Dublin - BusConnects

I remember leaflets coming through my parents letterbox about the proposed upgrade of the Greenhills road to include a QBC when I was in school.

That was 25 years ago!

Infrastructure takes way too long to get built in this country.

The original deadlines were not worth the paper that they were written on. Totally unrealistic and I said that the time.

I don’t see much point in repeadly regurgitating them as they were baloney from the outset.

It was never going to happen within those timeframes.

We just have to hope that some of the “quick wins” referenced by the Minister CAN be implemented in the meantime.

Yet bus connects continues to host those timelines on its website

That as maybe but they’re still bunkum.

As I posted elsewhere, the NTA have still not updated bus stop timetables following a timetable change over a year ago, so this is in line with that trend. I wouldn’t fixate on them.

Indeed, any timeline they publish now is in the lap of the planning Gods if we’re honest. I’ve long since accepted that they will happen when they happen.

Meh all we really get is trials, no significant delivery of real transport infrastructure since the cross city luas extension 5 years ago which was a disaster for the first 4 or 5 months of its operation. All we've had since then is a few plastic bollards on the substandard 'cycle lanes' we already had and signs....lots of signs.

The main reason LUAS cross-city was initially a disaster was because they implemented it too quickly, so the politicians could say it was opened on time. It was done without the requisite number of new trams having been delivered to maintain service levels on the southern section of the route. Trams were “robbed” effectively to operate the new sections.

It caused chaos as a result of service levels having to reduce until the additional trams finally all arrived.

The issues with ABP are not linked to general labour shortages in the construction industry, its issues are specific and relate to it being under-resourced while yet being given greater workload. Offcial go-ahead from ABP is permission to build.

The labour for the construction of the corridors will mostly transfer from projects currently ongoing. Things like the N3/Blanch interchange and the Amiens St-Clontraf project will be winding down/complete as the first corridor is getting started. Regardless of who the main contractor is, the labour is provided by subcontractors and the same subcontractors can be involved with multiple projects.

Delaying applications to ABP doesn't really delay delivery of the overall bus corridors project. It isn't realistic to have work progressing on all corridors at the same time, the back will need to be broken on the first couple of corridors before more can start. Regardless of resource availability, the disruption caused to the city would create additional problems and likely see a public backlash.

And of course the main problem was, let's not forget, it was assumed that we'd have a pedestrianised college green shortly after opening meaning buses would be re routed and not impacted by the opening but of course official Ireland failed to deliver that...again...

No it wasn’t.

There was no plan whatsoever to re-route buses anywhere as part of LUAS cross-city.

No proper impact assessment of the additional tram lines on the bus network through the city centre was carried out, nor was there any plan for redesigning the bus service through the city centre.

Hence we ended up with gridlock.

I don’t think going through Trinity grounds would ever have been a runner I’m afraid.

But I certainly can recall correspondence with the RPA at the time, and a discussion with an RPA rep at a roadshow, where I was just staggered by the lack of ANY planning for the impact on the bus service.

It was frankly disgraceful, given the far greater numbers using the bus service then and now.

Trinity did fight very hard to rule it out early on. Garret Fitzgerald was sceptical of the ability to turn the corner at the bottom of Dawson Street, and was actually seen measuring it out one morning.

To cross through Trinity, it would probably have had to come down Kildare Street, anyway, it's done and over with.

That has the best part of two years between end of planning and start of construction for some corridors. Obviously some of that time will be eaten into by longer planning approval requirement but there should be still time to delay further planning applications and still hit the intended construction start date.

Piling more applications into an already snowed under ABP. Delaying applications until some corridors have been decided might actually help by allowing ABP focus resources on existing applications rather than having to do due diligence on new applications which will then sit at the back of the queue until resources become available. If it were up to me, I'd wait until a second corridor has been adjudicated on before submitting another application, then one new application per decision made.