Dublin Bus says new LUAS line could hamper services
 

Dublin Bus says new LUAS line could hamper services
25/04/2006 - 12:11:05



Dublin Bus has claimed its services will be adversely affected if the expected route of the new LUAS line in Dublin is approved.

A number of proposed routes have been put forward for the planned link-up between the two existing tram lines in the city.

The one expected to get final approval would see new tracks being built from St Stephen's Green to O'Connell Street via Dawson St and College St.

Dublin Bus claims this would have a permanent effect on the viability of a number of bus services that currently use this area.

It said up to 35 bus stops would have to be removed and located elsewhere, while several routes would also have to be changed.

Perhaps this will at last be enought to change it so they don't all go up O'Connell St. ....

When they complained about this last, it wasn't O'Connell st. they were worried about but Nassau street which carries 1/3 (which seems too low to me) of the passengers each day. It's very hard to avoid without a complete re-think which seems unlikely.

On the upside, DCC infomed me this week that they're building a new orbital QBC from Ballymun to the Howth road along Santry Ave, Coolock Lane and Oscar Traynor road. Hopefully the 17A will have its service level upgraded when this happens. The beginning of a decent orbital service?

The obvious bus route is O'Connell Bridge Townsend Street, Westland Row, Merrion Square which is a lot quieter and has rail intergration

The two bus stops on the bottom of Grafton Street are going to disappear

One would hope that this might prompt the sort of review of routes that's really required. But I doubt it will.

Before BAC criticise the rerouting required by Luas works, but how many city centre streets do they tie up parking out of service busses?

I don't know if this comes from BAC or not, but this morning's Herald AM declared that over 30 bus stops would be moved "out of the city centre". I don't dispute that some intelligent rerouting will be required, but why should there be a need to move routes out of the city centre?

Personally I think the idea of terminating busses in the city centre is an outragous idea, and if all southside busses were twinned with a northside route and ran through the centre it would free up a lot of street space for busses to run more smoothly. But that's an argument for another day.

I can envision a scenario where a temporary rerouting becomes permanent when it works better than the original, like Stephen's Green.

Since DoT won't pay for a city centre bus depot, there's not much DB can do about this. The station at Jervis st might go some small way to alleviating that.

Wouldn't that mean that the buses would become a lot more unpredictable as traffic one side of the city delays an incoming bus? If we had proper bus lanes and bus priority junctions, it wouldn't be an issue.

Alright, I'm no fan of CIE but the whole notion of terminating in town is due in no small part to a total lack of real bus priority measures. The buses running to town and back already have incredible difficulty keeping to timetable because of congestion and a lack of priority measures, so it would get even more difficult if they extended the routes without priority measures being implemented, and it's not their respnsibility to do that-FCC, DCC, SDCC and DLRCC all have to take the blame too. Some are better than others (FCC is pretty good of late) but DCC have done diddly squat to improve the 39 'QBC':rolleyes: around Manor St despite BAC repeatedly asking for a contra flow buslane or closing the street to through traffic.

Edit: beat me to it markpb!

Yes, it would have to have proper bus lanes with prioritisateion. I think we need to channel many routes onto a small number of high-quality bus lanes through the city centre. These would always prioritise busses, and would never get squashed back in with the traffic where the road gets narrow (if the street is too narrow for busses and cars, make it bus only), with bus prioritisation at junctions. Within these central areas, all bus stops would have TVMs and busses would be prepaid only, keeping busses moving freely through the city centre. There would be quality interchanges at the intersection points of the bus lanes.

This would, of course, require a complete redesign of the route map, which we're unlikely to get any time soon.

I reckon we'll get a quick fudge - which will surprisingly work better than the original.

Aren't BAC moving all of the College Green Terminii out to Grand Canal Dock? I would expect that once the Port Tunnell is up and running most of the Buses which Terminate in or around the Central Triangle will be moved down there and will probably go up and down the quays.

In relation to the bus park/station in Middle Abbey Street this is actually what it was before the LUAS works started. It replaced the older one in the middle of O'Connell street which finally vanished in 1987/1988 i fink, if not sooner.

If you think about it BAC has now lost three major terminii points. The first was when Temple Bar was pubbified back in the early 80's. I can still remember bonbariers flying past the Alchemist's Head in Essex Street!. The second one was Middle Abbey Street, and now College Street is going. If BAC really get their act together and the new bridge (Macken Bridge?) get's built they should be eying up the Sherriff Street Station as another Terminus.

As for a QBC for the 17A? I have a good mate who wates patiently wlist buses go up to the Kilbarrack Terminus and never come down. This is interesting as it's a Cul De Sac. Also, that turning point is actually at Howth Junction, but for some reason you're turfed out of the bus at the Junction with Oscar Traynor Road while the bus, empty, goes up to the station, turns round and back down to the junction with Oscar Traynor. Why dont they put the damnned last stop at the station?

Maybe because then someone will find out that A) they cant hide and read the paper up there anymore and B) that the 17A is actually a potentialy fine feeder bus (and a proper one at that)

I know, its typical of DB/IE to have an orbital bus route terminating in the same area as a train line but not have them meet at all :/ I spoke to the Harristown depot manager about fixing that and was assured it would be "kept in mind during any future timetable changes".

Whether they'll bother and whether they consider its worth paying the drivers compensation for a work change is up for debate.

There is no need for a timetable change. The bus physicaly goes there using the traditional time/space continuim that we are all familiar with. The proof of it is when you time them hanging around before they come back to the boarding stop. It's only being going on since they first put the stop there in the 60/70's.

But rerouting buses away from Dawson St and Suffolk St is just silly ! Like it or not the buses will carry more than the trams

Agreed


I personally feel that the Abbey St/ Gt Strand St will be a complete washout on the basis of access given the pinch point at Liffey St on one side and the narrowness of Gt Strand St on the other; combine this with the fact that the approach To Great Strand St from Jervis St regularly gridlocks as do all exits via Capel St and this site starts to become very unattractive as a bus terminal. I am starting to come around to the idea of a docklands bus station replacing the temporary station at Spencer Dock with the spare Luas Red line capacity soaked up post interconnector.

The Abbey St site should be re-tendered as a straight disposal

Agree with you Kevin about Abbey St. It's going to be a waste of time. It was little more than a useful place to park buses in the past and that's all it'll be in the future if you ask me. It's just too awkward to get in and out of and anyway, we should be getting away from city centre termination completely.

I still like Alek Smart's Drumcondra idea the best. Could have been very useful with the short term involving 46A's etc. being extended there to connect with Maynooth trains (they'd be empty picking up-perfect!) and then post T21 you go the other way and buses runing north-south along the N1 terminate there and transfer their passengers to metro and DART for onward travel to Intel, Maynooth Uni, City Centre destinations and so on. That's how it works at Muenchener Freiheit U-Bahn station in Munich for all buses coming north-south along Leopoldstrasse (no train service of any kind along that route so buses fill the gap), and it's fantastic. It actually encourages you to use the bloody bus!

Looking north here we can see the Munich equivalent of the N1 (leopoldstrasse which ultimately becomes the A9 motorway and runs on to Berlin) but under which there runs no u-bahn and along which runs no trams, so the buses come in this far, dropping passengers onto the U-Bahn and then all turn back north, totally avoiding the nasty traffic. Simple and ingenoius, and totally reproducable at Drumcondra....

Regarding the idea of the 46A's going to Drumcondra remember that some already go to the airport. I would wonder exactly how the turnaround would be managed in Drumcondra. Wouldnt it be better if the 46A was to continue heading North? For example, why not merge it with another route coming down the Swords road, the 41, and have a high quality cross town bus from Swords to Dun Laoire serving the airport on the way?

In realtion to the docklands area bus staion it would be ideal to take what I would have traditionaly thought were the Ringsend routes - all the Tallaght Buses, all of the 15's together with all of the 14's (which really ought to be merged with the 13's on the northside) all of the 78's and 51's to Ballyfermot and Clondalkin, all of the 25's the 26 and 66/67's. The idea is that it is only a terminal stop, the pickup points in and around the central area would remain more or less as they are.

As for the parking lot on Abbey Street, I agree that is all it's good for. When it was used before the traffic flows in the area were diferent, you could drive a bus right to it down abbey street, you cant do that now, less there is a derogation, whcih is easily done. You could perhaps have the buses share the luas track, shouldnt be too much of a problem as long as there are no bus stops adn the bueses are only going as far as Caple Street anyway.

You could have the buses that terminate on Lower Abbey street terminate there. there isnt any point in having them terminate in the docklands as its moving the last stop further away form the city centre.

You do that and merge a few of the above, along with the 40's and get them crossing the river and it could potentially free up a lot of space.

Click here, northbound along Drumcondra Rd, left onto Whitworth Rd, right onto St Patrick's Rd, right onto St Anne's Rd then right again back onto Drumcondra Rd southbound. And there's pace beside the station to drive piles to retain the embankment before removing that mound of earth, providing space for something like Muenchener Freiheit (pictured above) if needs be but it'd work fine wihout that.

This isn't a bad idea either. Maybe run all 46As to the airport and all other south-north buses that terminate in Parnell Sq run on just as far as Drumcondra. I wouldn't advocate running all buses to the airport as they'd be better used serving a wider catchment area than all heading north (mostly empty) on the N1. Then in the future when the metro arrives you go the other way and run buses from the likes of Coolock/Beaumont/Darndale north-south to Drumcondra using the same loop to turn only now dropping passengers who are city bound onto metro/DART. It really works elsewhere and it really can work here. The N1 is nice and wide and can accomodate QBC measures a lot better than the city centre. You then replicate the same across the city and as time goes by fewer and fewer buses need to penetrate the city centre and can be sweated in the 'burbs just feeding into the rail network, both in the radial manner I outlined for Darndale etc. -> Drumcondra and in an orbital manner into all the other radial rail lines.

I'm totally for this, but the current bus lane on the N1 has a few "pinch points" where it all goes to hell.

There's one particular point close to Drumcondra where a pub juts out into the road, reducing it to a single lane. In my view the current solution of diverting the busses back into the regular traffic just isn't acceptable. There are two choices: divert the cars onto another route, or CPO and knock down the pub. Neither of these are likely to be popular choices, and there are lots of similar examples around the city.

To make a joined-up bus route like this work, you need a high-quality, prioritised bus lane going right through the city centre, where you can guarantee there will be no delays along the bus route. You cannot have the bus sitting on O'Connell Street at a complete standstill for 15 minutes.

Yeah, problem with the route around Dumcondra is that you'll be sending a lot of buses up and down that residential area where there havent been buses before (so it's not like Santry's 16 Terminus) and i think there's no right turn from St Annes Road onto Drumcondra road.

I dont think the Buses would be that empty, I would see the merged 46A/41 going all the way to Swords and i dont even think it would take that many (if any) extra buses to do it, ie, it could be done tomorrow (once the drivers are brought up to speed on the route).

Just taking the thing a step further there is no reason why the 28's and the 42's cant be merged and the 20B used to go cross town many years ago. (In fact there was once a 51 from Griffith Avenue to Tallaght!) That 20 could easily be merged with a 15 for example, the trip from Beaumont is quick enough with priority measures, it could cross at Butt Bridge, stop on D'Olier Street, Nassau Street and off towards Templeogue. At the moment you would have to get off in Talbot Street and walk.

Now that's what I call integration.

Screw the residents. I'm sorry, I live in a so called residential area which is well outside the city boundary and I put up with hundreds of vehicles a day passing by my house to reach a shopping centre. Those people live in the city of Dublin and cannot be protected from such awful things as buses! If you want a quiet life then don't live in a city centre (and Drumcondra would be considered city centre everwhere else!). As for theno right turn, change it. The city council can change these things. As LCP says, we have to make tough decisions and start giving real priority to buses, not a 100 yds of buslane here followed by a 15min standstill shared with cars. Cars have to be inconvenienced, not buses.

The problem with screw the residents is that there's no need to screw anyone if an alternative solution that works can be found.

Regarding the pub I'm wondering which one is it. I would guess the Cat and Cage?

Didn't mean to sound so sharp there thosj, but you know what I mean. They live in a city. Cities are noisy. Their streets are plenty wide for buses and they are public highways. If an alternative can be found, grand, but I'm thinking post T21 when the metro may well run north into Drumcondra then swing west over to Ballymun, leaving a gap up the N1 that can be filled (as in Munich) by buses running down the N1 as far as Drumcondra station(s) before turning back and heading north again. In this environment I can't see too many other satisfactory locations.

I know exactly so i didnt take any offence. Let's face it, money solves a lot of problems people would have with dirty buses sitting outside their homes.

I've already said on another thread what i think should be put into Drumcondra regarding the midland line railstation Drumcondra Railstation/Metro and it is very simple. In fact last night I was thinking about how if they simply clone Louisa Bridge then hey presto - there's your midland line station and it could be either end of Withworth Road. There is a really good potential here for a genuine inter-mode interchange bus/rail X 2/Metro and i feel that we would get a lot of Kudo's for doing a real technical proposal on it.

And before Mark says it, I know the RPA are only doing allignments and not the infrstructure but the point is that if the alignment goes to Botanic underneath Withworth then it's over and I think it should be advocated that the metro should go to Drumcondra station.

Anyway....... had to look at the top of the screen to remind myself what this thread is about!

If the LUAS hampers Dublin Bus services then it is their own damned fault. If we can come up with these ideas I cant see how BAC cant!

Cheers thos,
Yes, we have deviated somewhat! I personally believe BAC should be allowed to access the Luas lines and stops the same as buses do in Munich (same company however, the Muenchenerverkehsgesellschaft), certainly in the interim as rail & Luas is extended but not enough to transform the BAC network into a pure feeder one (that will never actually happen of course as there will always be holes in the radial rail network that QBCs must fill).

Philip,
I'd go the opposite way, anti clockwise, St Annes Rd, left onto St. Patricks Rd, then left onto Withworth road.
Drumcondra road has a new median now, and the right turn into town would be easier from Whitworth road, where the lights are already.

The busses would stop that bit further from the station doors, is the down side. And passengers have to cross a road instead of dismounting on the station side.

Colm, you're absolutley right in the context of literally zero spend, though if we spent a few quid we could have a really cool interchange there forever. It might even be feasible to put in low level noise barriers between the buses and the houses on St Anne's Rd. Obviously we could also be looking at more hydrogen buses which make no appreciable engine noise and are running right across Europe today.

Yep, makes sense.

Ditto, I say the same about the Jervis/Abbey Street bus station to Capel Street.

cat and cage OT
 

I'd say trying to get the 'Cage demolished would get the literati and the salafian types on you. Sean O Casey mentions it a bit in his work/drank there.

Drumcondra needs a bit of green area CPO'd/taken from St Patricks teaching college, so the bus lane can run continuously .
There is a large gap between stops millmount house to home farm road, so a "Third changable buslane " in the centre lane could be used, changing direction from morning to evening.

One last point about routing townshend st, westland row, merrion square is the distance to walk from the CBD to a bus route. It's a long way from Georges st to Merrion square for shoppers

more to the point the family firm out the roof on it in the 80's - before they went to wall.

I'm not in favour of that routing at all, in fact AFAIK BAC sends the 48a and that down that routing and the result is every bus is packed leaving the terminus and parked buses clog up the quayss.

RE cat and cage

from what i remember it's not the cat and cage that sticks out so much as a chunk of wall from St. Pats on the other side of the road. It's green behind that wall so i can't imagine that it would be too hard to move it back 3 or 4 metres

Drumming Drumcondra
 

Good to see there is still a level of enthusiasm for my initial suggestion re Bus/Train interactivity at Drumcondra.
In spite of a fairly total lack of any interest from either BAC or IE in this concept I believe it offers the possibility of a HUGE improvement in Customer Service terms for Bus and Rail commuters.
The extra capacity on the City Centre-Drumcondra sector alone would be highly marketable without starting on the Bus/Rail attractions.
I also believe that my suggested routing FROM Parnell Sq via Mountjoy SQ and Belvedere Place OR via Fitzgibbon St-Jones Rd-Clonliffe Rd offers some respite from the never ending and unhealthy fixation with O Connell St which appears to pervade all BAC route structuring.
I believe that there are Plenty of customers on our Buses who are being trundled along and deposited on O Connell St who do NOT want to be there but who have no alternative offered to them.
Sadly however,until the Drumcondra Interchange Concept gets a powerful benefactor I suspect it will die the death of a thousand whispers.
It is all to obvious that neither Bus nor Rail company view the Public Transport Market as something requiring REAL integration and until some central and POWERFUL entity actually forces the concept through then we can forget it.
Once again I stress the simplicity of this concept which would require minimal expenditure on infrastructure yet would have a cost/benefit level far greater than many of the "Sexy" T21 programmes and could be fully operational within 6 MONTHS....Anybody prepared to back this horse ..????

I'd back it. Perhaps when we have our next meeting it ought to on the ajenda (however it's spelt). We need a nice, simple, easy campaign. The Drumcondra Interchange really cant be faulted, its a simple good idea.

Its simple stuff and with the metro underneath hopefully it could really shine

Still Glasnevin Junc could be a location to implement this thinking as well

Yes indeed Mark,Glasnevin Junction could still tick most of the boxes in respect of Bus/Rail integration.

Perhaps in the context of this a GJ interchange could be adopted as a possible "Upsleeve" alternative should the Cerebral one`s manage to find enough "Negative Aspects" to the DrumC proposal.

The issue of total cost vs projected improvement in service level and satisfaction is the major factor for me.

The present inefficient and impractical terminus arrangements on Mountjoy and Parnell Squares will have to be addressed in the short term anyway as DCC is set to get stuck-in to the Parnell Sq Area Improvement Programme within weeks.

My fear however is that this enforced construction disruption will merely see more Termini stuffed up to Mountjoy Square and an even greater level of queuing along Denmark St as the routes all try to access Parnell Sq East on the "return" leg.

Yet again I recently walked along by the New Jurys Inn at Croke Park and took note of the lack of public transport provision along this entire corridor which includes the increasingly popular GAA museum.

If one takes a look at an overhead pic (Cue the Image Editor.....) of the North Circular/Jones Rd/Clonliffe Rd area one views a somewhat densly populated area where Public Transport Users are required to hoof it to get from Bus/Train to front door,whilst large-capacity buses terminate on a largely non-resedential City Square.

The new "Peripheral" service debate has,thus far concentrated on the M50 corridor issue.
In the same manner as the rabbit caught in the glare of the headlights we are transfixed by this Golden Ring known as the M 50.
The reality of providing an improved Bus service (Which SHOULD in turn lead to greater utilization of an IMPROVED Rail Service) should be recognizing how Dublin City has several Micro-Peripheral zones which currently are being ignored.

For example.
1 Fairview-Parnell St-Bolton St-King St-Smithfield-Heuston Stn.

2.Glasnevin Jct-Phibsboro-Broadstone-Bolton St-Parnell St-Wolfe Tone St-Bachelors Walk-Custom House Quay-Sherriff St International (!!).

The above are but 2 routings which while not complete ROUTES could,either totally or in part be incorporated into Rail-Complimentary services.

The salient point remains that some strong level of Traffic Management would be required to ensure the smooth operation of the services and this remains the achilles heel of ANY Bus Service Improvements in Dublin.

Still if P11`s committee can at least discuss and refine such Bus/Rail plans it has to be worth the effort.
Remember the single most threatening thing to Dublins Traffic and Transport establishment is being forced to acknowledge the existance of other,often simpler and better concieved,Public Transport ideas.(Especially if these are being promoted by people who don`t even play Golf) :p

In any other country a city which has several identifiable road rings would be busy explioting their potential. BAC sort of does that with the 17's and the 75, and the one that goes from Palmersotwn to Sandymount thus ignoring the potential of the NCR and SCR as well as Griffith and Collins avenue on the northside and the other identifiable corridors on the southside. EG why no bus from Lucan to Dun Laoire?

I know that due to the nature of the layout of the city that each of these buses lose priority every time they cross either a N route or anything else going north/south, but agains this is sortable.

We have identified some solutions on this topic, and indeed attemtped to intgrate the metro north and the two east west rail lines on the northside. Have any of you native southsiders got solutions for down there?

As for me, I am now embarking on drawing up plans for the next prime surburban inter-modal interchange station, Ballybrophy, given the relentless expansion of the Dublin surburbs.