M50 to be made even more unbearable

animaal

If we want people to move to public transport, it has to be made more attractive. And I don't mean the nice green paint job on the trains.

I get the train to work, and it suits me more than driving. But that's because the locations of the stops suit me. It's not the same for everybody.

Since I started taking the train:
- Prices have shot up - even when there was little or no inflation in the economy.
- Park and Ride, which used to be free, is now charged. And has also increased in price.
- Services are more cramped

Carriages have been removed from trains. The view seems to be that if everybody (or nearly everybody) has a seat, the train isn't operating to full efficiency and should be shortened. While this may make sense on paper, the problem is that as a car driver, you know that shifting to the train probably means standing with your face in somebody's armpit on a hot July day, when the air conditioning isn't working. It's nothing like that TV ad with the two snoozing lads.

Every morning I take the train, I know my trip isn't much cheaper than taking my car. And that's crazy, given the economies of scale. I don't know how to apportion the blame between incompetent management, intransigent unions, and short-sighted governments, but the problem is between them.

The stock Irish answer to every problem has been to increase taxes and charges. But this is an issue where, for many people, there's little or no alternative to the car. And where there is, it costs almost as much, and makes life more difficult. Why not try some carrot? Yes, there will be some people who'd never go near public transport. Just like there are some people who are "allergic to work". But you can't build your systems around those exceptions.

BoatMad

Carriages have been removed from trains. The view seems to be that if everybody (or nearly everybody) has a seat, the train isn't operating to full efficiency and should be shortened. While this may make sense on paper, the problem is that as a car driver, you know that shifting to the train probably means standing with your face in somebody's armpit on a hot July day, when the air conditioning isn't working. It's nothing like that TV ad with the two snoozing lads.

Carraiges have been removed, because Irish Rail is seriously constrained in operating flexibility by the Railcars it now uses exclusively. IN the past it could arrange train lengths on an adhoc basis, providing smaller trains at off peak, and longer trains at peak time. Now it cant do that easily and its initial configuration , meant that off peak trains were too long to be justified and the sets were shortened, this gives IR more " train sets " , but means that some routes now have smaller trains,

for example where a 4 car set was originally , IR could provide either a 4 car train or a 8 car train, now its a ( say ) a 3 car train or a 6 car train

BoatMad

Calina wrote: »

Having read this, I really wonder if you read my post properly. I've pointed out that the car has become dominant because of weaknesses in the public transport system but that those weaknesses can be mitigated against. I'm pretty certain that the TCO of a car exceeds the TCO of going by public transport, getting stuff delivered by taxi or by delivery service. The issue is not the cost, it is the convenience and this could, with will, be rectified.

Out of interest, in what cities with a population greater than 200,000 have you lived in outside Ireland? There are infrastructural issues in Dublin which make public transport an issue but starting off from the point of view that we have complex sustenance products (I assume you mean food here) and therefore public transport hard is not a productive approach to take.

With respect to the M50, I think it does its job as well as possible in the context of how utterly lousy many Irish drivers are.

I have lived in 4 cities well over 200,000. ( actually over 1 million) for a family , all needed a car except in one case where direct commuting by PT was possible. Car still needed at weekends, some commutes etc.

Family life without access to a car is extremely constraining

TCO is irrelevant, necessity overrides TCO. Settlement and shoping patterns today mean its very difficult to manage a family without a car, most that do , are doing so out of simply lack of money , not desire.


the m50 issues has nothing to do with lousy irish drivers , every country has lousy drivers ( you should live in the states LOL) The delays are a function of engineering and have been for as long as that crappy designed road existed ( remember junctions , barriers, the NRA telling us barriers didn't cause delays, or junctions didn't cause delays )

When that road was designed they even intended to connect the m50 to the naas road by simple off ramp to crossroads !!!!, this is how stupid these planners were.

The whole thing was designed in the 70s and it shows

Carawaystick

BoatMad wrote: »

Carraiges have been removed, because Irish Rail is seriously constrained in operating flexibility by the Railcars it now uses exclusively. IN the past it could arrange train lengths on an adhoc basis, providing smaller trains at off peak, and longer trains at peak time. Now it cant do that easily and its initial configuration , meant that off peak trains were too long to be justified and the sets were shortened, this gives IR more " train sets " , but means that some routes now have smaller trains,

for example where a 4 car set was originally , IR could provide either a 4 car train or a 8 car train, now its a ( say ) a 3 car train or a 6 car train

What new railcars does IÉ use now that it didn't use before it cut train lengths?
Why did IÉ shut down the dart network every weekend for over a year to have 8 car darts and not buy enough trains? Was it because it's run by a bunch of muppets who allowed a bridge fall into the sea?

animaal

BoatMad wrote: »

Carraiges have been removed, because Irish Rail is seriously constrained in operating flexibility by the Railcars it now uses exclusively.

I was going by what I'd read over the past few years, e.g. in the Irish Times.

"The number of carriages on off-peak DART services has been reduced as part of an Iarnród Éireann plan to save €3.2 million in annual fuel and maintenance costs. "

"An Irish Rail spokesman said even with fewer carriages the trains are “absolutely not” expected to be overcrowded. "

To be fair, that applied to the Dart, it may be different on other train types.

monument

BoatMad wrote: »

I have lived in 4 cities well over 200,000. ( actually over 1 million) for a family , all needed a car except in one case where direct commuting by PT was possible. Car still needed at weekends, some commutes etc.

Which cities?

BoatMad wrote: »

Family life without access to a car is extremely constraining

In most of Dublin at the moment, yes, but not in Amsterdam, not in Copenhagen, not in Berlin, not in Paris, not in most of London, not in New York City, not in Portland, not in most of San Francisco etc etc etc

Rental / car share is grand for infrequent use.

Cool Mo D

monument wrote: »

Which cities?




In most of Dublin at the moment, yes, but not in Amsterdam, not in Copenhagen, not in Berlin, not in Paris, not in most of London, not in New York City, not in Portland, not in most of San Francisco etc etc etc

Rental / car share is grand for infrequent use.

Maybe not the first cities you mention, but you must be joking if you think Portland or even San Francisco are less car dependent than Dublin. By American standards they have good public transport networks, but that's about it.

In Portland, 70% of people drive to work, and only 11.5% of people commute by public transport. In Dublin, 22% of people take public transport and 58% drive. Despite being the cycling capital of the USA, the modal share of cycling in Portland is the same as it is in Dublin.

San Francisco itself has quite good public transport inside the city limits, but it's suburbs are sprawling beyond belief and almost totally car dependent.

monument

Cool Mo D wrote: »

Maybe not the first cities you mention, but you must be joking if you think Portland or even San Francisco are less car dependent than Dublin. By American standards they have good public transport networks, but that's about it.

In Portland, 70% of people drive to work, and only 11.5% of people commute by public transport. In Dublin, 22% of people take public transport and 58% drive. Despite being the cycling capital of the USA, the modal share of cycling in Portland is the same as it is in Dublin.

San Francisco itself has quite good public transport inside the city limits, but it's suburbs are sprawling beyond belief and almost totally car dependent.

Portland is maybe a bad example when it comes down to modal share, but San Francisco is San Francisco, it's not other cities around it, dormitory cities or not. San Jose etc in the San Francisco Bay Area can't be viewed as just parts of San Fran. It would be like saying Amsterdam is the same as saying Rotterdam because both are part of the Randstad.

Modal share can be deceiving: Seville has a very extensive segregated cycle network which makes everyday cycling easy and safe for all types of people, and you can get around a good bulk of LA on public transport faster than by car and faster than public transport in Dublin, LA also had integrated ticketing long before us etc, and it has late-night services which put Dublin to shame.

But if you want more clearer examples added to the original list try, we'll re-write it:

Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, Paris, London, New York City, Utrecht, Aarhus, The Hague, Helsinki, Stockholm, Malmö, Madrid, Barcelona, Zurich, Vienna, Warsaw, Prague, Tokyo, Bern, Bucharest...

animaal

monument wrote: »

Portland is maybe a bad example when it comes down to modal share, but San Francisco is San Francisco, it's not other cities around it, dormitory cities or not.

I don't know San Francisco, but would that be like saying "Dublin City is not Lucan, Blackrock, Malahide and all the other towns around it"? I would have thought the public transport figures for Dublin include all the people traveling from outside Dublin City into it; if we only counted the people living in the city limits, the figures would show far less car dependency.

monument

animaal wrote: »

I don't know San Francisco, but would that be like saying "Dublin City is not Lucan, Blackrock, Malahide and all the other towns around it"? I would have thought the public transport figures for Dublin include all the people traveling from outside Dublin City into it; if we only counted the people living in the city limits, the figures would show far less car dependency.

No, it's quite different on scale and area.

It would be more like saying Amsterdam's cycling modal share is very high is a distortion because Rotterdam has a lower share and both are part of the Randstad area (Randstad is an area comparable to the San Francisco Bay Area, Dublin is in no way so).

As for your Co Dublin examples: Blackrock, car ownership might be high, but car use for commuting is relatively low. Blackrock a clear-cut example of many areas which should be counted as part of a wider Dublin City, but I'm not suggesting boundary changes for the clear opposition there would be to mixing DLR and DC.

BoatMad

I have to laugh at this justification for either cycling or PT in general, The proponents, either engage in wishful thinking and what-about-ary , or try and segregate down the process to try and convince you that PT in the city centre could work in suburbs

even in london, which by European standards has exceptional public transport , car usage is still around 50%, even if there has been a decline in car ownership , ( which may be a function of the recession ) .

Aard

Car mode share in London is 33%. And, furthermore, decreases every year.

Let's use facts.

LXFlyer

animaal wrote: »

If we want people to move to public transport, it has to be made more attractive. And I don't mean the nice green paint job on the trains.

I get the train to work, and it suits me more than driving. But that's because the locations of the stops suit me. It's not the same for everybody.

Since I started taking the train:
- Prices have shot up - even when there was little or no inflation in the economy.
- Park and Ride, which used to be free, is now charged. And has also increased in price.
- Services are more cramped

Carriages have been removed from trains. The view seems to be that if everybody (or nearly everybody) has a seat, the train isn't operating to full efficiency and should be shortened. While this may make sense on paper, the problem is that as a car driver, you know that shifting to the train probably means standing with your face in somebody's armpit on a hot July day, when the air conditioning isn't working. It's nothing like that TV ad with the two snoozing lads.

Every morning I take the train, I know my trip isn't much cheaper than taking my car. And that's crazy, given the economies of scale. I don't know how to apportion the blame between incompetent management, intransigent unions, and short-sighted governments, but the problem is between them.

The stock Irish answer to every problem has been to increase taxes and charges. But this is an issue where, for many people, there's little or no alternative to the car. And where there is, it costs almost as much, and makes life more difficult. Why not try some carrot? Yes, there will be some people who'd never go near public transport. Just like there are some people who are "allergic to work". But you can't build your systems around those exceptions.

BoatMad wrote: »

Carraiges have been removed, because Irish Rail is seriously constrained in operating flexibility by the Railcars it now uses exclusively. IN the past it could arrange train lengths on an adhoc basis, providing smaller trains at off peak, and longer trains at peak time. Now it cant do that easily and its initial configuration , meant that off peak trains were too long to be justified and the sets were shortened, this gives IR more " train sets " , but means that some routes now have smaller trains,

for example where a 4 car set was originally , IR could provide either a 4 car train or a 8 car train, now its a ( say ) a 3 car train or a 6 car train

Carawaystick wrote: »

What new railcars does IÉ use now that it didn't use before it cut train lengths?
Why did IÉ shut down the dart network every weekend for over a year to have 8 car darts and not buy enough trains? Was it because it's run by a bunch of muppets who allowed a bridge fall into the sea?

animaal wrote: »

I was going by what I'd read over the past few years, e.g. in the Irish Times.

"The number of carriages on off-peak DART services has been reduced as part of an Iarnród Éireann plan to save €3.2 million in annual fuel and maintenance costs. "

"An Irish Rail spokesman said even with fewer carriages the trains are “absolutely not” expected to be overcrowded. "

To be fair, that applied to the Dart, it may be different on other train types.

All of the issues listed above derived from the fact that:
1) Usage numbers plummeted as a result of the recession
2) PSO funding from the NTA was reduced each year to the railway company
3) The company finances were stretched to breaking point


The latter point being the one that fundamentally dictated that unfortunately trains needed to be shortened. They just simply did not have the money to operate them - that's it in very simple language. We now need to see PSO funding rise again in line with increased usage. That will happen to fund the proposed 10 minute DART frequency.

LXFlyer

I think an examination of what public transport could, and indeed cannot do is needed here.
While I appreciate what people are suggesting above about a “hub and spoke” bus network connecting into/out of buses operating along the M50, there is no way that you are going to get large numbers of people to leave their cars behind and get three buses to work (and a walk for many of them as well).

That’s:

• One bus from home to the M50
• One bus along the M50
• One bus from the M50 to the workplace
• A walk from the bus stop to the work location in the business/industrial parks

I just find it very difficult to believe that people would be prepared to accept three bus trips, with a potential wait at each connecting location, over a single car trip.
Added to that most buses operating along the radial routes are pretty full as it is which means a lot of extra buses would be needed.

Also I can say from my own experience that in most of the business parks around Dublin people use their cars at lunchtime to go to shopping centres for lunch or shopping etc., as local facilities are non-existent. This option wouldn’t be available using the bus. It’s also important to state that in many cases, people don’t necessarily go home directly from work as they may go to the gym, or elsewhere, and they may also leave work at different times on different days.

All of this, along with the fact that each individual makes a completely separate and individual trip, makes planning the orbital services that much more difficult than radial routes as they also need to serve major traffic generators to get enough people to use them.

That being said there is a need to improve the orbital services and this should now happen.

There are two types of orbital service that are needed, one facilitating peak travel (0630-0830 and 1600-1830) and then one facilitating the all-day market.

The former needs relatively high frequency routes focussing on major trip generators, namely the industrial/business parks, hospitals and town centres.

So realistically, what could be done?

Well for a start the original plans under Network Direct need to be dusted off and re-visited.

In south Dublin these were Route 75 being realigned away from Ballinteer, and a new route 175 being introduced from Tallaght via the “Green Route” between Tallaght and Ballinteer, then serving Dundrum, Sandyford, Stillorgan and then directly via the Monkstown Link Road to Dun Laoghaire.

The proposed route realignments in detail were:

Route 75 – Tallaght to Dun Laoghaire via Rathfarnham, Dundrum and Sandyford
Tallaght (The Square), Old Blessington Road, Old Bawn Road, Firhouse Road, Butterfield Avenue, Grange Road, Nutgrove Avenue, Churchtown Road, Dundrum, Kilmacud Road Upper, Sandyford Industrial Estate, Leopardstown Road, Stillorgan Road N11, Foxrock Church, Kill Lane, Kill Avenue, Dún Laoghaire Rail Station.

Route 175 – Tallaght to Dun Laoghaire via Knocklyon, Ballinteer, Dundrum, Sandyford and Monkstown
Tallaght (The Square), Old Blessington Road, Old Bawn Road, Killininny Road, St Colmcille’s Way, Scholarstown Road, Ballyboden Way, Taylor’s Lane, Grange Road, Stone Mason’s Way, Broadford Road, Ballinteer Avenue, Wyckham Way, Dundrum Shopping Centre, Sandyford Road, Sandyford Industrial Estate, Stillorgan Shopping Centre, Stillorgan Park, Monkstown Link Road, Monkstown Avenue, Mounttown Road, York Road, Dún Laoghaire Rail Station

The plans for west Dublin involved rerouting the 76 from Liffey Valley directly via the M50 to Blanchardstown and avoiding Ballyfermot, and a new route 166 from Liffey Valley via South Lucan, Grange Castle, the Outer Ring Road, Citywest to The Square in Tallaght.

Route 76 – The Square to Blanchardstown via Clondalkin and Liffey Valley
The Square, Belgard Road, Newlands Cross, Fonthill Road South, Convent Road, Clondalkin Village, Ninth Lock Road, Fonthill Road, Neilstown Road, Liffey Valley SC, N4, M50, Blanchardstown Village, Blanchardstown Centre.

Route 166 –The Square to Liffey Valley via Citywest, Grange Castle and South Lucan
Tallaght (The Square), Fortunestown Way, Citywest Road, Kingswood Avenue, Old Naas Road (Brownsbarn), Outer Ring Road, Grange Castle Business Park, Castle Road, Willsbrook Road, St. Loman’s Road, Liffey Valley Shopping Centre.

None of these changes took place. Massive local protests in Ballyfermot scuppered the changes to the 76 and it was changed only to serve Liffey Valley SC, and lack of funds prevented the changes to the 75, 166 and 175 taking place.

A very small number of buses continue as route 76a to operate from Blanchardstown SC, via the M50 and the N4 and then route 76 to Tallaght.

So what should happen?

I think there is a need to develop a revised orbital network, implementing some of the changes above, along with additional services. This does would mean more direct services across west and south Dublin, that don’t require people taking three buses. But to what extent this can be done, is limited as there are only so many buses that are available.

Firstly the proposed routes changes to route 75 and 175 in south Dublin need to take place. This would improve the east-west flow across south Dublin significantly and open up a new bus service through the major housing developments in Knocklyon. The 175 should start however, in Citywest rather than Tallaght.

Route 166 needs to be introduced linking Tallaght and Liffey Valley as above, and then continue via the N4, M50 to Blanchardstown Shopping Centre. The 76a could then be cancelled (anyone from Ballyfermot could connect via the 76 with the 166 at Liffey Valley).

I think that perhaps several peak hour only services could be introduced, that would link major housing areas in west Dublin with industrial areas. They would operate in one direction only each in the morning between 06:00 and 08:00 and in the evening peak between 16:00 and 18:30, perhaps at roughly 15 minute frequencies. Outside of those hours, people could use the other all day services.

You could have services linking different residential parts of Blanchardstown via the M50 between Blanchardstown and Liffey Valley with the industrial areas at Fonthill, Grange Castle and Citywest, or Parkwest, Ballymount and Belgard Road.

Similarly services could link the residential areas of south Lucan, or Firhouse/Knocklyon, Tallaght and Clondalkin, with the industrial areas of Blanchardstown again using the M50 between Liffey Valley and Blanchardstown.

This would at least offer some meaningful public transport alternatives.

dubhthach

San Francisco (eg. the combined city-county) has square area equivalent to the area within Dublin city boundary, it's density is about 53% higher per square km.

Do we have any breakdown of commuter modal share within Dublin's city boundary?

As a comparison I'd be more curious about combined modal share of San Francisco and the contiguous urban areas in Northern San Mateo County. San Jose is beside the point (let alone the fact that it's 80km dowtown to downtown), up until recently the commute traffic was probably if anything more biased from San Fran to San Jose direction anyways given it's location with regards to the Valley (it's relatively recent phenomena the move of major tech firms into San Fran itself).

Interesting visualization of commuting patterns in Bay area here. As you can see San Jose is a net destination for commuters.