BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

Stephen15

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Thats a foolish statement. Is it a requirement nowadays that learner drivers become ignorant of reality for the test?

Far from it buddy. As I said I can't afford to have an accident so I take care around cyclists.

punisher5112

Everyone must follow the rules but unfortunately across the board whether a walker, cyclist, scooter user, motorbike, car, van, truck, bus and anything else with wheels don't and are completely deluded and a danger to themselves and others.


I work with a guy who drives like a nut, gives out about cyclists etc but he is one and on the bike he breaks every rule going.

I find the most dangerous around the city are cyclists and taxis at number 1 on the list then van drivers.

This in no way means all of the above and many follow most rules and everyone needs to just take a step back and respect each other.

The stuff people do on a bike or motor vehicle is not the way they would behave walking down the road.
Example would be following and wanting to start fights or brake checking or just going bat sh1t crazy.


As I've said before each person you see walking, cycling or on a scooter or motorbike is one less car hogging road space and they are contributing to the less time a journey will take.

Buses are the same as the can take over 90 to a 124 in some cases and that's a hell of a lot of cars off the road so people need to respect these more also.

Cyclists if you can't see a vehicles mirrors then don't be shocked when the large vehicle is pulling out and they actually don't see you until you dart out at the last second from behind.

AndrewJRenko

Stephen15 wrote: »

I'm not breaking the law it's illegal for a learner to drive on the M50.

You might want to go back and read my suggestion again and see how it doesn't involved breaking the law.

Stephen15 wrote: »

Unlike cyclists us motorists actually have to follow the rules of the road.

Mmm, interesting thinking. It doesn't say much for your observation skills on the road if you think that motorists actually following the rules. Haven't you noticed the 60%-80% of motorists that break the speed limit? Or the 88% of red light jumpers that are motorists? Or the drivers who dragged us down to 2nd worst position on the European league table of mobile phone abuse?

Stephen15 wrote: »

Far from it buddy. As I said I can't afford to have an accident so I take care around cyclists.

They're not 'accidents'. They are crashes or collisions. It's time we moved on from the 'accident' thinking.


https://www.crashnotaccident.com/

MJohnston

This argument is never going to go anywhere. Every type of commuter is selfish and ignorant in some way or another, of some law or another.

What car drivers frequently forget is that cyclists, pedestrians, bus passengers, Luas passengers...most of us have cars too, and drive them frequently, so we know how that is. In fact, most of us have used one of the other modes of transport at some point or another. So ye can't bluff us about drivers being pearly white angels, because we know.

Conversely people who primarily use their car to commute have little experience with taking a bus or a Luas to work, most of them have a casual relationship with the idea of walking, and barely any of them know what it's like to cycle through Dublin city.

So there's no empathy there, just pure selfishness. Everything a driver gets angry about is how it affects *their* journey - and that most often includes other cars: "how dare they make my journey slower by existing".

Sooner we ban cars from the city centre the better, because not only will it make the city itself much more pleasant, it might give some of these selfish drivers more empathy about what its like to commute outside of a car.

Aslo, something something BusConnects quicker routes something something. What's this thread about again?

Hurrache

Stephen15 wrote: »

I'm not breaking the law it's illegal for a learner to drive on the M50. Unlike cyclists us motorists actually have to follow the rules of the road.

I was tempted to give you a pass as you're a learner, but you're off to a bad start with your sense of entitlement and general all round ignorance married with your inexperience.

Stephen15

Hurrache wrote: »

I was tempted to give you a pass as you're a learner, but you're off to a bad start with your sense of entitlement and general all round ignorance married with your inexperience.

As I said I give cyclists the room you want you've nothing to fear from me.

What I find is there is a lot of bad behaviour by certain cyclists. I agree cars should be banned from the city centre but I have witnessed from the top deck of buses cyclists weaving in and out of buses and trams also lots of wobbly cyclists around town. I have cycled in the past I would like to see more segregation between cyclists and cars.

MJohnston

Stephen15 wrote: »

As I said I give cyclists the room you want you've nothing to fear from me.

What I find is there is a lot of bad behaviour by certain cyclists. I agree cars should be banned from the city centre but I have witnessed from the top deck of buses cyclists weaving in and out of buses and trams also lots of wobbly cyclists around town. I have cycled in the past I would like to see more segregation between cyclists and cars.

Look, it's a simple as this: there are a certain percentage of humans who are complete pricks. Some of them drive, some of them cycle, some of them are pedestrians, some of them are bus drivers, etc.

You will always notice the worst examples of any given commuter, because the others don't stand out.

I cycle to work every day, and I constantly encounter people on Dublin Bikes being idiots (in fact one caused me to wipe out by forcing me to swerve into some Luas tracks a couple of weeks ago), delivery cyclists doing stuff that puts people in danger, pedestrians acting like complete sheep (this is overwhelming in the city centre - try to turn left cycling on a green light from Westmoreland Street onto the Quays and I guarantee you there will be dozens of idiots crossing on a red light - they get in front of cars and buses too), taxis acting with murderous intent, bus drivers blocking two or three lanes because they couldn't be arsed pulling in parallel to the curb, and many many laws broken by motorists.

So there's no one group that really is absolved from any blame (if you choose to blame people as a group that is).

Which brings it down to more useful factors:
- Which mode of travel is the least efficient? Cars
- Which mode of travel proportionally poses the most danger to others? Cars
- Which mode of travel negatively affects congestion the most? Cars
- Which mode of travel negatively affects all other modes the most? Cars

A pragmatic, objective examination of transport infrastructure the world over will show you that things that help make life easier for buses, also make life easier for cyclists, pedestrians, and trams if they're designed correctly. So when cyclists are asking for safer, better infrastructure - it's because none of us want to be cycling on the roads, we want to be cycling on properly segregated, properly maintained, well surfaced cycle paths that are well integrated into the flow of roads. There are barely any examples of cycle paths like this in Ireland - I think the Grand Canal has a brief stretch where this is true in Dublin and of course it is used almost 100% there.

To bring this back to BusConnects, I think part of the problem is it's yet another continuation of cycling provision not being intelligently designed.

It's time to get real - cyclists will continue to commute in Dublin, and if infrastructure isn't properly designed, they will continue to use roads instead of substandard, dangerous alternatives. You can spend all day arguing about the reasons for this, or dishing out blame, but the simple fact is that it will happen. So why not do it properly and help keep them safe and separate? It won't reduce road space available to buses, it'll just require the kind of smarts that Irish road planners have never demonstrated. And it'll make life better for everyone!

Well apart from car drivers, they'll still be as miserable as ever, hopefully.

AlekSmart

MJohnston wrote: »

Look, it's a simple as this: there are a certain percentage of humans who are complete pricks. Some of them drive, some of them cycle, some of them are pedestrians, some of them are bus drivers, etc. SNIP SNIPPETY SNIP........

To bring this back to BusConnects, I think part of the problem is it's yet another continuation of cycling provision not being intelligently designed.
SNIP ETC......

Well apart from car drivers, they'll still be as miserable as ever, hopefully.

http://www.engineersireland.ie/Communications/Engineer-TV-Archive/webcasts/2017/Reimagining-Dublins-Bus-Network.aspx

Now,to resume,where we left off.....:D

Hotblack Desiato

Stephen15 wrote: »

I'm a learner driver so I can't drive on the M50 and yes I am accompanied before you ask. I stay well behind cyclists and always give 1.5m I can't afford to have an accident with a cyclist.

Just ask your supervising driver (assuming it's not the Invisible Man) to take over, problem solved.

monument

Keep the discussion on cycling only to discussion relating to BusConnects/

-- moderator

Stephen15 wrote: »

I'm not breaking the law it's illegal for a learner to drive on the M50. Unlike cyclists us motorists actually have to follow the rules of the road.

There's already loads of places and threads to give out about cyclists and to be clear -- cyclists not using cycle tracks is also not breaking the law and any future attempts to claim other wise will be actioned.

-- moderator

dublinman1990

Did anyone here posted up the map for the remaining phases of the core bus corridor project yet. I found them in the local paper today.

I found this map for the corridors and their dates on busconnects.ie. The link to the map is down at the bottom of phase 3 of this post.

Phase 2: Mid-January to End of March 2019

Liffey Valley to City Centre
Clondalkin to Drimnagh
Greenhills to City Centre
Tallaght to Terenure
Kimmage to City Centre
Rathfarnham to City Centre

Phase 3: Mid-February to End of April 2019

Ballymun to City Centre
Finglas to Phibsborough
Bray to City Centre
Blackrock to Merrion
UCD Ballsbridge to City Centre
Ringsend to City Centre

https://busconnects.ie/media/1365/phases-map-final.pdf

When I saw these dates put in the paper; I do feel that this level of work is quite enormous for the NTA to sift through all of the consultations from the public for this part of the project. With launching various projects over time within a specific time frame; I don't the NTA to go out to rush any part of these projects. I want to them to have dedicated team to devote a certain amount of time for each project when each phase gets rolled out to the public.

There have been talk of apparent staff shortages within the NTA itself that have surfaced on this thread over a certain amount of time. If the NTA really have a small team of people within their own head office staff; they could employ more people to go each project so that the projects being unveiled for BusConnects would be dealt with a lot quicker. Having a projected timeline of 10 years for these corridors when these changes need to come in now is not good for public confidence. If people want the NTA to deal with the projects in a quicker period of time; why not hire more staff in their departments to get these project sorted out more quickly.

I would agree with any of you here who said that a period of ten years is far too slow to get things off the ground. To give you an example here; there was work going on with installing a new pedestrian crossing on Montpelier Parade on Monkstown Road a few days ago. I read in another thread that because a section of road on Temple Hill was reduced to one lane the level of traffic was backed up as far as St Vincent's Hospital. This project is also nearing 2 months behind schedule.

The Blackrock to Merrion corridor to be done next year does need to obtain a badly needed bus lane beside the cycle lane along either side of Temple Road as far as the Rock Road to bypass the sometimes heavy traffic congestion particularly during the peak period in the mornings. I understand that the section of Monkstown road going down from Temple Hill as far down as the village is to be dug up again for building cycle lanes sometime in the new year. This is the section where the new spine route 7 (being split up as 7a & 7b) which will go between Dun Laoghaire & Charlestown Shopping Centre.

I do understand that is project is quite a complex task to modernize the bus network in our capital.

The question that I would like to ask here why are things being dealt with in a piecemeal way with big infrastructure projects like this one? Is it planning laws being out of date or planning decisions being delayed, dialogue between various state & local authorities & small project teams etc.

RayCun

On the one hand you say the amount of work is enormous, on the other you say you don't agree with a piecemeal approach?

howiya

Has anyone done any analysis or stats on how many buses will run on a spine during peak time?

cgcsb

howiya wrote: »

Has anyone done any analysis or stats on how many buses will run on a spine during peak time?

it's available on the website. The A spine will have a bus every 3 mins at peak times and the G spine every 5 mins. Everything else in between.

Qrt

cgcsb wrote: »

it's available on the website. The A spine will have a bus every 3 mins at peak times and the G spine every 5 mins. Everything else in between.

I have the feeling they're referring to the absolute number of buses, i.e. how many buses will be required by the A spine, B spine etc. I heard once that a bus with a 30-min frequency needs around six buses, my basic maths would say a bus ten times as frequently would need sixty buses? I'm fairly sure that's wrong.

bk

Qrt wrote: »

I have the feeling they're referring to the absolute number of buses, i.e. how many buses will be required by the A spine, B spine etc. I heard once that a bus with a 30-min frequency needs around six buses, my basic maths would say a bus ten times as frequently would need sixty buses? I'm fairly sure that's wrong.

Well I don't have numbers for you, the frequency of buses on the A spine already is already about one every 3 minutes or so and if you add up all the buses on the following routes, I'm sure it would add up to 60 or more:

1, 11, 13, 16, 41, 44, etc.

L1011

Qrt wrote: »

I have the feeling they're referring to the absolute number of buses, i.e. how many buses will be required by the A spine, B spine etc. I heard once that a bus with a 30-min frequency needs around six buses, my basic maths would say a bus ten times as frequently would need sixty buses? I'm fairly sure that's wrong.

The peak vehicle requirement for a route is entirely dependent on the length of the route (and traffic conditions).

A 30 minute frequency on a route that takes ten minutes end to end needs 1 bus for instance.

Daith

Was just looking at the proposed plans and could see

Improved Bus Lane - Finglas-Phibsborough.

Having getting the 40 and 140 alot, that part of the journey doesn't seem to be an issue? It's the Whitworth Road/Dorset St part that has the 40 crawling. Are there plans to improve that?

cgcsb

Daith wrote: »

Was just looking at the proposed plans and could see

Improved Bus Lane - Finglas-Phibsborough.

Having getting the 40 and 140 alot, that part of the journey doesn't seem to be an issue? It's the Whitworth Road/Dorset St part that has the 40 crawling. Are there plans to improve that?

CBC improvement plans have been published for 4 routes. The remaining routes, including ballymun road and Finglas Road will be out in Feb I think.

CatInABox

cgcsb wrote: »

CBC improvement plans have been published for 4 routes. The remaining routes, including ballymun road and Finglas Road will be out in Feb I think.

Those particular routes are waiting on the finalised Metrolink plans, some time in Q1 2019.

Daith

CatInABox wrote: »

Those particular routes are waiting on the finalised Metrolink plans, some time in Q1 2019.

Thanks both.

MJohnston

This ain't Facebook lad

magicbastarder

what the effing what?

https://twitter.com/CiaranCuffe/status/1072117727085686784

CatInABox

magicbastarder wrote: »

what the effing what?

https://twitter.com/CiaranCuffe/status/1072117727085686784

I might be missing something, are cyclists allowed on that section of the N3 now?

EDIT: Clarified a bit. I've just never seen cyclists along there, not saying they shouldn't be or anything.

cherryghost

That's flipping insane. 2 more lanes on each side! Just means the choke points at the M50 or down by Phoenix will be more exasperated. This doesnt solve the problem at all, it just moves it somewhere else!

CatInABox

cherryghost wrote: »

That's flipping insane. 2 more lanes on each side! Just means the choke points at the M50 or down by Phoenix will be more exasperated. This doesnt solve the problem at all, it just moves it somewhere else!

Yeah, I'm not sure I really see the point in this, as you say it'll move traffic onto the next bottleneck even faster, but those bottlenecks are so close that it'll back up onto the N3 again in no time.

Without removing traffic coming down the N3, this is be pretty pointless. Investing in a train line extension to Navan and significant park and ride upgrades would be more effective.

CatInABox

cherryghost wrote: »

That's flipping insane. 2 more lanes on each side! Just means the choke points at the M50 or down by Phoenix will be more exasperated. This doesnt solve the problem at all, it just moves it somewhere else!

Technically, it's only one extra car lane, with one new bus lane. This is from Blanch to the roundabout, which is already three lanes in each direction.

MJohnston

CatInABox wrote: »

I might be missing something, are cyclists allowed on that section of the N3 now?

EDIT: Clarified a bit. I've just never seen cyclists along there, not saying they shouldn't be or anything.

I'm not sure I've ever seen any, nor do I know if I would ever bother myself when the canal path route and the backroads are much better and safer.

But legally, I think they would be allowed to use anything that isn't a motorway?

magicbastarder

there was a video (shot from within a garda car) uploaded to garda traffic twitter showing a cyclist cycling on the N3 between the navan road train station and the halfway house during the bad snow around easter, as an example of a foolhardy lawbreaking cyclist.
caused a bit of amusement/bemusement because cycling is legal there. and IIRC - may have this wrong - the video was filmed from the driver's side of the car.

marno21

D4M or D5M including the bus lane between Blanchardstown and the M50 makes sense, it keeps traffic segregated rather than having D3M til the lanes diverge like the N7 inbound after Newlands Cross. It reduces weaving and improves safety, there aren't really any "capacity increases" as the capacity of the M50 interchange or indeed the M50 will remain as is, and the N3 between Clonee and here is being widened to 3 lanes in either direction anyway.