After BXD: The next big public transport project for Dublin?3

strandroad

bk wrote: »

I would say in this case, it really isn't about getting **** done, it genuinely goes against Irish societal norms. Of course Irish society is full of inequality, but this one would be far too "in your face" for most people.

Completely agree. Besides, how would we enforce it if we can't even enforce red lights or yellow boxes?
Some areas just need to be made unavailable to car traffic.

MJohnston

You don't even have to ban cars from the entire city, in fact you don't need to even ban then from the entire city centre. All you need is for the Quays to become public transport only at the very least during weekdays, College Green to ban taxis 7am-7pm Mon-Fri, and the rest basically takes care of itself - those are the critical bottlenecks for PT, and the alternative routes for cars essentially force drivers out onto the NCR or SCR if they still want to drive. They'll spend a hell of a lot more time in traffic, but that's the premium that should be paid for clogging up the city.

And because you're doing this, you need to pepper the transport routes with multi-storey Park and Ride areas, closer to the city centre, what I'd call "Last Leg" services. People like to drive because it allows them a certain flexibility in schedule that PT doesn't. But if you offer them the opportunity to park on the edge of the city centre, and take a tram or DART just 1 or 2 stops to complete the trip and at the same time get access to easier parking, I think that could be quite popular.

There's plenty of space at Heuston to capture the N4 and N7 corridor traffic onto the Red Line, there's room at Broadstone to capture traffic from the N3 and N2 corridors. I'll bet there's options around the southeast DART line too. The N1 would be a puzzle, it really requires the Maynooth line to be upgraded to DART, and then you could fit something in around Drumcondra, and of course Metro North could remove a lot of traffic from that corridor anyway. On the south-west, I'm not too familiar with the directions people travel from, but there surely must be room around Charlemont for a Green Line tie-in. Stick Dublin Bikes stations nearby too, because there will be plenty who would use that to finish their journeys.

And you don't even have to waste vital property development space to offer this - these multi-storeys could operate like an expanded version of Balally park and ride where the parking is underneath shops and apartments.

I just don't see a future for better public transport in Dublin that doesn't begin with squeezing the private cars out of the absolutely central streets - the time of being able to drive right to your city centre office should be gone soon.

Idbatterim

The anti car Thing is laughable. That in as good as 2018, we are left with the disgrace of a transport network we have, actually has me in disbelief! Anyone who think joke measures like LCC are adequate anymore is seriously deluded!

plodder

Idbatterim wrote: »

The anti car Thing is laughable.

True. Cars are the default option when public transport is so lamentable. While I'd agree that cars should have no place driving thru the city centre, the road network around it would need to be beefed up before you could contemplate banning them. I remember when the fairly modest improvements on Church St. and Patrick St. were planned, there were howls of protest from a lot of the kind of people who complain about the poor state of public transport. Munich, which is a city I know quite well, with a public transport network we could only dream of, has a ring road of sorts around the historic core, another one a bit further out, and a motorway further out like the M50. Dublin has a similar pair of ring roads which are more notional in nature, with an existence more in road-signs than actual infrastructure on the ground. I think that would need to be improved before you could consider banning cars.

loyatemu

you don't even need to ban cars, just reduce the space available to them, continuing the process that has been happening for years. Give the space freed up to buses and bikes. I walk along Lombard St every day - it has 2 traffic lanes (one way) and parking on both sides. Get rid of one lane and most of the parking you could put a 2 way segregated cycle lane along there to link up with the Quays (it's currently very awkward to cycle S->N in the city centre without going up Westmoreland St. because of all the one-way systems).

One lane only for private traffic should be the default thoughout the CC. People can still drive in if they need to, but if capacity is reduced others will switch to other modes.

LeinsterDub

Idbatterim wrote: »

The anti car Thing is laughable. That in as good as 2018, we are left with the disgrace of a transport network we have, actually has me in disbelief! Anyone who think joke measures like LCC are adequate anymore is seriously deluded!

Yeah why focus on the primary cause of congestion! Public transport policy by it's very nature has to be anti car .

LeinsterDub

plodder wrote: »

True. Cars are the default option when public transport is so lamentable. While I'd agree that cars should have no place driving thru the city centre, the road network around it would need to be beefed up before you could contemplate banning them. I remember when the fairly modest improvements on Church St. and Patrick St. were planned, there were howls of protest from a lot of the kind of people who complain about the poor state of public transport. Munich, which is a city I know quite well, with a public transport network we could only dream of, has a ring road of sorts around the historic core, another one a bit further out, and a motorway further out like the M50. Dublin has a similar pair of ring roads which are more notional in nature, with an existence more in road-signs than actual infrastructure on the ground. I think that would need to be improved before you could consider banning cars.

There are too many cars ! I know lets invest in infrastructure for cars !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

Two widely known examples of reduced demand occurred in San Francisco, California and in Manhattan, New York City, where, respectively, the Embarcadero Freeway and the lower portion of the elevated West Side Highway were torn down after sections of them collapsed. Concerns were expressed that the traffic which had used these highways would overwhelm local streets, but, in fact, the traffic, instead of being displaced, for the most part disappeared entirely.[24] A New York State Department of Transportation study showed that 93% of the traffic which had used the West Side Highway was not displaced, but simply vanished

Or here's a crazy idea why don't we induce demand for Cycling , Buses and Trams

Idbatterim

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Yeah why focus on the primary cause of congestion! Public transport policy by it's very nature has to be anti car .

The primary cause of congestion is not having du and mn! In fact having an absolute joke of a transport " system"

LeinsterDub

Idbatterim wrote: »

The primary cause of congestion is not having du and mn! In fact having an absolute joke of a transport " system"

No it's the primary cause of congestion. Congestion by it's definition is not having enough road space so you have a hierarchy of vehicles based on the number of people per square meter they transport namely Trams > Buses > Bikes> Taxi > Cars.

While having a better transport system would help even if MN and DU appeared overnight we'd still have congestion issues.

plodder

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Public transport policy by it's very nature has to be anti car .

It depends what you mean by anti car. Public transport must have priority over cars, when space is limited. That much is agreed. But, I think part of the problem that has paralysed Dublin's transport infrastructure, is the attitude that reducing cars is an end in itself. I don't think it's any great achievement to have strangled car movements in the city, without a corresponding improvement in public transport. Bus lanes are still way under utilised. Sure, progress is being made, but it's absolutely glacial.

I agree with you that congestion will still occur on roads, no matter what you do. In Munich, the rush hour traffic on the Mittlerer ring is usually terrible, but at least people there have a choice. Even the San Francisco example, people had a choice there. If you shut down an artery here, cars will migrate to local roads, because they have no choice.

LeinsterDub

plodder wrote: »

It depends what you mean by anti car. Public transport must have priority over cars, when space is limited. That much is agreed. But, I think part of the problem that has paralysed Dublin's transport infrastructure, is the attitude that reducing cars is an end in itself. I don't think it's any great achievement to have strangled car movements in the city, without a corresponding improvement in public transport. Bus lanes are still way under utilised. Sure, progress is being made, but it's absolutely glacial.

I agree with you that congestion will still occur on roads, no matter what you do. In Munich, the rush hour traffic on the Mittlerer ring is usually terrible, but at least people there have a choice. Even the San Francisco example, people had a choice there. If you shut down an artery here, cars will migrate to local roads, because they have no choice.

We've shutdown or limited artery roads here such as the queys and that hasn't been the case.

MJohnston

I don't agree with the assertion that cars "have no choice", they very much do! What they haven't had until now is a choice that is better than staying in your car.

Ultimately LCC on its own might swing that balance, because it's going to provide an extra option, but mostly because it's already made driving along the Quays an utter nightmare (through just existing and also through the bus lane changes that were made because of it), and will do much more so in the future when frequency increases.

wakka12

Is there an end goal of eventually pedestrianising the quays? Just thinking how cool it'd be, dublin has one of the most unique and nicest river quaysides in europe

LeinsterDub

wakka12 wrote: »

Is there an end goal of eventually pedestrianising the quays? Just thinking how cool it'd be, dublin has one of the most unique and nicest river quaysides in europe

5 years to attempt to plan a short cycle path . Pedestrianising some time about 2900

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/why-the-brakes-were-pulled-on-the-liffey-cycle-scheme-1.3236115

cgcsb

plodder wrote: »

True. Cars are the default option when public transport is so lamentable. While I'd agree that cars should have no place driving thru the city centre, the road network around it would need to be beefed up before you could contemplate banning them. I remember when the fairly modest improvements on Church St. and Patrick St. were planned, there were howls of protest from a lot of the kind of people who complain about the poor state of public transport. Munich, which is a city I know quite well, with a public transport network we could only dream of, has a ring road of sorts around the historic core, another one a bit further out, and a motorway further out like the M50. Dublin has a similar pair of ring roads which are more notional in nature, with an existence more in road-signs than actual infrastructure on the ground. I think that would need to be improved before you could consider banning cars.

Not really building more road infrastructure in Dublin isn't a runner. It was done in the rest of Europe in the 70s to align with yankee policy of more cars and more suburbanization. Fortunately our planners at the time didn't have the funds to do the damage that was done to the rest of Europe. Even Belfast was destroyed by the road engineers. We can achieve modal shoft by investing in public transport and bringing in punative any car measures, there's no need to beef up roads elsewhere to compensate because the goal is modal shift not traffic shift from one area to another.

cgcsb

LeinsterDub wrote: »

We've shutdown or limited artery roads here such as the queys and that hasn't been the case.

Eh you can still merrily drive your car down the quays in both directions and that is the problem.

cgcsb

wakka12 wrote: »

Is there an end goal of eventually pedestrianising the quays? Just thinking how cool it'd be, dublin has one of the most unique and nicest river quaysides in europe

DCC is incapable of making a decision. The NTA is taking over the liffey cycle route and no doubt the NTA will insist on closing Bachelors walk to cars. What you'll be left with is a double bus lane and a double cycling lane with widened footpaths. I doubt there's any real scope for pedestrianisation unless you build a tunnel for buses, we're talking way beyond our lifespans there.

cgcsb

In my view there is a place for congestion charging but not as is in London. We should have car bans in the City Centre with the exception of skeletal access routes to car parks. There were tax incentivies in the 1980s to build multi storeys in Dublin City Centre. The opposite should now happen, car park owners should be taxed into the poor house. With almost all the road space going to buses trams bikes and pedestrians. But outside of that core we have historic areas that are primarily residential Phibsboro, Ranelagh etc. and the traffic there is already bedlam, the north circular is horrendous especially on match days when culchies positively INSIST on driving to Croker. It's not feasible to put car bans in these areas because they are mostly residential and the density of public transport is much lower than the city centre. I would be of the view that a circle encompassing Fariview Glasneve, Cabra, Ranelagh and Ballsbridge should be congestion charged IN ADDITION to the City Centre being made undriveable.

Idbatterim

in terms of the quays, could they not get rid of the quay side footpath and use that space for a bike lane?

LeinsterDub

Idbatterim wrote: »

in terms of the quays, could they not get rid of the quay side footpath and use that space for a bike lane?

I'll pass cycling beside the cycist killing wall of death thanks.

Idbatterim

I am just asking if they could use that space? they could configure the lanes whatever way that they wanted...

LeinsterDub

Idbatterim wrote: »

I am just asking if they could use that space? they could configure the lanes whatever way that they wanted...

It's never a good idea to hem in cyclist unless you can guarantee a proper barrier to protect them.

LegallyAbroad

I often wonder about those who say they need to drive in to town. I've lived in 4 separate parts of Dublin and I've always been able to get to work (GCD and town proper) by walking, cycling, the bus, the luas (or combination of bus and luas), or dart.

I'm not saying there's no one who needs to use a car, but I think they're a lot less than people let on. Anyone from Castleknock to Glasnevin to Raheny on the Northside, any on the luas lines, dart lines, anyone within the two canals etc. etc. certainly doesn't. In the offices I've worked in, very few drive (10-15%).

wakka12

Idbatterim wrote: »

I am just asking if they could use that space? they could configure the lanes whatever way that they wanted...

Would never happen. Id say people would be several times less likely to cross bridges if there was no path the other side, it'd create a big divide between either side of the city

cgcsb

Idbatterim wrote: »

in terms of the quays, could they not get rid of the quay side footpath and use that space for a bike lane?

There's enough space on bachelors walk to support a double bus lane and a two way cycle track and widened foot paths. No need to remove pedestrian facilities.

Idbatterim

with this "metro dublin" i.e metro north and the green line going "metro" do we have any idea what the operating hours will be?

plodder

cgcsb wrote: »

Not really building more road infrastructure in Dublin isn't a runner. It was done in the rest of Europe in the 70s to align with yankee policy of more cars and more suburbanization. Fortunately our planners at the time didn't have the funds to do the damage that was done to the rest of Europe. Even Belfast was destroyed by the road engineers. We can achieve modal shoft by investing in public transport and bringing in punative any car measures, there's no need to beef up roads elsewhere to compensate because the goal is modal shift not traffic shift from one area to another.

I wasn't talking about building more roads - far from it. At most, widening in a few places, giving (more) priority to the orbital routes compared to the crossing ones. We don't disagree on modal shift, or the prioritising of public transport over private. The question was about banning cars from the city centre completely, which I don't think is possible without a half decent orbital route.

marno21

Idbatterim wrote: »

with this "metro dublin" i.e metro north and the green line going "metro" do we have any idea what the operating hours will be?

If they are serious about it being an airport connection, it has to be 24 hours, or close to it. Early flights start leaving Dublin shortly before 6, and flights arrive at night until 1am, and this isn't accounting for delays.

wakka12

marno21 wrote: »

If they are serious about it being an airport connection, it has to be 24 hours, or close to it. Early flights start leaving Dublin shortly before 6, and flights arrive at night until 1am, and this isn't accounting for delays.

PAris and London underground lines only run till 12.30..why would we be any different?
12.30 seems to be the norm for most places for metros

G_R

wakka12 wrote: »

PAris and London underground lines only run till 12.30..why would we be any different?
12.30 seems to be the norm for most places for metros

Why strive for mediocrity? Let’s go the whole hog and have opening hours that other cities are jealous of. And increase DB and Luaa hours while we’re at it!