Why is public transport in Dublin so bad?

Chromosphere

Chuchote wrote: »

The car is king.
Ireland is a country that still holds to 19th-century ideas of profitability, rather than sharing and economies of scale.
Politicians are themselves allied to interest groups like motorists and the car industry.
Politicians are short-term thinkers, and don't think things through - for example, the current craze for taller buildings. In Paris, when the city rose to 5 storeys in the 18th century, it was done through razing many old streets to build wider, straighter streets. If we build high-rise in Dublin, we will have narrow, twisting, dark canyons - unless we follow the Paris model and raze streets to build wider streets. That's not going to happen because it would cost and it would offend…

Sounds like parts of Brussels

See : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brusselization

Cookie_Monster

beauf wrote: »

Really?

Do they not do it to reinvent themselves. Disassociate themselves from something.

From what, past crap service. Doesnt really work if the current service remains crap...

curiousoranje

Remember reading about buses getting priority at traffic lights a while back (lights change to green as bus is approaching junction)has anything ever come of it?

Annoys me no end the amount of red lights a packed bus sits at while single occupant cars sail through.

beauf

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

From what, past crap service. Doesnt really work if the current service remains crap...

Very true. But that's the intent I assume. If put that effort into improving the service it would be a better use of money.

Preventing long term brand recognition. Why do think that.

defrule

This one always gets me. Why is the southern DART line built to run basically along side the east coast? Half of the sphere of influence is in the ocean.

Chuchote

defrule wrote: »

This one always gets me. Why is the southern DART line built to run basically along side the east coast? Half of the sphere of influence is in the ocean.

The old explanation for odd railway lines in Ireland was that they were built to move troops around, and Dun Laoghaire was certainly a harbour used for this; the coast is the fastest way to the city. It may also have been a cheap place for the government to acquire land in the early or middle 19th century, when coasts were still regarded as rather horrid. The wayleaves for railway lines, by the way, were used for the first telephone lines, and lots of lines still follow them.

Chromosphere

I'm fairly familiar with that era of Irish history and also the transport technology of the 1800s and those lines most definitely were not for troop movements. Certainly not around the suburban rail in the cities anyway.

The coastal railways were built in Dublin because they made business sense.

Dublin was a much smaller city. There were no suburban areas, other than towns along the coast really and it connected a big alternative passenger ferry terminal and also the towns in Dublin and Wicklow that people went on "their holidays" to.

The majority of Dubliners holidayed in places like Bray and Dun Laoghaire was a major international shipping terminal for passengers.
The majority of Corkonians holidayed in Yoghal and Cobh was the equivalent of a major international airport.
The majority of Leeds people holidayed in Scarborough.

All cities in the 1800s in these islands had at least one near by seaside town connected by rail and full of beach front fish and chips and entertainments.

Dublin grew exponentially in the 1900s. It was actually more or less the size of Cork City at independence and it ballooned in the later half of the 20th century in various expansionary booms.

None of those saw rail infrastructure going in with the building and many didn't even see significant road development - places like Tallaght had dismally poor infrastructure until the 1990s.

Much of the northern parts of Dublin were relying on single carriageway streets not major roads.

There was basically the Naas road, a stub of the M1 to the airport and the Stillorgan DC.

NiallBoo

Ahh...Bray for your holliers.

What a time to be alive (?!?)

Chromosphere

NiallBoo wrote: »

Ahh...Bray for your holliers.

What a time to be alive (?!?)

Well it was an improvement on walking to The Phoenix Park with a sandwich before the train was put in.

Jawgap

Chuchote wrote: »

The car is king.
Ireland is a country that still holds to 19th-century ideas of profitability, rather than sharing and economies of scale.
Politicians are themselves allied to interest groups like motorists and the car industry.
Politicians are short-term thinkers, and don't think things through - for example, the current craze for taller buildings. In Paris, when the city rose to 5 storeys in the 18th century, it was done through razing many old streets to build wider, straighter streets. If we build high-rise in Dublin, we will have narrow, twisting, dark canyons - unless we follow the Paris model and raze streets to build wider streets. That's not going to happen because it would cost and it would offend…

Iirc, wider straighter boulevards in Paris were created to allow the army to transit the city quicker, by marching in longer lines abreast.

Calina

Chromosphere wrote: »

Sounds like parts of Brussels

See : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brusselization

This doesn't really explain why Dublin's public transport system is significantly more atrocious than that of Brussels. They at least have a reasonably coherent and integrated system running and the ticketing is integrated more effectively than here is. Also, the monthly all modes ticket is actually worth getting there.

Here, on the other hand, ticket integration is messy at best, there isn't an all modes monthly ticket unless you're a student, and even a monthly Dublin Bus ticket doesn't really make it attractive for a lot of people trying to commute to work. If you were to judge by the fares, there is a desire to get people on individual journeys far more than on getting them to subscribe to the system as a whole. An individual transport ticket in the STIB area works on all modes. The same is not true here. There's been messing with time limited tickets. And when you complain about ticketing here, you get pointed at Leap and the fact that when you mode change, the next ticket is a bit cheaper than it might otherwise be. Net result fares and ticketing in Dublin is more complex and involves more variants than fares and ticketing in other cities. We don't have all transport zones; Dublin Bus has stages, Luas has one lot of zones and DART has some other set of variables. Basic journey fares should be cross mode and integrated. They aren't and they aren't even going that way.

So while Brussels has its problems, it is still many times better than Dublin.

From a personal point of view, I think there are clear issues in that many Irish people aren't familiar with decent public transport systems for cities of a million. The greater Dublin area represents about one third of the population of the Republic so I find it hard to say the place hasn't urbanized.

But I do think the public transport system is a symptom of a greater problem. We don't build decent accommodation here,. MOst of the apartments we built in the last 15 years or so weren't designed to be lived in as much as sold off in such a way as to make profit for builders. The idea that we'll be able to attract people into apartments for a longer term has been monumentally damaged by that on its own right but also by stories like Priory Hall.

I don't know how we even begin to fix this. Not one politician appears to have a vision for how life in Ireland could be and there's no real starting point. We've a problem looking at transport provision in a coherent integrated way and every time we build some new rail based stuff, basically once in a blue moon, we castigate Dublin BUs for failing to compete with it when we should be getting the systems to coherently integrate.

Chromosphere

I was only referring to Brussels' architectural mess. It's got a lot of very poorly redeveloped areas. Boulevard du Regent area, Rue de le Loi (buildings modern and high rise on a narrow street)

Public transit wise there's no comparison. Brussels has excellent metro and pre-metro (trams that occasionally go underground) and a huge tram network and busses.

MOBIB card works very well and is integrated properly. Leap is just an electonic purse really.

Jawgap wrote: »

Iirc, wider straighter boulevards in Paris were created to allow the army to transit the city quicker, by marching in longer lines abreast.

It was because they liked the look of them.

Paris is designed to look pretty.

Dublin mostly just happened.

NiallBoo

Is inertia. Change seems risky to both punters and politicians. Never mind that current practice is unsustainable.

Reminds me of that Henry Ford quote when asked what research he'd done to see what people wanted people wanted:

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

Bray Head

Chromosphere wrote: »

Meanwhile the state abolished ALL the town council effectively removing any urban democratic structures - most or the world has strong; well developed town council structures with power over planning, transit etc

Every role local authorities had has basically been systematically removed into national quangos.

This is all very true.

But can you point to any service that local authorities provided better than what replaced it?

Local authorities have traditionally done a lot of things (eg water services, rates collection, local authority mortgages, planning) in a pretty slipshod manner.

Chuchote

Bray Head wrote: »

This is all very true.

But can you point to any service that local authorities provided better than what replaced it?

Local authorities have traditionally done a lot of things (eg water services, rates collection, local authority mortgages, planning) in a pretty slipshod manner.

Bin collection? School meals? Street cleaning? Housing?

When it was slipshod it was because the rates were abolished and then the replacement cash supplied from central government was gradually thinned out so the councils and corporations were starved of funds.

Jawgap

Chuchote wrote: »

Bin collection? School meals? Street cleaning? Housing?

When it was slipshod it was because the rates were abolished and then the replacement cash supplied from central government was gradually thinned out so the councils and corporations were starved of funds.

School meals? In Ireland? Provided by local authorities?

Local authorities may do some things 'well' but at what cost?

L1011

Kildare CCs bin service was abysmal and got somewhat better when it was contracted out - you still paid KCC but they didn't operate it. Until it was contrasted to AES who are incompetent. It was then sold to AES, who are still incompetent.

Chuchote

Some councils did school meals, yes?

My bin collection in Dublin was excellent; I knew the binmen and gave a small tip every Christmas, in an envelope marked "Corporation Staff", as did most of the neighbours, in appreciation for them pulling out all the stops all year.

The trouble is that the councils have been systematically castrated over the years. If we had proper local government we wouldn't have constituency politics in the Dail, because they wouldn't be necessary; people would look for their services locally.

L1011

Chuchote wrote: »

Some councils did school meals, yes?

No. Why would they - they don't operate the schools. Schools have never had kitchens either.

Chuchote

http://www.dublincity.ie/main-menu-services-recreation-culture/apply-school-meals

magicbastarder

one of the issues with local politics in ireland is that the local authorities are simply too small.
for example; leitrim has a county council. leitrim also has a population of just over 30,000 people. dublin city council covers an area of over half a million people.
leitrim co. co. should be merged with multiple other local authorities, and the same concept repeated all over the country. for example - one of the biggest problems i see with ireland (speaking as someone who has spent the vast majority of my life living in dublin!) is the proliferation of one off housing in the countryside; using leitrim as an example, with an administrative area that small, the potential for a nod and a wink, and my uncle was your referee when you got your job, attitudes in planning, is huge.

anyway, none of this explains the public transport situation in the larger urban areas, so carry on.

Chuchote

Nice piece about Dutch roundabouts - these would be great in Dublin https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2015/10/13/explaining-the-dutch-roundabout-abroad/ though they'd need a fair bit of driver education first.

Jawgap

Chuchote wrote: »

http://www.dublincity.ie/main-menu-services-recreation-culture/apply-school-meals

Yeah, they provide some money and you can take that money and spend it in the school canteen......

......which means if you're in a school older than about 10 years you're goosed.

LAs have no role in education here, unlike the UK. And thank God, Jaysus if the Corpo instead of the Christian Brothers ran the school I went to I'd barely be able to spell 'CBS' much less attend one.

LAs are a joke in this country - we've over 30 for a population of just over 4 million! That's about 25 too many. It's no wonder there's no 'joined up' thinking when it comes to things like planning, transport, housing etc - decisions are made on a parochial, not a proper regional basis.

Stephen15

Could a mod separate all non Dublin public transport related posts

Carawaystick

Vic_08 wrote: »

Even more unrealistic is the idea the DB would run alongside BE to Ashbourne and passengers could pick and choose which they wanted to use because it would simply not be financially viable.

DB and BÉ and IÉ serve Balbriggan. Doesn't seem to be financially nonviable to have 3 operators there.

L1011

Chuchote wrote: »

http://www.dublincity.ie/main-menu-services-recreation-culture/apply-school-meals

Private sector suppliers, always has been. This isn't the UK - councils do rather little and usually very badly.

foggy_lad

Carawaystick wrote: »

DB and BÉ and IÉ serve Balbriggan. Doesn't seem to be financially nonviable to have 3 operators there.

DB only offer a limited service to Balbriggan, 16 buses a day, the main transort options are the train with 25 trains a day and the BE 101 service with 40 buses a day.

Chuchote

It seems unfair to criticise councils starved of funds for not being able to do the work that money would finance. And comparing Ireland to other countries is rather pointless unless you can offer examples, with figures, of how other countries do things better.

Is there anyone posting here who knows how the different transport services are funded - Bus Éireann, the national intercity bus service; Dublin Bus, which services the capital and its outlying suburbs; Iarnród Éireann, which offers an intercity train service and the Bray-to-Howth DART suburban trains; and the Luas, the Dublin tram service? (I'm avoiding using acronyms, always find them baffling myself unless a particular one is in common and constant use.)

syklops

Chuchote wrote: »

It seems unfair to criticise councils starved of funds for not being able to do the work that money would finance. And comparing Ireland to other countries is rather pointless unless you can offer examples, with figures, of how other countries do things better.

Well thats the end of the thread then, If you can't compare Irelands public transport to another countries without having a breakdown of their operating budgets. Is Dublin Bus' unreliability just a matter of money?

Chuchote

syklops wrote: »

Well thats the end of the thread then, If you can't compare Irelands public transport to another countries without having a breakdown of their operating budgets. Is Dublin Bus' unreliability just a matter of money?

I didn't ask for operating budgets. I asked where the different Irish transport services got their money. People are talking about the councils, for instance - do they fund any of them? Are the public trains, buses and trams all funded from the same department (plus fares)?

LXFlyer

Chuchote wrote: »

I didn't ask for operating budgets. I asked where the different Irish transport services got their money. People are talking about the councils, for instance - do they fund any of them? Are the public trains, buses and trams all funded from the same department (plus fares)?

They get two sources of funds apart from the farebox:

1) PSO Subsidy from the National Transport Authority (ultimately from the Department of Transport) for operating essential public services as opposed to those services deemed to be commercial in nature

2) Fixed sum amount for operating the Free Travel Scheme from the Department of Social Protection

The funding model will change in the future with the NTA getting the farebox revenue and the operating companies a fixed sum for operating the service.

LXFlyer

Carawaystick wrote: »

DB and BÉ and IÉ serve Balbriggan. Doesn't seem to be financially nonviable to have 3 operators there.

They operate three distinct services along different routes.

Not the same as expecting a DB PSO service as well as a BE PSO service along the exact same route to Ashbourne.

What should happen in the future is some level of ability to have BE PSO service ticketing integrated with that on IE and DB services.

LXFlyer

Vic_08 wrote: »

Sorry but the suggestion that Ashbourne passengers are being victimised here is nonsense. Yes their bus service is more expensive but it is also a very different, higher quality service than a comparable DB served town of a similar distance such as Maynooth.

The 103 is a semi-express service that provides a high all day frequency and fast journey times, it is more comparable to the likes of Swords Express than any outer suburban DB service.

While people may complain about the higher fares they don't complain about the ability to get to the CC in less than 40 minutes in peak traffic
or the bus whizzing past a dozen stops inside the M50
or the bus diverting to serve the likes of Finglas Village or St Margarets Road/Charlestown or any other area DB need to serve en-route
or the bus being full up with local traffic leaving the city and driving past Ashbournites full.
or anti-social behaviour due to serving rougher parts of the city.
or drivers not giving change.

The closer equivalent to the 103 for Maynooth is the rail service not the 66 bus, even then I'd argue Ashbourne gets a better deal; more frequent all day (and now 24 hour/ 7 day service), multiple stops through the town, more or less guaranteed seat for all passengers and a similar and often quicker journey time.

I would argue that more outer suburban towns would benefit from having a 103 style service rather than their current slow all stops and often indirect DB routes.

For the record I never suggested people in Ashbourne were "being victimised". You misinterpreted my post.

I used the expression that they were "victims of circumstance", in other words meaning that the reason they have the BE services today is down to history and to which company offered the service originally rather than any other particular reason.

You are quite right that the 66 is not a valid comparison - it and the 66a and 66b combine to offer the core 15 minute stopping service along the Lucan QBC on Monday to Saturdays.

I also am of the view that the 33 and 65 should actually be BE services and operate a limited stop service between Swords/Tallaght and the city along the QBC in the same manor as the 101 does today. They, I suspect, have better experience to actually design those services properly rather than the mess that the 33/33a is.

Stephen15

lxflyer wrote: »

I also am of the view that the 33 and 65 should actually be BE services and operate a limited stop service between Swords/Tallaght and the city along the QBC in the same manor as the 101 does today. They I suspect have better experience to actually design those services properly rather than the mess that the 33/33a is.

The same could also be said about the 84/a/x and the 184 and 185 the latter of which don't even serve Dublin in fact the entire bray bus depot should probably be operated by BE. Maybe not BE operating the services but DB could operate specific outer suburban services whigh I've seen on the continent basically buses run by the same urban operat or with more comfortable seats bascially buses which are a cross between coaches and city buses.

Chuchote

Getting back to the original question, I suspect that the reason our public transport isn't up to standard is that the roads are clogged with single-occupant cars.

When we move to a model that favours public transport and cycling, then we'll have good public transport.

Calina

Chuchote wrote: »

Getting back to the original question, I suspect that the reason our public transport isn't up to standard is that the roads are clogged with single-occupant cars.

When we move to a model that favours public transport and cycling, then we'll have good public transport.

Anecdotally you have it backwards. I drive because the public transport options are utterly unworkable. I have tried to make it work for each of the last 4 jobs. Imo the issue is we don't want to pay for it. You can see that with various decisions which have been made. The cars are there because the alternativeis worse. Driving in this city is not pleasant but the bus journey times are broadly unpredictable and if you have a mode change its pretty awful.

In short driving in Dublin is awful. But public transport is actually worse.

LeinsterDub

Chuchote wrote: »

It seems unfair to criticise councils starved of funds for not being able to do the work that money would finance. And comparing Ireland to other countries is rather pointless unless you can offer examples, with figures, of how other countries do things better.

DCC engaged in populism and decided to cut their own budget by 15% and now they've no money for Dublin Bikes

Chuchote

Calina wrote: »

Anecdotally you have it backwards. I drive because the public transport options are utterly unworkable. I have tried to make it work for each of the last 4 jobs. Imo the issue is we don't want to pay for it. You can see that with various decisions which have been made. The cars are there because the alternativeis worse. Driving in this city is not pleasant but the bus journey times are broadly unpredictable and if you have a mode change its pretty awful.

In short driving in Dublin is awful. But public transport is actually worse.

Yup.

Otoh, I cycle because driving is unworkable - wildly expensive, life spent in traffic jams, unhealthy, miserable.

Calina

Chuchote wrote: »

Yup.

Otoh, I cycle because driving is unworkable - wildly expensive, life spent in traffic jams, unhealthy, miserable.

I hate cycling and always have. I checked out walking as an alternative and it too was deeply unpleasant in this city. And I like walking.

Have lived in a bunch of other cities. Dublin is by some distance the worst for public transport.

magicbastarder

LeinsterDub wrote: »

DCC engaged in populism and decided to cut their own budget by 15% and now they've no money for Dublin Bikes

you mean the cut in property tax?
it's not just DCC stumping up for it, i understood? jc decaux and coke would have financial input, and jc decaux haven't received their end of the bargain yet.

Chuchote

Calina wrote: »

I hate cycling and always have.

How can anyone hate cycling :eek:

http://www.bikeleague.org/content/why-bike-it-makes-us-happy-researchers-say

Thanks to researchers at Clemson and the University of Pennsylvania, a study released in 2014 made it official: Folks who bike to their destinations are the happiest. Using the American Time Use Survey, collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eric Morris and Erick Guerra were able to determine the average mood felt by people during different types of travel — and the demeanor of cyclists was significantly better than car drivers, passengers or public transit riders.

munchkin_utd

Public transport in Dublin is bad because of a heap of reasons.

If I were to distil it to less than an essay, there's no will to put in the massive investment in the rail (and move away from bus) capacity needed to shift the massive amount of people to the centre of the city during rush hour. If that doesnt happen, you have the competition between bus and cars on the road which is what people currently are struggling with.

So basically the Dart underground needs to be built, and the crapness of Dublin public transport (noting its not a system or a network as nothing links up in any way, be it services, timetable or tickets) compared to other cities is the lack of a central rail spine to transport the masses to where they work, not to where a rail station was built on the edge of the city 150 years ago.

If you look at Munich or Brussels or Copenhagen or any other half functioning city, they have a central suburban rail spine which siphons off 100s of millions of potential road journies every year.

EDIT: just found the figures that the numbers using Dart/ Commuter rail in Dublin is 100,000 . The comparible S bahn suburban rail system in Munich which has a central tunnel linking the 2 terminus stations, in a city of an identical population and similar catchment area is over 800,000.
The system had initial predictions of 240,000 passengers per day but the idea of a direct link from the suburbs right to the middle of the city was so attractive that it was carrying 400000 passengers within a year. That was 45 years ago, and Dublin still refuses to learn the lessons from abroad.

LeinsterDub

magicbastarder wrote: »

you mean the cut in property tax?
it's not just DCC stumping up for it, i understood? jc decaux and coke would have financial input, and jc decaux haven't received their end of the bargain yet.

Yes the property tax cut.

ted1

LeinsterDub wrote: »

DCC engaged in populism and decided to cut their own budget by 15% and now they've no money for Dublin Bikes

Many of those who use transport are not from the DCC area, why should DCC property owners fund transport for others ? Surely it should come from national funds.

LeinsterDub

ted1 wrote: »

Many of those who use transport are not from the DCC area, why should DCC property owners fund transport for others ? Surely it should come from national funds.

I would agree in theory it should but it will years waiting for it to come from national funds. Too many vested interests

magicbastarder

DCC are forecast to take in €50.6m in LPT this year, against a total budget of €803m.
reducing property tax by 15% cost them €12m; or 1.5% of their budget. so not the primary reason to blame them for transport woes.

Chuchote

If Dublin City Council built a series of parking high-rises around the city and banned on-street parking, they'd release a huge amount of road. Some could be made into protected cycle superhighways and other used for public tranport.

They'd also make money in parking fees since it would be impossible to dodge the fees if drivers had to park in council-owned car parks; there would be no more need for clampers or inspectors.

plodder

Heard about people waiting for a 17A for over an hour yesterday, and when one did come it was (as to be expected) full. A lot of very angry people and abuse thrown at the drivers.

Experiences like that are what make people pay the huge up front costs needed to get motoring, and once you're over that hump, public transport is hard to justify economically no matter how long you spend sitting in traffic.

LXFlyer

DCC have hardly been public transport friendly.

For years they refused to give up on street parking spaces to facilitate bus lanes/bus stops around the city as they would lose a revenue stream.

They refused to allow bus shelters in the city centre unless they got the revenue from the advertising - hence people have to wait in the open.

They put a cycle lane in at the southern end of O'Connell Street and moved the bus stop that was there to a completely exposed location on O'Connell Bridge.

There are bus cages painted on the roads across the city that are insufficiently large to allow buses pull in, straighten up, stop, and pull out safely, thus making safe centre door operation pretty much impossible. There's one stop in Kimmage that has a light pole inserted half way along the kerbing at the bus stop.

Now they're proposing re-routing buses along routes that will be longer, slower and more congested.

A track record that is frankly pathetic.

Chuchote

plodder wrote: »

huge up front costs needed to get motoring

Not just upfront costs; running a car now costs €11,000 a year.