More "Congestion Charge" talk from the Department of Transport

mfceiling

Allinall wrote: »

Introduce a relatively stiff congestion charge and watch the number of private cars entering the city decrease dramatically.

Then you have the space to provide more public transport.

The notion that people will not get out of their cars until public transport is improved is rubbish.

The volume of people who would be using public transport would far outweigh the public transport available.

During the year I was working in town and the easiest way in and out (terenure to Stephen's green) was cycle. I start work at 7 and the first bus close to my house (15a) collected me at 6.35 a.m. I got on the bus at the 6th stop and the bus was approx half full at that stage. By the time we got to rathmines it was full.
I can't imagine what it would be like between 7.30 and 9!!

shesty

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

The city is about to grind to a standstill. Yes some people have no public transport but the majority of it is laziness and the car culture in Ireland. There are people in my work driving from places with train stations because they have free parking. Something has to be done.

The city is being destroyed by cars. We need huge investment in bike infrastructure and public transport. Cities are for people not cars.

I have lived in County Dublin my whole life (not city).We have a train, and one bus line.You can't physically get on the trains in the mornings and it's getting to where you can't park at the train station again now either (and you basically have to drive to the train station from our side because it is in the middle of a load of fields, and the bus times don't coincide with the trains....).There is an express bus to town in mornings and evenings, which is totally overcrowded.It was introduced a few years ago and which Dublin Bus have already tried to remove once, and under their latest Busconnects plan, tried to remove again.And yet more and more houses keep on being built.
I cannot accept this idea of forcing people onto public transport when it is bursting at the seams already.Congestion charges are fine if they are done in tandem with construction and development of massively improved public transport.But saying the public transport plans are 'medium to long term' so congestion charges are a good 'solution'....I can think of a few fairly choice responses to that.Boils my blood and shows utter ignorance and lack of acceptance of responsibility of the abysmal planning that goes on in Ireland.

lawred2

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Or they could look at ya know, moving some jobs out of city centre...

More incentives for companies to move into suburbs and greater Dublin area.

But no, let’s just bring in another tax that people will pay and the issues remain.

What jobs? Which companies? What type of incentives? Paid for by whom?

Stovepipe

If you look at the congestion charge in London, the result was that,while it reduced the gross number of cars in central London, there was a massive increase in rich people using "Chelsea Tractors", Range Rovers,etc, as they didnt give a **** about a £5 charge and as the less well off thinned off their car use, it gave more room for the big, polluting SUVs in the city centre and they also found that some employers paid for the CC as a perk and the employee paid nothing. Also, it immediately penalised the ordinary citizens who live inside the congestion zone, as they had to find 365 x 5, because some civil serpent didnt think that one through, so there was uproar and the van / truck delivery people,of course, also went nuts about it. As for electric cars in the city, unless you dramatically increase the number of charging points, you'll end up with flat battery cars blocking lanes..........what I also heard in a conversation about this topic on the radio was the mention of "road pricing". Some guy was espousing that all major M, A and B roads be tolled, all cities be tolled, as well as your existing road tax. To the credit of the broadcaster, they immediately jumped on this as an attack on the stretched motorist's pocket,already lashed by high road tax and insurance.

pablo128

I've read all the posts so far and I've come to my own conclusion. As someone has already mentioned, throw a serious amount of Gardai out on the roads in town and go nuts. Zero tolerance. 2 wheels over the white line into a bus lane? A fine. Your bumper hanging into a yellow box? A fine. Amber gambling? A fine.
Get a load of Gardai out on push-bikes and motorbikes and a couple of note pads each.

Better Than Christ

Beta Ray Bill wrote: »

I didn't realise the new ones a slower?
Is this the government buying the cheapest buses they can get (Smallest Engines)

I remember the oul lad bought a 1.2 focus years ago, wouldn't pull the knickers off a brazzer.

They have a cleaner, but much smaller and less powerful engine (around 5 litres) than the older ones (over 9 litres), which means that they struggle to pull away from a standstill at junctions and roundabouts. Worse than that, when the driver presses the accelerator, there can be a delay of a few seconds before the bus even threatens to move. Some are worse than others.

Seth Brundle

shesty wrote: »

I cannot accept this idea of forcing people onto public transport when it is bursting at the seams already.

Nobody is being forced into public transport so quit being melodramatic.
What is being proposed is that public transport and "active transport" be given priority in cities and the least efficient mode of transport, the car, be placed at the bottom of the pecking order and rightfully so!

Fr_Dougal

pablo128 wrote: »

I've read all the posts so far and I've come to my own conclusion. As someone has already mentioned, throw a serious amount of Gardai out on the roads in town and go nuts. Zero tolerance. 2 wheels over the white line into a bus lane? A fine. Your bumper hanging into a yellow box? A fine. Amber gambling? A fine.
Get a load of Gardai out on push-bikes and motorbikes and a couple of note pads each.

Zero tolerance won’t work. I was driving in town recently and was forced into a yellow box because a numpty wouldn’t pull in for an emergency vehicle who needed to get by. Should I have been fined for that?

Now illegal parking etc should be clamped down on, still amazes me that some drivers thing turning their hazard lights on gives them a right to park everywhere and anywhere.

pablo128

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

Zero tolerance won’t work. I was driving in town recently and was forced into a yellow box because a numpty wouldn’t pull in for an emergency vehicle who needed to get by. Should I have been fined for that?

Now illegal parking etc should be clamped down on, still amazes me that some drivers thing turning their hazard lights on gives them a right to park everywhere and anywhere.

You're a gas man. In one breath you're saying it wouldn't work and in the other breath you want more enforcement.

Fr_Dougal

pablo128 wrote: »

You're a gas man. In one breath you're saying it wouldn't work and in the other breath you want more enforcement.

More enforcement for illegal parking.

Richard Hillman

Idbatterim wrote: »

Some of the stops are 2-3 hundred meters apart. It’s a farce !

If I worked O Connell Street and got the nearest bus there are 60 stops over 19km. 316m per stop. There is a space (nowhere near the city) where there are 7 stops within a 1km.

It takes roughly 1hr 20mins to travel 19km.

Idbatterim

The frequency of stops and going cashless can be addressed quickly. You could then solve some of the capacity issue

shesty

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Nobody is being forced into public transport so quit being melodramatic.
What is being proposed is that public transport and "active transport" be given priority in cities and the least efficient mode of transport, the car, be placed at the bottom of the pecking order and rightfully so!

Which is fine if that is what actually happens.But the inevitable reality will be to put a congestion charge in place, tell everyone 'use public transport!' When they complain about the charge, and alongside that, there will be years of quibbling over planning, land costs, objections and budgets resulting in zero progress on any kind of public transport improvements.This is Ireland, we just can't seem to do anything in a joined-up fashion.

Seth Brundle

shesty wrote: »

Which is fine if that is what actually happens.But the inevitable reality will be to put a congestion charge in place, tell everyone 'use public transport!' When they complain about the charge, and alongside that, there will be years of quibbling over planning, land costs, objections and budgets resulting in zero progress on any kind of public transport improvements.This is Ireland, we just can't seem to do anything in a joined-up fashion.

So I assume you made your concerns and approvals to BusConnects known to the consultation process?

Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

You have to take into account the buses being delayed every morning by bus lanes thronged with private cars and taxis. All that would have to stop if we wanted to speed things up.

I took a few snaps on my way to work today. This is a typical "bus lane" in Dublin.

jam_mac_jam

shesty wrote: »

I have lived in County Dublin my whole life (not city).We have a train, and one bus line.You can't physically get on the trains in the mornings and it's getting to where you can't park at the train station again now either (and you basically have to drive to the train station from our side because it is in the middle of a load of fields, and the bus times don't coincide with the trains....).There is an express bus to town in mornings and evenings, which is totally overcrowded.It was introduced a few years ago and which Dublin Bus have already tried to remove once, and under their latest Busconnects plan, tried to remove again.And yet more and more houses keep on being built.
I cannot accept this idea of forcing people onto public transport when it is bursting at the seams already.Congestion charges are fine if they are done in tandem with construction and development of massively improved public transport.But saying the public transport plans are 'medium to long term' so congestion charges are a good 'solution'....I can think of a few fairly choice responses to that.Boils my blood and shows utter ignorance and lack of acceptance of responsibility of the abysmal planning that goes on in Ireland.

I completely agree with you. I am in a similar situation with trains in that I have to squeeze on mine. There needs to be a huge increase in investment in the capacity of trains and buses in the city.