New bus gates on Bachelors Walk and Aston Quay

A large percentage of private car journeys that arrived at Burgh Quay were intending to proceed to Aston Quay and use that as a way to pass through the city. Drivers that were doing that now have to go via a more circuitous route, making it a much less attractive option - it is likely that at least some, if not most, of those drivers will now use alternative routes, which do not pass through the centre.

For drivers who travel to Burgh Quay intending to go up O'Connell St - nothing has changed. However, that's a much less common through route. If your intention was to travel from South East Inner City Dublin to somewhere North of O'Connell, you probably weren't going via Burgh Quay in the first place.

Anecdotal count today had between 2 and 4 private cars, on each turn of the lights, traversing each the banned routes from Bachelors Walk to Eden Quay and from Burgh Quay to Aston Quay.

So on a 4 minute sequence, thats a total of between 30 and 60 cars ignoring the changes, every hour, for 12 hours each day.

Another complete waste of ratepayers money.

That's a matter for the car park owners to input on and a full impact assessment would be required.

Buses dont own the roads. Car drivers pay to use the roads. There is a balance, but I agree that its a difficult one to strike.

Ah I see they've put some cones on the Bridge area to try and stop people going straight from Bachelors Walk.

Any arguments about something being quicker is entirely negated if you choose to drive through congestion like around O'Connell Bridge instead of around it.

I'm thinking the only hospital on my route I've been to thats near O'Connell Bridge holles street or the rotunda. That was before bus lanes and even back then I didn't go via the quays to get to either place.

Network Direct resolved the issue of bus routes taking extended tours over 10 years ago.

Routes serving estates are still important as they facilitate local travel, and provide access to/from the city for the residents, but Network Direct established direct routes on virtually every corridor that don't take "scenic housing estate tours" along the corridor except towards the end of the route where the demand dictates that they serve estates.

We really need to move on from that at this stage.

As for the issue of orbital trips, public transport can only do so much. It is far easier to meet the demand on radial corridors to and from the city as there are far more people using the starting and ending points along those corridors.

Most orbital trips that people take have unique starting and ending points from one another, which means that it is far more difficult to match using public transport, and many orbital trips would require at least one if not two changes using public transport. It simply isn't possible for public transport to match every trip that people make.

What the NTA are doing is providing straightened orbital routes across north, west and south Dublin that link up with the Spines and other local routes to offer alternative options to going into the city centre for some people who would making one change. But they can only do so much - there are still going to be significant numbers of people making orbital trips who realistically will always have to drive.

Again, the more changes that using public transport requires, the less people are likely to use it. Were there to be a route along the M50, it would have to loop on and off at each intersection to serve an interchange stop, which in itself would not be straightforward and would add journey time, and then most people would have to make a connection onto that route from another bus, and another off it. Straight away you've made public transport less appealing to driving.

The NTA have established new direct orbital routes inside (and in the west outside) the M50 that are more frequent than the unwieldy routes that were in place before. The N6, N4, W4, W2, L54, L59, S2, S4, S6, S8 and L25 are now in place, and all seem to be performing well. The N2 is to come shortly, and the O, N8 and full W6 to follow in due course, all providing alternatives to travelling through the city centre.

The W2, W2, L54 and W6 also link in with railway stations in west Dublin, as do the C1, C2, C3 and C4 thereby opening up other journey options.

You have a point about the paucity of crossing options in the west, but the new W4 bus route, operating every 15 mins at peak and every 30 mins all day long linking Blanchardstown Shopping Centre and the Village via the toll bridge with Liffey Valley, south Lucan, Grange Castle, Citywest and Tallaght does provide a new alternative that people are using in increasing numbers. That's a big step forward, linking the B and C Spines directly.

lordleitrim12:39 pm

I think it's just conditioned in some people as that's how they always drove through town via and probably did as children when their parents drove into/through town.

I think you're spot on - people have been conditioned into driving by decades of poor investment in public transport in this country and have always driven along particular routes.

Changing those habits, particularly for older people is really challenging as they are so used to driving particular routes, hence we such huge pushback.

The 50% fare reduction for younger people will hopefully help change that mindset amongst the following generation.

We aleea

We already are. Access to fleet street is for deliveries and cars who are parking there. There's no reason why access to Princes St couldn't be for deliveries.

Enforcement is of course different, but there's plenty of access restrictions already.

Metro West.

Building a road link unless it was bus only would be a massive retrograde in mindset.

All that happens when you build roads is the capacity gets filled up and your back to where you started. You also destroy those areas with traffic.