Dublin - BusConnects

Sam Russell

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Why wouldn't you name him?

Here is a clue.

https://www.thejournal.ie/save-the-trees-busconnects-red-ribbons-paddy-mccartan-4639859-May2019/

BonnieSituation

Ah Paddy McCartan!

It wouldn't be like a DCC councillor to be short-sighted eh?

cgcsb

Why not name him? name and shame is how politicians work.

loyatemu

abcabc123123 wrote: »

I'm unfamiliar with these, could you explain them to me?

Genuinely curious!

Tidal roads - 4 lanes, in the morning 3 are inbound and 1 is outbound; in the evening it reverses.

The alternating buslane idea was described by Sam Russell a couple of posts above mine.

I'm not sure either would work well in Dublin though.

Sam Russell

loyatemu wrote: »

Tidal roads - 4 lanes, in the morning 3 are inbound and 1 is outbound; in the evening it reverses.

The alternating buslane idea was described by Sam Russell a couple of posts above mine.

I'm not sure either would work well in Dublin though.

Well, they will work if they are enforced properly.

The Merrion Road proposal would need an extra cycle lane which could be put on the footpath, but more likely, the loss of the ancient trees which could be replaced by newer ones that are thinner - some of the trees are well over a metre wide.

dublinman1990

I did feel for the man who had to commute from Tallaght to Finglas in heavy traffic. Would there a few people about who have to do would do a 4 hour commute as a most extreme example when getting to work in & around Dublin? What bus routes could he take that would experience the most heaviest traffic levels when he commutes to those two areas in the morning & evening time?

Sam Russell

dublinman1990 wrote: »

I did feel for the man who had to commute from Tallaght to Finglas in heavy traffic. Would there a few people about who have to do would do a 4 hour commute as a most extreme example when getting to work in & around Dublin? What bus routes could he take that would experience the most heaviest traffic levels when he commutes to those two areas in the morning & evening time?

Red Line to CC and then a bus, or Green Line and then walk or bus. Why drive?

Qrt

Sam Russell wrote: »

Red Line to CC and then a bus, or Green Line and then walk or bus. Why drive?

To be fair, some parts of Tallaght are well over a 30 minute walk to the Luas. It doesn’t serve Tallaght’s residential areas well at all.

Sam Russell

Qrt wrote: »

To be fair, some parts of Tallaght are well over a 30 minute walk to the Luas. It doesn’t serve Tallaght’s residential areas well at all.

Fair point but without knowing the exact commute, it is hard to advise. Google maps is your man.

jimmycrackcorm

salmocab wrote: »

There is a medium term issue with us needing better PT before we can really start forcing people out of cars. We are effectively stuck with a chicken and egg problem. I’m all for cutting some on street parking but some businesses are reliant on it. Without a realistic alternative for thousands of commuters it would be a very hard sell and probably political suicide to do much more than losing a few spaces here and there. Unfortunately I think we need connects and metro before we can really go at private cars in the city properly.

I do a 15 km cycle commute from outside the M50 to the city centre. So I'm pretty sure that cycling is a realistic option that many people don't do nexuses of the convenience of using the car into the city.

There should be a plan to gradually squeeze out cars through measures such as Increasingly higher congestion charges during committee hours, and improve bus services as demand grows

salmocab

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I do a 15 km cycle commute from outside the M50 to the city centre. So I'm pretty sure that cycling is a realistic option that many people don't do nexuses of the convenience of using the car into the city.

There should be a plan to gradually squeeze out cars through measures such as Increasingly higher congestion charges during committee hours, and improve bus services as demand grows

We can’t improve bus services until there are less cars on the roads we don’t have the buses the drivers or the space but we can’t get cars off the road without giving people an alternative. It’s a chicken and egg issue. Congestion charging is a long way away nobody will touch that until PT is a realistic alternative for the majority.

Kfagan10

dublinman1990 wrote: »

I did feel for the man who had to commute from Tallaght to Finglas in heavy traffic. Would there a few people about who have to do would do a 4 hour commute as a most extreme example when getting to work in & around Dublin? What bus routes could he take that would experience the most heaviest traffic levels when he commutes to those two areas in the morning & evening time?

He did explain on Twitter that he cycled the route until his bike was stolen. Shows how bad our public transport is when a dedicated advocate of public transport chooses not to use it because it's quality of service is so poor.

LeinsterDub

loyatemu wrote: »

Tidal roads or alternating bus-lanes are an option (I've seen them in operation in other cities) but a lot of the roads affected have heavy traffic in both directions during both rush-hours. e.g in the evening rush, you can't have buses getting delayed inbound on one side of the city because they have no priority if that route is cross-city and has to serve outbound passengers on the other side of the city.

The point of BusConnects is to provide reliability and predictable frequency, this won't work if there is still congestion and pinch-points along part of the route.

The NTA said they hadn't seen tidal roads in operation with Buses before . Where have you seen this?

LeinsterDub

dublinman1990 wrote: »

I did feel for the man who had to commute from Tallaght to Finglas in heavy traffic. Would there a few people about who have to do would do a 4 hour commute as a most extreme example when getting to work in & around Dublin? What bus routes could he take that would experience the most heaviest traffic levels when he commutes to those two areas in the morning & evening time?

Ask him https://twitter.com/DublinCommuters ?

LeinsterDub

salmocab wrote: »

We can’t improve bus services until there are less cars on the roads we don’t have the buses the drivers or the space but we can’t get cars off the road without giving people an alternative. It’s a chicken and egg issue. Congestion charging is a long way away nobody will touch that until PT is a realistic alternative for the majority.

70% of people in town got there by Bus , Train, Bike or Walked

loyatemu

LeinsterDub wrote: »

The NTA said they hadn't seen tidal roads in operation with Buses before . Where have you seen this?

I've seen tidal roads (in Cardiff I think), not sure about the "with buses" bit, I was just tying it in with Sam Russell's suggestion of buslanes that become general traffic lanes when the traffic is mostly going in the other direction. But I think this might not work well when you have cross-city routes, you really need guaranteed running times for BusConnects to be a success.

salmocab

LeinsterDub wrote: »

70% of people in town got there by Bus , Train, Bike or Walked

To be absolutely clear I am fully for more PT and far less private car use in the city.
There is not room for the other 30% on PT currently is my point. A small percentage could probably manage it but there just isn’t room for thousands of extra passengers at the moment. Cycling should certainly be encouraged but it would also be an easier sell with less cars and better infrastructure.

Dats me

loyatemu wrote: »

I've seen tidal roads (in Cardiff I think), not sure about the "with buses" bit, I was just tying it in with Sam Russell's suggestion of buslanes that become general traffic lanes when the traffic is mostly going in the other direction. But I think this might not work well when you have cross-city routes, you really need guaranteed running times for BusConnects to be a success.

Yeah they said reversible bus lanes don't seem to be a runner (logistically as opposed to they aren't willing) but that it can be done with car lanes.

I would support banning cars to local traffic only on all of these roads to be perfectly honest. Another option would be to alter their "ideal layout" to a setup with a bus lane and cycle track in each direction with then a single general traffic lane in the middle that operated tidally, inbound in the morning, outbound in the evening.

Certainly places like Rathmines Road and a lot of places inside the canals along the corridors should have a proper bus gate.

Sam Russell

I have just driven twice today along the South Circular to and from Baggot St to beyond Leonards Corner, and I was struck by how much illegal parking and illegal bus lane use there was. Also how much legal parking was allowed that constrained the traffic. (I could not go by PT because there is no appropriate PT that goes that way - the O route will though).

So:

1. Remove all parking allowed on the SC. Police it and clamp and remove offenders.

2. Make bus lanes 7am to 7pm and fit buses with evidential cameras so offenders get the dreaded letter in the post.

3. Have right and left filter lights where appropriate so traffic turning can actually turn on a green filter light and not have to go on the red after oncoming traffic stops. This applies to the canal as well.

4. At Leonard's Corner on the Tesco side, there are always cars and vans parked illegally - why are they never clamped?

Here is a thought:

If 10% of current car commuters went with PT, there would be no noticeable extra crush on the PT (because it will be a negligible extra load) , but 10% less cars would make the congestion significantly less such that buses would travel faster and probably provide sufficient extra space for those commuters. Why is there less congestion when the schools close?

Another: If kids going to school cause so much congestion, why not give them free PT passes during the appropriate times? It would be cheaper than other measures.

Qrt

Sam Russell wrote: »

Make bus lanes 7am to 7pm and fit buses with evidential cameras so offenders get the dreaded letter in the post.

To me, this is a major no-no. If they're spending €1bn on bus lanes in the city, the least they can do is make them 24hr.

cgcsb

I'd expect the core bus spines and the O route to be 24hr, it's well needed, traffic at 2am can be cat, chocers with taxis trying to murder cyclists by swinging left when they see a fare

Sam Russell

Qrt wrote: »

To me, this is a major no-no. If they're spending €1bn on bus lanes in the city, the least they can do is make them 24hr.

Well, yes. But at the moment they are not 7 am to 7 pm. That would be a start. When Busconnects goes live they can extend the operation - just as they did with College Green bus gate. If they start with what they can do now, they will be able to do the rest later. Painting the road and putting up signs is cheap. CPO a few front gardens costs a lot more and is less progress in absolute terms.

Also, they should restrict taxi access to some bus lanes as they stop the buses from moving. I think S. Great Goerg's St suffers from this - particularly in the evening.

Qrt

Had a look at Shankill there, my rough summary is "understandable, but exaggerated"

I saw someone post on one of their petition pages "we need more car parking spaces" :rolleyes:

CatInABox

As was always going to be the case, the NTA have come out and said that the number of trees removed can be reduced.

See here.

It said there is a general sense from meetings and engagements with the public in recent months that limiting parking space is “becoming part of the conversation” along with one-way systems for private cars and traffic restrictions.

“We are open to exploring all viable and realistic options where we can get bus and cycling priority and still retain trees – these will form all part of the design work which is being carried out over the summer,” a spokeswoman for the NTA said.

LeinsterDub

Sam Russell wrote: »

3. Have right and left filter lights where appropriate so traffic turning can actually turn on a green filter light and not have to go on the red after oncoming traffic stops. This applies to the canal as well.

Filter lights are anti pedestrian. Adding yet more wait time and often adding additional crossings.

Sam Russell

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Filter lights are anti pedestrian. Adding yet more wait time and often adding additional crossings.

Well, look at the French system. At a French traffic light in Paris, a right turn is allowed if no pedestrian is crossing indicated by small traffic lights fixed to the pole - if it is a red cross, pedestrians have priority, otherwise cars can go. (Now I have not described it well but a bit like the flashing amber on some pedestrian crossings).

Pedestrians should always be given high priority when crossing, otherwise they just go anyway. Pedestrian time slots should be put into the sequence as often as feasible. Currently we have - NS then EW then Ped, it should be NS then Ped then EW then Ped.

cgcsb

Sam Russell wrote: »

Well, look at the French system. At a French traffic light in Paris, a right turn is allowed if no pedestrian is crossing indicated by small traffic lights fixed to the pole - if it is a red cross, pedestrians have priority, otherwise cars can go. (Now I have not described it well but a bit like the flashing amber on some pedestrian crossings).

Pedestrians should always be given high priority when crossing, otherwise they just go anyway. Pedestrian time slots should be put into the sequence as often as feasible. Currently we have - NS then EW then Ped, it should be NS then Ped then EW then Ped.

But in Ireland that'd be a lot of dead pedestrians. The Irish driver is a fundamentally uncivilized creature

dublinman1990

There was more talk from an article from The Sunday Independent today which spoke to Associate Professor of Geography at UCD; Professor Gerald Mills. He talked about the number of trees likely to be axed by the BusConnects CBC proposals across Dublin. He had made a graphic which showed the numbers of trees currently up & the number of cars along all of these corridors made from a satellite image of Dublin.



https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/thousands-of-trees-may-be-axed-for-bus-connects-routes-warns-professor-38222651.html

Qrt

dublinman1990 wrote: »

There was more talk from an article from The Sunday Independent today which spoke to Associate Professor of Geography at UCD; Professor Gerald Mills. He talked about the number of trees likely to be axed by the BusConnects CBC proposals across Dublin. He had made a graphic which showed the numbers of trees currently up & the number of cars along all of these corridors made from a satellite image of Dublin.



https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/thousands-of-trees-may-be-axed-for-bus-connects-routes-warns-professor-38222651.html

Saw that too, tbh I can’t really fathom the 20m thing ever being utilised but it does put it all into perspective really. I can see major traffic changes being implemented.

Zebra3

Hopefully the trees stay and it’s private cars that get the chop.


(Sorry..... :pac:)