BusConnects

Chips Lovell

tommythecat wrote: »

I wouldn't hold my breath! I'm not sure they would be talking about this other cycling route if they intended that you could still use the bus lane. Who knows

There are already countless bus lanes in the city with a cycle path alongside them. That doesn't change the fact that you're still allowed cycle in the bus lane.

tommythecat

Baron de Charlus wrote: »

There are already countless bus lanes in the city with a cycle path alongside them. That doesn't change the fact that you're still allowed cycle in the bus lane.

Ah I know that but these "new" lanes are being talked about in a very different way so I wouldn't rule anything out.

uphillonly

If they can prioritise fast tracking completion of one of the bus & cycle corridors, demonstrate that it has substantial commuting and access benefits for most, then they might get more public buy-in for the entire scheme. Also from doing one first they can learn what works and doesn't work.

The success of the Luas after initial scepticism has changed the outlook on all subsequent expansion plans.

I didn't see any mention of it but I hope the scheme also plans for buses to move all-electric asap, reducing diesel pollution concerns. The technology is there today. Shenzhen, China completed electrification of their entire 15,000 bus fleet last year. For comparison London has about 10,000 buses of which only 100 so far are electric but it's growing.

theyoungchap

uphillonly wrote: »

I didn't see any mention of it but I hope the scheme also plans for buses to move all-electric asap, reducing diesel pollution concerns. The technology is there today. Shenzhen, China completed electrification of their entire 15,000 bus fleet last year. For comparison London has about 10,000 buses of which only 100 so far are electric but it's growing.

You mustn't have read it so. It is in there - a full section on it.

theyoungchap

tommythecat wrote: »

Ah I know that but these "new" lanes are being talked about in a very different way so I wouldn't rule anything out.

Yeah deffo, this is not going to be bus lanes as we know them at present. If these are to be high-speed bus lanes, there is no way cyclists will be allowed to use them. But I am sure the private car is going to lose out rather than the cyclist.

If a bus has to sit behind a cyclist and doesn't have the space to get by, all the "high-speed" part will be lost.

monument

Baron de Charlus wrote: »

It's all very well, but something needs to be done to avoid traffic just diverting through adjoining residential areas. Reducing car traffic is great. Pushing it onto to roads that are even less suited to heavy traffic, not so much.

RayCun wrote: »

Pushing cars onto smaller roads, which become congested, making journeys take longer.
While bus and bike journeys are faster because they are on priority routes.
So people are pushed towards buses and bikes, and away from cars.

How else do you reduce car traffic? A congestion charge? I'd be on for that but it would be a harder sell.

You block rat running first or as part of the project.

It's exactly what many Dutch cities did before they put cycle paths on main roads.

ED E wrote: »

The dutch have found the opposite. Cyclists takes the most interesting route.

It depends on the routes they used to come to that conclusion.

Many such routes in Dutch cities away from main roads are nearly as directly or just as direct and have higher priority and strong traffic reduction measures (ie cars allowed for access, but one-way street flips at every junction or every second junction or there's filtered permeability, ie bollards).

RayCun wrote: »

I think road space in Dublin needs to be taken from cars, and given to buses and bikes, which this plan does.

There's more than one way to skin a cat.

RayCun wrote: »

The maps on the plan show where the cycle route diverges from the bus route, and most of the time they don't.

Cycling will always have the advantages of being more direct, convenient, and cheaper than buses or cars.

Are you looking at the same maps? Because the maps clearly show -- and not just in one or two places -- that cycle routes will be less directed than the car routes.

RayCun wrote: »

But at the moment it has the major disadvantage that people don't think it's safe. Some people will cycle anyway, and they don't see an advantage to a segregated route, just the disadvantage that it might be slower. But the point of a transport strategy is surely to get more people cycling, and cycling safely.

Shared bus / cycle lanes in places like Rathmines -- where there's supermarkets, shopping centres, cafes, swimming pools, cinemas, etc etc -- isn't going to make people feel safer.

DanDublin1982 wrote: »

Certainly from what I've read so far I'm in the sceptical camp from the point of view that it's too grand a plan with too many interconnected parts for it all to come off..which probably means that, eventually, most of it won't.

I admire long term planning but the problem this seeks to solve exist now so is there anything being tabled to solve them? Not from what I can see. And there's nothing to stop them doing both.

I have changed my commuting route a few times as traffic has increased over the years but my favoured route used to be long Mile road, crumlin road dolphins barn direction. Just around where that Tesco Express is they changed a lane into a right turning lane leaving just one lane for traffic going straight which includes the merging of traffic and a bus lane. Should have just stopped the traffic turning right, extended the bus lane and problem solved. Nope, now they have backed up traffic in that lane all the time. For the sake of the maybe 10% that want to turn right. They should be identifying areas like this they can change overnight and assessing the impact they make. They may find that with proper use of the space we do have we don't have to go inventing more.

This is the junction. Google maps isn't quite up to date.

https://goo.gl/maps/2UepDz6k8et

We all know at least one of these right? Where an idiotic decision has made the main traffic flow worse.

This is a great point.

A lot could be done in Dublin without CPOs of front gardens. I'm not saying CPOing of front gardens is a bad idea, but the NTA's CEO said something to the extent that it must be done to improve bus times.

theyoungchap wrote: »

They are already there on the canal, nobody pays a blind bit of attention to them!

It seems to be mainly the traffic light sequence which few people pay attention to. But anyway...

Grassey wrote: »

Does busconnect overlap/compliment the BRT routes though? Eg the BRT from Rathfarnham to CC via harolds Cross. Pretty sure I saw that the BRT are planned to be BRT/bus only for rapid transit times.

The BRT route plans have been merged with the BusConnects core route upgrade plan.

magicbastarder

my next door neighbour saw that oft-repeated figure of €25,000 per square metre of CPOed garden and was delighted; she thought it was a nice little money spinner. i had to break the bad news to her that it was an utterly bonkers figure.