Bus Connects Effects on South Dublin/North Wicklow

Stephen15

KD345 wrote: »

The 4, 7 and 7a which currently serve Blackrock will be replaced by the new 7a and 7b. There are currently 135 combined services per day between Blackrock and the City Centre on this corridor, it will decrease to 115 per day under BusConnects.

The city centre routing of the new 7a and 7b will change, it will follow the current route as far as Merrion Square, then turn left towards Stephen’s Green, Cuffe Street, George’s Street, Christchurch, Church Street and continue towards Broadstone. If you want to go to O’Connell Street swap to the A spine on George’s Street.

To be fair at the moment it appears to often happen where the 4, 7 and the 7a all come at once. We should be taking frequency into account over simply counting counting departures is not the best way to judge a bus service if they are not timetabled to be spaced out.

Also the 7 will be more reliable and benefit from faster journey times along the rock road corridor as the buses will only have to come from DL and not Loughlinstown/Cherrywood which means will be less prone to delays and all buses will bypass Blackrock Village in both directions. Also the 10 minute DART frequency should alleviate some of the strain on this corridor.

KD345

Stephen15 wrote: »

To be fair at the moment it appears to often happen where the 4, 7 and the 7a all come at once. We should be taking frequency into account over simply counting counting departures is not the best way to judge a bus service if they are not timetabled to be spaced out.

Also the 7 will be more reliable and benefit from faster journey times along the rock road corridor as the buses will only have to come from DL and not Loughlinstown/Cherrywood which means will be less prone to delays and all buses will bypass Blackrock Village in both directions. Also the 10 minute DART frequency should alleviate some of the strain on this corridor.

Frequency is important, but I don’t see where there is a frequency increase on this corridor between Blackrock and Ballsbridge? My calculations show a reduction in frequency and capacity. Between 7 and 9am this section drops from 20 buses northbound to 15. There may be a more consistent departure time from Dun Laoghaire, but no more consistent than the current 4 is arriving through Blackrock every 15 mins. There will be space for approx 400 less passengers at morning peak under this plan.

I don’t know how the new 7a/b will have a faster journey time along the Rock Road?

Yes, the DART frequency increase may help in Blackrock, but there appears to be capacity issues on trains too.

Stephen15

KD345 wrote: »

Frequency is important, but I don’t see where there is a frequency increase on this corridor between Blackrock and Ballsbridge? My calculations show a reduction in frequency and capacity. Between 7 and 9am this section drops from 20 buses northbound to 15. There may be a more consistent departure time from Dun Laoghaire, but no more consistent than the current 4 is arriving through Blackrock every 15 mins. There will be space for approx 400 less passengers at morning peak under this plan.

I don’t know how the new 7a/b will have a faster journey time along the Rock Road?

Yes, the DART frequency increase may help in Blackrock, but there appears to be capacity issues on trains too.

Currently the 7/a comes every 15 mins as does the 4 however their timetables are not interworked so they regularly come on top of each other particularly around peak hours. I have often seen a 4, 7 and a 7a all following one another along the Rock Road. The 4 only comes every 15 mins but the proposed 7a/b will come every 10 mins. There is not a consistent frequency along this corridor.

The 7a won't be going into Blackrock Village and the 7 won't be going into Blackrock Village when travelling southbound. Many of the capacity issues will be sorted out by the 10 minute frequency on the DART. Also this route could be operated by VTs or their newer tri axle buses if capacity issues persist.

KD345

I too have seen buses bunching along this corridor. My point is that even with three separate routes, one of which is departing every 15 minutes from Monksotwn, there is still bunching and still capacity issues. Removing 5 buses from this corridor at peak will mean longer dwell times and overcrowding. If passengers move to DART then that will be the problem solved, but I don’t think it’ll be that simple.

The first batch of 20 VTs are to be withdrawn soon and will be most likely gone by this time next year. As far as I know, there are no plans to purchase any more tri-axel buses.

bdo

From my reading, it looks like the 500+ houses on the western end the Southern Cross Road are being abandoned.
- The new Ballywaltrim terminus for the 145 is being scrapped. This decreases the ability to get up to the Southern Cross Road from the DART area on the 145.
- There will be no change to the private Finnegans bus which goes up and down the Southern Cross Road to the DART, who continues to come and go when it wants outside of peak hours during the day, with severely restricted services in evenings and weekends. You can't rely on this bus ... no price regulation, no monitoring etc.
- The increasingly popular, useful, direct, energy-efficient - but overflowing 84X - has no increases in frequency planned - just 6 buses a day each way. This makes no sense; the % of people who need/want to go straight to UCD/town and avoid Bray is enormous, from Greystones and Bray.

The solution is for Dublin Bus be given a license to compete on the Southern Cross Road, and a significant extension of the 84X frequency.

caviardreams

How do people feel about the N11 E spine capacity-wise? Every 5 minutes is 12 buses an hour, but the 46a goes every 8 minutes and the 145 every 10 minutes for most of the day now which is slightly more buses per hour, along with a few X buses and the likes of the 7d at peak times which can help capacity-wise. It is already a very busy route with buses passing by that are full during the morning and evening peaks and I would be concerned capacity-wise even if the routes are similar to the current ones.

Stephen15

bdo wrote: »

From my reading, it looks like the 500+ houses on the western end the Southern Cross Road are being abandoned.
- The new Ballywaltrim terminus for the 145 is being scrapped. This decreases the ability to get up to the Southern Cross Road from the DART area on the 145.
- There will be no change to the private Finnegans bus which goes up and down the Southern Cross Road to the DART, who continues to come and go when it wants outside of peak hours during the day, with severely restricted services in evenings and weekends. You can't rely on this bus ... no price regulation, no monitoring etc.
- The increasingly popular, useful, direct, energy-efficient - but overflowing 84X - has no increases in frequency planned - just 6 buses a day each way. This makes no sense; the % of people who need/want to go straight to UCD/town and avoid Bray is enormous, from Greystones and Bray.

The 212 will run from Ballywaltrim to Bray DART station every 10 mins along the same route as the current 145 between Bray and Ballywaltrim. Passengers can get the DART to Bray and then change to the 212 to get to Southern Cross outside the DART station. The 145 does not presently serve the DART station. If would also give Southern Cross passengers the choice of changing to the DART or the E1 in Bray rather than just continuing on into town which could save some journey time.

Perhaps increased DART frequency in Greystones might take some of the strain off the 84x. It is proposed to go up to every 20 mins in time also passengers in Charlesland could use the 204 or the 201/202 to connect with the DART.

I agree with your sentiment about the Finnegans bus I think this bus should really be turned into a regular PSO service instead of an ad-hoc private minibus.

seanmaceanraig

bdo wrote: »

From my reading, it looks like the 500+ houses on the western end the Southern Cross Road are being abandoned.
- The new Ballywaltrim terminus for the 145 is being scrapped. This decreases the ability to get up to the Southern Cross Road from the DART area on the 145.

Hi Bdo,

According to a tweet by the designers, the 145 will not move to the Killarney Road and that it is just a mapping error.

You can see it by searching @ianmcgahon on twitter.

Rock Steady Edy

KD345 wrote: »

I too have seen buses bunching along this corridor. My point is that even with three separate routes, one of which is departing every 15 minutes from Monksotwn, there is still bunching and still capacity issues. Removing 5 buses from this corridor at peak will mean longer dwell times and overcrowding. If passengers move to DART then that will be the problem solved, but I don’t think it’ll be that simple.

The first batch of 20 VTs are to be withdrawn soon and will be most likely gone by this time next year. As far as I know, there are no plans to purchase any more tri-axel buses.

I really don't like those old VT style buses - they can be noisy, for a huge bus they have the smallest door for everyone to try and get on and off and the bells are very difficult to ring.

Replacing 4 buses on Route 4 per hour and 4 buses on Route 7/7a per hour to Brides Glen / Loughlinstown with 6 Route 7a/b buses to Dun Laoghaire only does not seem like an enhanced service to me, but perhaps I'll be proved wrong.

dublinman1990

I just got a FF leaflet & letter from Cormac Devlin's team through the letterbox today.

In his letter; he said that he mentions the loss of the 4 route will have a significant impact for resident's living in Monkstown, Stradbrook & Blackrock. He also said that he will have two local drop-in sessions at The Wishing Well Pub in Newtown Park from 11am to 12pm & 7pm to 8pm on Tuesday the 25th of September.

He had a copy of his own leaflet which displayed his interpretation of what is happening with BusConnects.

It is the same leaflet that is on his website. It's still littered with mistakes about the changes to the 7 spine.

His interpretation for the final date for handing in submissions is confusing.

On his leaflet; he said it was the 26th of September. And that information is wrong.

Although on the letter he said it was the official final date; Friday the 28th of September.

This might mean that he doesn't actually have a clue with what is happening with these plans.

astrofool

I'd imagine we'll see a lot of the parish pump TD's try and make the most of this, while our bus system remains an anachronism of a bygone era.

And it's not like it'll be the final design, once implemented it'll be tweaked even further.

Ush1

astrofool wrote: »

I'd imagine we'll see a lot of the parish pump TD's try and make the most of this, while our bus system remains an anachronism of a bygone era.

And it's not like it'll be the final design, once implemented it'll be tweaked even further.

Correct.

It's been delayed until 2020 because of objections.

tomofson

Was on the new 63 today, doesn't seem to actually be any change to the route.

New buses are nice.

Rock Steady Edy

Under Bus Connects, we were due to lose Route 4 except for 4 journeys each way at peak times on Monday to Fridays.

A couple of months later and we're now seeing quite the reverse. An extra 14 journeys each way Mondays to Fridays (64 to 78), a doubling of services on Saturdays (32 to 63) and a tripling on Sundays (14 to 46).

Weekday daytime journeys on route 4 are increasing from 4 an hour to 5 an hour, thus increasing the Blackrock to city centre frequency to 9 per hour (including route 7). It's a far cry from the proposal to have 6 per hour under Bus Connects (on a curtailed route 7).

Perhaps the number of complaints received lead to a proper passenger number assessment and presumably there are also a lot of displaced drivers from the Go-Ahead.

Makes you wonder if the original intention of bringing in a private operator was this massive investment in public transport!

https://www.dublinbus.ie/News-Centre/General-News/More-More-More-from-Route-4/