another few years. I suppose all the other options I discussed are also pillow talk.

It'll be interesting to see how the red line copes after the construction of BXD, I'd expect a serious spike in ridership once the two are connected.

Level crossing systems don't suit the system -- red light cameras and better enforcement do.

Tunnelling is too expensive, that distance would never be worth it, and outside NCI isn't suitable for a tunnel portal.

Red line on stilts is out of the question given the historical nature of the areas it passes and the affect it would have on the streets below.

cgcsb

monument wrote: »

Red line on stilts is out of the question given the historical nature of the areas it passes and the affect it would have on the streets below.

the only historic buildings of note on the route are Heuston, the Museum and the customs house. It need not have a negative impact the streets if the stilts are designed in such a way as to be sensitive the it's surroundings.

Also giving the luas absolute traffic light priority and an urban level cross(the kind of barriers that pop up from the ground could provide a totally grade separated travel experience.

An Cuinneach

Aard wrote: »

Further out, though, the Red line seems to function relatively well as light rail. I agree with An Cuinneach about the stop spacing. I've always thought too that Goldenbridge broke the nice even spacing of stops from Blackhorse to Rialto.

Yes! I was actually on the Luas this morning and was looking out because of this conversation. The stop at Goldenbridge is totally unnecessary - it only takes a couple of seconds!

And Victor, though I agree with you that a lot of people use the Fatima/Rialto stops, their day wouldn't be thrown out of sync if they were merged into just one stop. The distance between them isn't far at all.
As for the Four Courts, I realise there are going to be a lot of gardaí, criminals, etc - but my argument would be, why have a stop there at all? There are no tourist attractions nearby, no focal commercial centre that you couldn't just as easily walk to from Smithfield. It seems that just because the Four Courts are positioned along the way, there should be a stop there.

FreudianSlippers

An Cuinneach wrote: »

I'm by no means a snob, but because of the courthouse, there are a fair few 'unsavoury' people around. I don't know how many times I've seen Gardaí shuffling people in handcuffs around here.

You must not have been around there much in the past 2 years. I work there every day and I rarely ever see people in handcuffs being taken around there. The Four Courts has had almost no criminal cases tried there since the CCJ opened.
As for the 'unsavoury' element hanging around, it's certainly not as bad as the Jervis of OCS stops.

AngryLips

monument wrote: »

Yes, it should be. Luas like most light rail systems like it (and rail in general) operates to far more changing speed restrictions than normal traffic.

Why?

cgcsb wrote: »

the only historic buildings of note on the route are Heuston, the Museum and the customs house. It need not have a negative impact the streets if the stilts are designed in such a way as to be sensitive the it's surroundings.

I don't think it's the design of the stilts that has the adverse visual impact but the fact that you have an overhead railway line blocking various lines of sight in a sensitive area. London's DLR shows how a big can of ugly can be unleashed upon a neighbourhood when you put anything on stilts.

cgcsb

DLR mostly serves more modern areas.

Paparazzo

An Cuinneach wrote: »

I sympathise with the person from Citywest - the Red Line can indeed be aggravatingly slow. I do think it's speed should be increased, though I also believe some of the stops should be removed. For starters:

Tallaght Hospital - this stop just isn't justified. And it's not even at the Hospital entrance. I can see the entrance from the Tallaght stop and it would take me an extra 60 seconds to get from there to the hospital than the actual Hospital stop. Furthermore, the entrance into the housing estate is between Hospital and Cookstown so if you were a resident, you could just as easily walk to Cookstown. A lot of the time coming home, no on even exits at Hospital.

Fatima - either this or Rialto. The stops on this section are far too frequent and slow down the speed. These two in particular are ridiculously close together to justify two stops.

Four Courts - Again, it's so close to Smithfield that it's laughable. The tram should just run from Smithfield straight to Jervis. I'm by no means a snob, but because of the courthouse, there are a fair few 'unsavoury' people around. I don't know how many times I've seen Gardaí shuffling people in handcuffs around here. Why have a stop here? There's no commercial, tourist or busy residential function of the space.

Anyway, that's just my two cents. There's a few too many stops in my opinion. My other one to cut would be Connolly, seeing as how you could throw a shoe from Busáras to it, but there's not a chance of it being cut.

Davitt Road has 4 stops on it!

I live near the Kilmore stop, but find the 151 bus quicker, haven't got the luas in ages. You can hear the motor is still getting up to speed and its already stopping again.

monument

AngryLips wrote: »

Why?

Because of higher safety standards.

cgcsb wrote: »

the only historic buildings of note on the route are Heuston, the Museum and the customs house. It need not have a negative impact the streets if the stilts are designed in such a way as to be sensitive the it's surroundings.

Heuston, Collins Barracks / the museum, the Four Courts, more than a few buildings on Abbey Street (middle to lower), a good deal of O'Connell Street, and then you have the problem that there is already something 'on stilts' at the Customs House.

They there's the problem of costs and inconvenience of access -- elevators for both platforms at each stop. Open access is part of why the Luas is so successful.

Massive cost and inconvenience for little reward a few people want. I'm sorry, excuse the pun, but it's pie in the sky.

cgcsb

monument wrote: »

Because of higher safety standards.





Heuston, Collins Barracks / the museum, the Four Courts, more than a few buildings on Abbey Street (middle to lower), a good deal of O'Connell Street, and then you have the problem that there is already something 'on stilts' at the Customs House.

They there's the problem of costs and inconvenience of access -- elevators for both platforms at each stop. Open access is part of why the Luas is so successful.

Massive cost and inconvenience for little reward a few people want. I'm sorry, excuse the pun, but it's pie in the sky.

the back of the four courts can hardly count considering the disgraceful office bit they lobbed onto the side of it. Restricting access could mean that people have to buy tickets for a change, as opposed to the honours system we have now. I'm of the opinion that turnstyles/gates should be installed at stations where it's practical e.g. Ranalegh and Charlemont, perhaps Rialto?

monument

cgcsb wrote: »

the back of the four courts can hardly count considering the disgraceful office bit they lobbed onto the side of it. Restricting access could mean that people have to buy tickets for a change, as opposed to the honours system we have now. I'm of the opinion that turnstyles/gates should be installed at stations where it's practical e.g. Ranalegh and Charlemont, perhaps Rialto?

:rolleyes:

Missed what I just said about access or just dismissed it? The Luas is covering its costs -- there is no major fare evasion that would be worth it and a staff presence along the line is a good thing.

And yes, the back of the Four Courts and the front of Bridewell would be considered. Along with all of the other places I mentioned...

cgcsb

I commented on the access.

AngryLips

cgcsb wrote: »

DLR mostly serves more modern areas.

...and it still manages to be a total eyesore.

monument wrote: »

Because of higher safety standards.

Sorry, I don't follow. Of course, anything that goes slower would be inherently safer but where is the need for higher safety standards for Luas above and beyond those imposed on busses and cars?

monument

AngryLips wrote: »

Sorry, I don't follow. Of course, anything that goes slower would be inherently safer but where is the need for higher safety standards for Luas above and beyond those imposed on busses and cars?

I'm simplifying because I'm not aware of every reason, but an example of one of the main ones is if a car or bus goes at too high of a speed it would err 'stumble' a bit, or maybe knock into something. If a tram does the same the risk of derailment / damage to the tram increases.

Generally rail based systems spend a good deal more effort on safety -- there are a few reasons for this from rail being more engineered so they know closer to exact speed limits and there's also the idea that 100s are being carried not just two people in a car. Over the year a few people in their own car getting killed relatively did not mean much -- or the meaning was not followed by action.

cgcsb wrote: »

I commented on the access.

Yes, but you think that there is something broken with access when there is no major problem. Any barriers can be bypassed by walking to the next stop - - and it's not strictly an honours system, there's a high level of ticket inspections. As I said the system is in operational profit.

An Cuinneach wrote: »

Yes! I was actually on the Luas this morning and was looking out because of this conversation. The stop at Goldenbridge is totally unnecessary - it only takes a couple of seconds!

And Victor, though I agree with you that a lot of people use the Fatima/Rialto stops, their day wouldn't be thrown out of sync if they were merged into just one stop. The distance between them isn't far at all.

Minor problems compared to the route between Museum and after James's.

Speeding trams up more by cutting stations at any point could lead to the trams having to stop at the very slow sections or at traffic lights more than currently -- there's more than just one thing at play.

Capacity and reliability are more important.

An Cuinneach wrote: »

As for the Four Courts, I realise there are going to be a lot of gardaí, criminals, etc - but my argument would be, why have a stop there at all? There are no tourist attractions nearby, no focal commercial centre that you couldn't just as easily walk to from Smithfield. It seems that just because the Four Courts are positioned along the way, there should be a stop there.

Christchurch is what now? Not a tourist attraction?

And then you have the Four Courts, the Bridewell, a high density of offices including the City Council building on Wood Quay and a large amount of legal offices, the markets and loads of homes, both houses and apartments.

An Cuinneach

monument wrote: »

And then you have the Four Courts, the Bridewell, a high density of offices including the City Council building on Wood Quay and a large amount of legal offices, the markets and loads of homes, both houses and apartments.

All of these can be serviced from a stop that's 300 metres down the road. It's barely even two blocks away.

monument

An Cuinneach wrote: »

All of these can be serviced from a stop that's 300 metres down the road. It's barely even two blocks away.

That would reduce the catchment area and level of service to a high density area. And Smithfield and Jervis are both busy enough as it is.

IF anything the Smithfield stop should be about 80m -- that would leave it and all the other current stops around this section of the line about 400m apart. But the Smithfield stop is place where it is for good reason (to fit everything in, including access roads etc) and the difference here is marginal.

Things like better priority and enforcement at junctions would do far more to improve the running of the Luas along here.

Judgement Day

Victor wrote: »

Yes, relocating the stop and/or the entrances to the hospital / housing estates would be useful

Lots of people use these stops.

There si a Garda station and serveral courts, what do you expect?

It should never have been built. they should have put in a travelator from Busáras.

Given the routing and the archaeology, it might be cheaper to put the existing Red Line underground than F1.

The restriction is down to how to get across the junctions safely. They've put in some red light cameras to discourage people.

Church Street to Busáras was mostly 35km/h which was reduced to 30km/h to bring it in line with other traffic.

I cannot believe you meant this Victor? Not build the Docklands extension, yes, but the Heuston/Connolly link! The first bit of joined up infrastructure in the country and you suggest a travellator from Busaras. :rolleyes:

Aard

RE: lines on stilts. This would affect light filtration to street level, which would be a fantastic way to kill a street before it even got going. These only work well on very wide streets. The trend in developed countries is to either stay at street-level or go underground. Non-segregated street-level is good for a tight "neighbourhood" system, while underground or segregated street-level is good for getting people in and out fast. This is what the Red line is at the moment. The CC section isn't rapid enough as a follow-on from its more distant stretches. However, taken by itself it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just unfortunate that the "rapid" part and the "local" part are one and the same line.

There's a few ideas on how to remedy this (underground from Fatima, cut-and-cover, priority at intersections, remove stops), and now stilts. I think they'd be a poor "cure" as they would significantly detract from the character of the area. Look at Sydney, they're looking to remove their overhead monorail and replace it with street-level trams exactly because of the lack of light and decreased activity in the streets under the stilts. Also, how long would it take to climb the stairs into the tram? Precious seconds I'm sure, but it might discourage people from using it. Also there'd probably have to be a lift installed at every station; not sure where that'll go.

I don't think the stilts idea is viable for anything in the city centre. There's little elsewhere to go but underground. The CC alignment of the Red line is one of the straightest stretches in the city, and even that has terribly low speeds (~10kmh apparently!) so street level will never match the speed of the suburban parts.

Wild Bill

Speaking of daft stops; the Green Luas extension virtually stops at "Racecourse" station even though it is never used.

It crawls through at about 2kph

Victor

Judgement Day wrote: »

I cannot believe you meant this Victor? Not build the Docklands extension, yes, but the Heuston/Connolly link! The first bit of joined up infrastructure in the country and you suggest a travellator from Busaras. :rolleyes:

I'm suggesting that they should have built the Docklands section, had the Connolly Stop on Mayor Street, and move the Busáras stop on the Memorial Road junction or indeed back to Abbey Street and have a travelator that could connect Busáras, Luas and Connolly Station and that would deliver people further north than the current Luas stop and closer to the train platforms.

For the €30m they spent on Connolly, the could probably have built as far as Mayor Square.

An Cuinneach

Victor wrote: »

I'm suggesting that they should have built the Docklands section, had the Connolly Stop on Mayor Street, and move the Busáras stop on the Memorial Road junction or indeed back to Abbey Street and have a travelator that could connect Busáras, Luas and Connolly Station and that would deliver people further north than the current Luas stop and closer to the train platforms.

For the €30m they spent on Connolly, the could probably have built as far as Mayor Square.

I actually like this idea!

rOBeRt frETt

Connolly was obviously the final destination of the original line- 30Mil -yikes.
now of course it's the first/last stop for the citywest line so you have plenty of punters getting on there thinking - what side do I get on for the point?
I understand what people are saying about it being a tram and it should
be slow but seriously it can go faster on certain parts of the route and there are faaaar too many stops on the Red line, they could turn a certain amount of them 'off' during peak hours- although I know that's not practical either it's just a shame it still take an age to get anywhere in Dublin.

Zebra3

What I can't understand is why we spend hundreds of millions on a light rail system and it doesn't get priority at traffic lights. Wtf?

markpb

Zebra3 wrote: »

What I can't understand is why we spend hundreds of millions on a light rail system and it doesn't get priority at traffic lights. Wtf?

Because the RPA/DoT spent the money on Luas but DCC-ITS decide on the priority that it gets and ne'er the two shall meet. Unlike all American cities and a lot of European cities, public transport in Ireland is paid for out of the national budget instead of the local budget so there isn't the same financial incentive for the city to keep buses and trams moving as quickly as possibly.

Winters

rOBeRt frETt wrote: »

it can go faster on certain parts of the route and there are faaaar too many stops on the Red line, they could turn a certain amount of them 'off' during peak hours- although I know that's not practical either it's just a shame it still take an age to get anywhere in Dublin.

There are two instances of tram stops being too close together on the Red Line. I would certainly question why 1. Rialto & Fatima and 2. Goldenbridge & Drimnagh are only 300m apart..

Thats 5 minutes walking distance and no doubt could shave about 4 minutes off the travel time?


http://www.luas.ie/red-line-journey-times.html

Imagine removing the Hospital, Goldenbridge, Fatima, Four Courts and Connolly Stops.. What kind of improved journey time would we have then end to end?

On the Green line the Stillorgan and Sandyford stops are also 350m apart. As part of the LAP for Sandyford it was proposed to move the Stillorgan stop to the corner of Blackthorn Drive but I dont believe that went any further.

Anything less than 500m is quite pointless.