Dublin - BusConnects

Last Stop

roadmaster wrote: »

When the bus corridor construction works actually start who will be in charge of the works will it be TII or each individual local authorities looking after sections that are in there area?

It’ls an NTA project so it’ll be NTA.
Nothing to do with TII.
The local authorities will be consulted similar to members of the public but beyond that they have little say

specialbyte

Last Stop wrote: »

<snip>

My post laid out the options. It is my personal opinion, backed up by international evidence, that the Dutch-style or Manchester style with strong pedestrian priority are the best options for all modes. Not the Dublin-style. So please don't misrepresent my post.

Last Stop wrote:

It’ls an NTA project so it’ll be NTA.
Nothing to do with TII.
The local authorities will be consulted similar to members of the public but beyond that they have little say

The NTA are proposing to make changes to a number of National Roads. TII are the National Roads Authority under the Roads Act so NTA must get agreement from TII before making changes to the road. This is even though the NTA is a Roads Authority (under the same act) for the Greater Dublin Area (GDA). TII's National Roads Authority trumps that.

The NTA can't steamroll councils it needs them onside. If the NTA doesn't have the councils on board at the ABP hearings it will make it super hard for them to get approval.

Qrt

Last Stop wrote: »

Great summary of the options available.
Based on the application of DMURS and putting all them in an Irish context you’d have to say that the best option is the “Dublin style”. Which begs the question. Why in God’s name did the NTA develop an inferior design when there was a better version produced as part of another NTA funded project? Honestly the mind boggles.

As regards the other soundbites coming out of these meetings, there are rumours of certain corridors such as the Crumlin one going from 4 lanes (I.e. a full QBC) to 3 lanes (2 car and 1 bus lane) with bus priority signals for the direction without a bus lane.
If that’s the case then we’re screwed. The Crumlin corridor is planned for a frequency of 5 mins or better. There is absolutely no way that can be done without a full QBC and even with a QBC then it’s questionable.
To explain the above; buses struggle to achieve high frequencies for a number of reasons including
1) on board ticketing (we’ll still all have to tag on)
2) Ramps requiring mechanical deployment for disabled passengers
3) frequent stops and irregular stopping patterns
4) interaction with other modes of transport
Other modes of transport don’t have this problem due to off board ticketing, platform level access, fixed stopping patterns and typically a reasonable amount of segregation/priority.
The reason we need high frequencies is because capacity is a function of vehicle capacity x frequency.

It is is quite clear that because of the high frequencies proposed under Busconnects that a number of corridors have demand far in excess of what can be provided by buses. A radial solution is needed.

I’m too lazy to unquote the unnecessary stuff, but where have you heard about the crumlin corridor? Are they talking about “queue relocation facilities”? I mean, it’s less than desirable, but it’s a heck of a lot better than what we have now!

CatInABox

Qrt wrote: »

I’m too lazy to unquote the unnecessary stuff, but where have you heard about the crumlin corridor? Are they talking about “queue relocation facilities”? I mean, it’s less than desirable, but it’s a heck of a lot better than what we have now!

I believe that this person was at another NTA meeting.

https://twitter.com/transportdublin/status/1174022571349696512

LXFlyer

Last Stop wrote: »

Great summary of the options available.
Based on the application of DMURS and putting all them in an Irish context you’d have to say that the best option is the “Dublin style”. Which begs the question. Why in God’s name did the NTA develop an inferior design when there was a better version produced as part of another NTA funded project? Honestly the mind boggles.

As regards the other soundbites coming out of these meetings, there are rumours of certain corridors such as the Crumlin one going from 4 lanes (I.e. a full QBC) to 3 lanes (2 car and 1 bus lane) with bus priority signals for the direction without a bus lane.
If that’s the case then we’re screwed. The Crumlin corridor is planned for a frequency of 5 mins or better. There is absolutely no way that can be done without a full QBC and even with a QBC then it’s questionable.
To explain the above; buses struggle to achieve high frequencies for a number of reasons including
1) on board ticketing (we’ll still all have to tag on)
2) Ramps requiring mechanical deployment for disabled passengers
3) frequent stops and irregular stopping patterns
4) interaction with other modes of transport
Other modes of transport don’t have this problem due to off board ticketing, platform level access, fixed stopping patterns and typically a reasonable amount of segregation/priority.
The reason we need high frequencies is because capacity is a function of vehicle capacity x frequency.

It is is quite clear that because of the high frequencies proposed under Busconnects that a number of corridors have demand far in excess of what can be provided by buses. A radial solution is needed.

I’m not sure that the frequencies are going to be that much different along the Crumlin Road from what is there currently - there are currently 13-15 buses per hour in each direction for most of the day.

Peregrine

specialbyte wrote: »

The NTA are proposing to make changes to a number of National Roads. TII are the National Roads Authority under the Roads Act so NTA must get agreement from TII before making changes to the road. This is even though the NTA is a Roads Authority (under the same act) for the Greater Dublin Area (GDA). TII's National Roads Authority trumps that.

The NTA can't steamroll councils it needs them onside. If the NTA doesn't have the councils on board at the ABP hearings it will make it super hard for them to get approval.

How does the reclassification of these roads to regional roads inside the M50 (except the N11) affect this? Does TII maintain authority over those sections?

Qrt

CatInABox wrote: »

I believe that this person was at another NTA meeting.

https://twitter.com/transportdublin/status/1174022571349696512

To be fair, that sounds like an ok compromise. The skinny stretch between the shopping centre and the hospital probably would look and be horrific. Still have no sympathy with the Kimmage folk tho, that road would be fine really.

Some bus priority is better than no bus priority imo

specialbyte

Peregrine wrote: »

How does the reclassification of these roads to regional roads inside the M50 (except the N11) affect this? Does TII maintain authority over those sections?

So anything that has been de-trunked like the Stillorgan Road (old N11) from Mount Merrion Avenue inbound is no longer controlled by TII and is now controlled by the council. So TII have no control.

Inside the M50 there's only the N1, N11 and the N31 left. The N1 is the Drumcondra Road, but also Dorset Street to Church Street to the quays. How that has not been de-trunked I don't know. The N31 is the Blackrock Bypass. There's been talk of de-trunking that for years but DLRCC will only accept it from TII when it is completely up to standard. I expect that TII will let the NTA do whatever they like to that road especially since the NTA is mostly just proposing to paint a bus lane in and add bus priority lights.

Even outside the M50 and at a number of M50 junctions and overbridges the NTA are proposing changes like adding continuous bus lanes. The most notable being the N3 and the N4 but also to the Airport Roundabout, which is the M1 connection. TII having been talking about a feasibility study to grade-separate that junction for years (similar to Newslands Cross).

TII are probably going to be pretty involved in this process.

jd

specialbyte wrote: »

Inside the M50 there's only the N1, N11 and the N31 left. The N1 is the Drumcondra Road, but also Dorset Street to Church Street to the quays.

Some stuff I picked up as an aside from the Bus Connects Meetinga. Between the Shantalla Bridge and junction with the M50 (port tunnel portals) is the N50. M(N)1 starts north of that, at the big interchange south of the airport. South of Shantalla Bridge is R132.
Have a look at http://map.geohive.ie/mapviewer.html

Last Stop

LXFlyer wrote: »

I’m not sure that the frequencies are going to be that much different along the Crumlin Road from what is there currently - there are currently 13-15 buses per hour in each direction for most of the day.

Frequencies isn’t just about the number of buses but the even spacing between them.
You could run 30 buses per hour but you wouldn’t get an even 2 minute frequency near the city centre.
If one bus gets delayed by say 2 minutes it means that instead of 5 minutes between buses there’s 7 minute between the first and second bus and only 3 minutes until the 3rd bus.
This leads to buses becoming unreliable.
One of the main benefits of Luas is that you can rock up to any stop and be guaranteed that the longest you’ll have to wait for a tram is 15 minutes. This makes it extremely reliable as people know that it will take then x minutes to get into town and they can leave a 15 minute buffer on top of this.
If you were to do that with buses and the advertised frequency is 5 minutes or better but it could be 7 minutes or more then you don’t trust it.

Dyr

Wonder how much the cost of bus connects would drop if they axed the cycle infrastructure?

By a third? A half?

donvito99

Bambi wrote: »

Wonder how much the cost of bus connects would drop if they axed the cycle infrastructure?

By a third? A half?

Cost would drop, utility would drop massively also, mixing cyclists and buses.

We could do it properly or we could drop the cycle lanes. Sure why not drop the bus lanes and stick in free on street parking

Last Stop

donvito99 wrote: »

Cost would drop, utility would drop massively also, mixing cyclists and buses.

We could do it properly or we could drop the cycle lanes. Sure why not drop the bus lanes and stick in free on street parking

From the sounds of things we’re already dropping a number of sections of bus lanes and there has been zero indication of any cost saving.

LeinsterDub

Bambi wrote: »

Wonder how much the cost of bus connects would drop if they axed the cycle infrastructure?

By a third? A half?

Maybe 10%. There is no way it's costing 1 billion for bike lanes

Zebra3

donvito99 wrote: »

Cost would drop, utility would drop massively also, mixing cyclists and buses.

We could do it properly or we could drop the cycle lanes. Sure why not drop the bus lanes and stick in free on street parking

The free on street parking is already there!!

Qrt

Some more illustrations going around twitter, I believe this will be one of the ideas for St. Mobhi Rd.

I quite like it, not as good as full bus lanes, but it keeps the trees, so I'm happy with that.

Once they're actually turned on when built... but I think the N81's approach to J11 on the Tallaght side has a system like this to allow the buses to pull out.

https://twitter.com/DublinCommuters/status/1174798490553241616

sharper

Qrt wrote: »

I quite like it, not as good as full bus lanes, but it keeps the trees, so I'm happy with that.

If the NTA gets the power to run ANPR cameras and they actually use it I think it'll really allow measures like this to get their full effectiveness.

The junction looks great but when I think of that layout in operation all I can imagine is the stream of traffic ignoring the bus signal without penalty. The bus priority junction on the chapelizoid is one if the nicest pieces of work I've seen built in the last few years and overall it works very well but I regularly see motorists block everything up by chancing it against the light signals so they can through a bit faster. Very very occasionally you see someone pulled over on the side of the road by the traffic corps possibly for that reason or possibly not who knows.

I can't find the status of the legislation that's supposed to enable this though.

AlmightyCushion

sharper wrote: »

If the NTA gets the power to run ANPR cameras and they actually use it I think it'll really allow measures like this to get their full effectiveness.

The junction looks great but when I think of that layout in operation all I can imagine is the stream of traffic ignoring the bus signal without penalty. The bus priority junction on the chapelizoid is one if the nicest pieces of work I've seen built in the last few years and overall it works very well but I regularly see motorists block everything up by chancing it against the light signals so they can through a bit faster. Very very occasionally you see someone pulled over on the side of the road by the traffic corps possibly for that reason or possibly not who knows.

I can't find the status of the legislation that's supposed to enable this though.

Yeah, if there isn't any real chance of getting caught for breaking those lights (like there isn't now) then everyone is going to do it.

Dyr

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Maybe 10%. There is no way it's costing 1 billion for bike lanes

I reckon you cut out the cost of road widening and CPOs for those dedicated bike lanes and you'll find a huge chunk of the cost of "bus" connects disappears, we already have hundreds of miles of bus lanes. Actually if you look at the bus connects marketing they use nearly the same amount of miles of cycle lanes as bus "priority" but fail to mention that most of that bus "priority" already exists, what they're actually building is new cycle lanes.


Massive cost saving to a bus project and Joe pedestrian isn't reduced to using glorified gangways for footpaths.

Wins all round for the key stakeholders bar the high viz lads, who don't pay a red cent towards transport but expect dedicated infrastructure to be provided for them . On yer bike , as they say. :pac:

MJohnston

Bambi wrote: »

I reckon you cut out the cost of road widening and CPOs for those dedicated bike lanes and you'll find a huge chunk of the cost of "bus" connects disappears, we already have hundreds of miles of bus lanes. Actually if you look at the bus connects marketing they use nearly the same amount of miles of cycle lanes as bus "priority" but fail to mention that most of that bus "priority" already exists, what they're actually building is new cycle lanes.


Massive cost saving to a bus project and Joe pedestrian isn't reduced to using glorified gangways for footpaths.

Wins all round for the key stakeholders bar the high viz lads, who don't pay a red cent towards transport but expect dedicated infrastructure to be provided for them . On yer bike , as they say. :pac:

<snip> . Unsubstantiated, uninformed rambling. Standard fare for you.

Qrt

Bambi wrote: »

I reckon you cut out the cost of road widening and CPOs for those dedicated bike lanes and you'll find a huge chunk of the cost of "bus" connects disappears, we already have hundreds of miles of bus lanes. Actually if you look at the bus connects marketing they use nearly the same amount of miles of cycle lanes as bus "priority" but fail to mention that most of that bus "priority" already exists, what they're actually building is new cycle lanes.


Massive cost saving to a bus project and Joe pedestrian isn't reduced to using glorified gangways for footpaths.

Wins all round for the key stakeholders bar the high viz lads, who don't pay a red cent towards transport but expect dedicated infrastructure to be provided for them . On yer bike , as they say. :pac:

Cycling is part of traffic reduction, pretty essential in a European city really. It ain’t going away, despite the “they don’t pay” argument (which is wrong anyway.)

Dyr

Qrt wrote: »

Cycling is part of traffic reduction, pretty essential in a European city really. It ain’t going away, despite the “they don’t pay” argument (which is wrong anyway.)

You're not going achieve traffic reduction in a city with a booming population. Basic enough. Needs investment in mass transport, rather than a niche mode or a vendetta against cars.

Qrt

Bambi wrote: »

You're not going achieve traffic reduction in a city with a booming population. Basic enough. Needs investment in mass transport, rather than a niche mode or a vendetta against cars.

Which they’re doing...and also relieving pressure on buses by letting people cycle. I’m not gonna get into it.

Last Stop

Qrt wrote: »

Which they’re doing...and also relieving pressure on buses by letting people cycle. I’m not gonna get into it.

A QBC is the lowest form of mass transport if you can even call it that.
If you’re trying to justify cycle lanes as a way to take the pressure off the buses then you’re treating the symptoms rather than the cause.
The symptoms being overcrowded buses
The cause being insufficient capacity to meet demand.

Dyr

Qrt wrote: »

Which they’re doing...and also relieving pressure on buses by letting people cycle. I’m not gonna get into it.

It'sbest you don't because it wont make sense.

You know what relieves pressure on buses? Either less commuters or more buses, or even better...gasp..rail.

All about bang for the tax payers buck and bums on seats.

sharper

Bambi wrote: »

I reckon you cut out the cost of road widening and CPOs for those dedicated bike lanes and you'll find a huge chunk of the cost of "bus" connects disappears, we already have hundreds of miles of bus lanes. Actually if you look at the bus connects marketing they use nearly the same amount of miles of cycle lanes as bus "priority" but fail to mention that most of that bus "priority" already exists, what they're actually building is new cycle lanes.

The cycling provision is essentially them adding cycle lanes while they're already digging up roads and designing junctions. There are possibly places where they could CPO less land if they weren't adding the lanes but ultimately "Bus Connects" is a brand name on an overall effort to improve public transport and build a sustainable system.

Or to put it another way "Anything presented without evidence can be dismissed by evidence" so run the numbers and if they work out I can guarantee the Irish Times wants to hear from you and run an article on it.

LeinsterDub

Bambi wrote: »

Wins all round for the key stakeholders bar the high viz lads, who don't pay a red cent towards transport but expect dedicated infrastructure to be provided for them . On yer bike , as they say. :pac:

I was going to type an actually reply but you're just an other one of those. I'll save my effort so :rolleyes:

Peregrine

Please stop quoting.

Green Party: Ossian Smyth

The document below contains the latest evolution of plans from the NTA on the UCD-city centre and Blackrock-Merrion routes.

http://www.ossiansmyth.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/UCD-Ballsbridge-to-City-Centre-Blackrock-to-Merrion-Community-Fourm-18-Sept-2019.pdf

Let me know what you think of the various options presented - or any other options you can imagine.

Peregrine

Swords Road community forum presentation: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_rvE4exc1QgkeFj3HqSzZMpbVR2PaGSf/view?usp=drivesdk

Ballymun/Finglas Road community forum presentation: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RON5ra49AQGKJl3PgdzIZqbvX3lOY7RF/view?usp=drivesdk