Delays in City Centre
May 6th, 2008
Even though the weather is good, and you would expect traffic volumes to be getting lighter, there are still major problems with traffic in Dublin City Centre. This has knock-on effects for the Swords Express.
It’s impossible for us to predict. Some days it happens, most days it doesn’t. The DCC control room says the problem is simply traffic volume. On a fine day like today, just after a bank holiday, you would expect traffic volumes to be lower than usual and for traffic to be steady. But it didn’t work out that way. Everything is chockablock. As a result, buses take much longer to arrive, and it’s a major headache for our passengers and for us. It’s impossible to provide good service in this situation.
So what to do?
You may have heard about the Transport committee’s plan to reduce private car access to the city centre. This is a good plan in many ways, but realistically it’s a long way off. There is a shorter-term solution though, and that’s a bus lane along North Wall Quay, between the Point Depot and Custom House Quay, which would give priority to buses, whilst taking hardly any road space from cars.
This scheme is currently under design with the Dublin Quality Bus Network office. I’ve seen the plans so far, and they’re impressive. We’ve done what we can to help make sure that this scheme progresses as quickly as possible. There is no reason why the QBC could not be implemented by Christmas. However, there has to be the political will, and it is very important that politicians in the Swords area recognise the importance of this development, and put their full weight behind it.
When the scheme is in place, it’ll shave a few minutes off the typical peak journey time. More importantly, it’ll make the route much more regular, and less subject to the vagaries of city traffic.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:36 am
What about the bit between Tara St and O’Connell Bridge? I was standing at the Swords Express stop yesterday and for 10 minutes the traffic didn’t move on that couple of hundred metres. I gave up and went down to the 41 stop.
How about we pester our TDs at least to try and keep pressure for these QBCs (however tiny) on the council / government.
We’ve got
Trevor Sargent tsargent@greenparty.ie
Michael Kennedy (FF) mjkennedy@eircom.net
Darragh O’Brien (FF) obriendarragh@eircom.net
James Reilly (FG) james.reilly@finegael.ie
Then there’s the councillors.
http://www.fingalcoco.ie/YourLocalCouncil/Councillors/Swords/
I know you’re probably as likely to get any movement if you say it to the wall but at least if everybody who reads this spent 5 minutes writing an email to those guys above it might wake somebody up. They do read these and they do respond but whether it actually achieves anything is debatable but it’s worth a try.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:46 am
It seems traffic was particularly bad yesterday due to that Taxi driver protest. Every licence cabby came to town to highlight that there’s too many licenced cabbies - then proceeded to clog up the city centre for the rest of the day looking for fares. I got a lift from Dublin Castle to Baggot Street yesterday and it took nearly 45 minutes.
As Michael O says, the worst stretch seems to be between Tara Street and the bridge. Is there any chance that we could get on the bus at Tara Street? I appreciate that this would have no impact on the journey time, but it’d be nice to be on the bus rather than standing waiting for one - particularly as the ‘queue’ can turn into a rugby scrum once people have sight of the bus on the other side of the river. It’s like boarding a Ryanair plane at times!
May 7th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Don’t do that. I already walk from the Four Courts to get the bus
I’ve noticed though that a couple of times the buses are parked along the north side of the Liffey (between Four Courts and O’Connell St.). I presume this is to get rid of the nightmare between Tara & O’Connell. This can’t work for every bus but not every bus drops off at Tara before starting the run out to Swords so I’m assuming those ones start there. So they couldn’t guarantee getting on at Tara as the buses can come from different locations.
It is like a scrum getting on. If there’s obviously not enough people at the stop to fill the bus why does everybody have to mill onto it as if it was the last bus to Swords? I normally stand at the wall, wait for the queue to go away and then wander on pick a skinny person near the front and sit beside them.
Why can’t Swords people learn to queue. It’s mad on the 41 route too. As you walk down to the 41 you’ll pass another stop (near the theatre) and there’ll be a big orderly queue for whatever Dublin Bus stops there (so it’s not an Irish thing). When you try to get onto any bus destined for Swords it’s like every geezer wants to be on first.
May 7th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
You’re not wrong. Even if the bus is empty and there are 5 or 6 people waiting to get on, people will set elbows to stun in order to get on first.
At least there’s only the one queue for the Express, verses the 2 pronged assault on the 41X.
And don’t get me started on people behind you in the queue nudging you forwards…
May 7th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I notice in this week’s North County Leader there is a small article on the expansion of the service to boroimhe, river valley, applewood, Holywell and swords manor. Do you have any updates on this? The article also mentions “the new applewood extension will also serve as a link between the various areas of swords itself.” can you explain your proposed new routes and how thus will affect travel time to city? I know it’s early days and the article may be misleading but it sounds very like the applewood service will travel around the outlying areas of swords before heading into the city?
May 8th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
We aren’t going to be able to stop the ignorance of people in a blog, unfortunately…….
It’s the same on the way in where problems usually start with people getting dropped off past the bus stop and then staying there to get on first and ignoring the fact that a queue has built from the other side of the stop - just pure bad manners……
with the Laughter Lounge stop there’s not too much that can be done I don’t think, not enough room to form an orderly queue, on the very odd occasion I use that stop I’m usually 1st or 2nd in the queue and then the bus has to stop wherever it get’s space and where you queued becomes irrellevant……..but again people should have enough manners to let someone that’s been queueing 20 minutes get on the bus first…..but it’s never going to happen.
pity we don’t have automated stops where you have to logon somehow at the stop and get boarded in that order….again won’t happen…so time to stop dreaming and get back to work
May 9th, 2008 at 10:24 am
I had an idea this morning.
How about a brand new route. One that has the IFSC as stop number one. That way the bus could drop off at Tara St., cross the bridge there and cut out the bottleneck between Tara / O’Connell Street. I don’t know if this is possible though as the driving in Dublin is crap and bus trying to get across two lanes in about 50 metres might not be workable. You could take the current 17:20 and 18:10 buses out of the current timetable and put them onto this new route. This way there are other buses at 17:30 and 18:20 so it’s not a huge inconvenience to people who really want to get on at the Laughter Lounge. That way people from the IFSC and beyond would be pretty sure that they’d get on the bus and wouldn’t need to rush up to Murphys Laughter Lounge. If traffic between those bridges was nightmarish we could all be sure that at least those two buses wouldn’t be held up. It might help your turnaround times too. It’d shave at least 5 / 10 mins off between Tara / IFSC so maybe it would help tweak the timetable too. People who just missed the 17:45 bus would have reasonable time to get to the IFSC stop if they wanted or they could just wait for the 18:05 bus.
Before anybody suggests Tara St. as stop one I can see several reasons for not doing this.
1: Not every bus comes from the Tara St. direction. Sometimes they stop on the North Quays so that when it’s time to go the Tara St. bottleneck doesn’t hold up the bus.
2: Having the last stop and first stop as the same stop would cause problems. People are daft when they get in a mob. As soon as the bus pulled up with a load of people to let off, the mob would crowd around the door with each person trying to be on first.
3: I presume the drivers use it as a break stop. I don’t know about them but if I was having my break I’d prefer not to have a group of passengers squashed up against the door and staring in at me.
If you think of implementing something like this I’d recommend putting a questionnaire on each seat during peak times for a week and ask questions like
What’s your preferred stop / time?
Would you be in favour of a change like this?
Have you any suggestions to improve the service?
If you just post it up here in a blog there’s a tendancy to only see the negative replies. Lots of people will object to everything, at least with an anonymous questionnaire you’ll get some objective feedback.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Ignore the last sentence in the first paragraph
“People who just missed the 17:45 bus would have reasonable time to get to the IFSC stop if they wanted or they could just wait for the 18:05 bus.”
I should really proofread before I post
May 9th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Some good points there Michael……
will await the Admin reply…..I think the Laughter Lounge stop is in a bad place from a boarding and stopping perspective, but a good catchall place for town for passengers, so it’s dependent on weather people would be prepared to walk an extra 5-10 minutes, and unfortunately a lot of people wouldn’t, at least with the IFSC stop these days when I go there people are forming an orderly queue, which is nice to see…..
May 9th, 2008 at 11:56 am
I don’t feel sorry about people who have to walk an extra 10 mins as I already walk from the Four Courts and have been all winter along the quays.
I wasn’t proposing getting rid of the Laughter Lounge stop though. Just moving a couple of existing buses to IFSC as stop one. It would allow a quicker turnaround and would be more reliable / regular for the people who get on at IFSC and beyond.
They’d need to do some studies though to see if it was workable. I presume some passengers currently walk up from the IFSC to the Laughter Lounge to ensure a seat so we can’t just say that everybody at the Laughter Lounge would be put out if this was done.
The queue at the IFSC probably happens because it’s easier for the bus to stop at the bus stop properly. At the Laughter Lounge you can find yourself suddenly at the end of the queue if the bus has to stop a bit after the stop.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
MichaelO, I think it would be great if we had one bus starting empty at IFSC at a (semi-)reliable hour (say, 17:45), instead of half an hour or so of waiting. Not to mention full buses passing by, adding an insult to the injury, so to speak.
It might be possible to set the hour in a way that lets enough “IFSC-based” people make use of it. A lot of time and fuel seems to be wasted in a traffic jam between George’s Quay and Laughter Lounge.
While it might not be optimal for everyone, I guess it could be used by enough people to make it profitable.
May 15th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Hi
Could you please start and end the bus at applewood? that would make life alot easier, there is a huge population in that area,so there would be more passengers.
Regards
Claire
May 28th, 2008 at 11:52 am
The major problem seems to be between Georges Quay and the Laughter Lounge. Why not cut out the Laughter Lounge and make the first stop at Georges Quay, 2nd stop at IFSC House. The traffic conjestion between these stops is reason enough to cut out the LL stop, particulary as it is so crowed there with CIE buses etc pulling in.
Unfortunately in the evening the service can be irratic and consequently irritating, and this might help.
Also can you PLEASE ask your drivers to allow passengers on outside the Pavilions, instead of parking down at what was “Ray Bourke’s house. This would mean we could not be cold and wet, which is what happens with Dublin Bus. This morning the driver of the 7.55 very nicely parked outside the Pavilions and everyone got onto a warm bus and it left exactly on time. Thank you Mr Driver for that.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
hey , good news bout qbc, still very hard to get in the bus at airside for 8 and 815 times i tend to leave b4 or after that time and when the 8 is full, the people at the stop all get other buses which i would say is well over 1000 euro lost per week,it all adds up guys,but i love the service and told the tds how great it is..
June 21st, 2008 at 5:52 pm
WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR NUMBER ONE DRIVER ROBBIE. I HERE HES NOT WITH THE COMPANY ANY LONGER. HE WAS THE BEST WITH ALL HIS MUSIC AND HIS CARE WITH THE PEOPLE WHO USED THE SERVICE. SADLY MISSED IM SURE BY MANY.
July 10th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Hi,
I’d like to know what the problem was this evening, I was at the IFSC stop with 5 other people waiting on the 4:00 bus in the heavy rain for over 20 minutes. I can understand there being delays in rain, but I don’t see where there was a delay today as traffic appeared to be moving ok.
cheers,
Steve