A chara, – I can reassure Stephen Wall (April 22nd) that I have given very careful consideration to Dublin City Council’s public consultation document. The architectural merit of College Green is not in dispute. Indeed, many of its more interesting features are best appreciated from the top of a bus!
The issue at stake is the function of College Green as the main thoroughfare linking the north and south centre city. A “working alternative” can only be provided if there are streets of similar capacity that can be used.
The document outlines possibilities for rerouting bus routes, but fails to do this in a “comprehensive” fashion.
The blithe reassignment of 16 high-frequency bus routes to a single lane on Parliament Street and on to already severely congested north and south quays takes no account of the traffic already in this area. The area around City Hall, also of architectural value, is already significantly congested with 90-degree corners that are difficult for buses to negotiate. Dame Street and College Green currently have two lanes in either direction that allow buses to move efficiently past each other and decompress traffic jams further back.
A simple calculation of length, number and frequency of buses per hour trying to use the proposed Parliament Street route should allow the council and the National Transport Authority, which have put forward this document, to calculate the disastrous effects on travel times on all those routes, leaving commuters with excessive time to contemplate the architectural features of whatever street they are stuck on! The vibrancy of the city as a place to work and live depends on efficient public transport. – Is mise,
SÍLE UÍ LAIGHIN,
Cluain Tarbh,
Baile Átha Cliath 3.
Sir, –There are valid concerns about the closure of College Green to buses, but it would be strange if Dublin’s bus routes were never to change. Many of our bus routes historically evolved from the routes of the long-gone trams that they once replaced, and follow a direct periphery-to-centre pattern that is very much from the dawn of public transport planning. There is absolutely no reason for 27 bus routes to go down Dame Street other than that is what has always been done.
Visitors from cities with much more efficient transport systems that Dublin shake their heads in disbelief at our primitive ways. It is de rigueur in modern cities to employ a combination of trams, trains and a small number of dedicated bus corridors as the core arterial routes, while most bus services are occupied with connecting these routes in radial loops around the city suburbs. This allows traffic in and out of the city centre to proceed in an express fashion, whilst also servicing a much higher proportion of city dwellers with more frequent and more flexible bus services.
It is also common elsewhere for a small number of buses to repeatedly navigate a short circular core route that distributes commuters quickly from near-central arrival points to other locations around the centre. This means that the main transport services don’t need to penetrate directly to the heart of the city centre, where the majority of delays are incurred. Frequently these central shuttles are free hop-on hop-off services, at least outside of peak times, to facilitate tourists and shoppers. In many cities these free buses are actually funded by local businesses to encourage trade.
In order to maximise utilisation, our buses typically take winding detours, stop for pick-ups and drop-offs at intervals that are overly frequent and fight directly with private traffic for road-space at peak times. Dublin Bus has gradually managed to change a number of routes so that rather than terminating in the city centre they continue on and terminate in a suburb on the opposite side of town. This has removed from our streets the fleets of parked buses that were for many years a blight on the city centre, but has not addressed congestion, route speed or facilitated the requirements of many users to travel from one suburb to another.
While there are a small number of newer radial routes like the 75, to get from one suburb to another Dubliners are typically expected to take one bus all the way to the city centre and then another all the way out again. This is hardly a model of efficiency, and contributes to the mania for housing and offices close to the centre. If Dublin were easier to get around then there would be less need for people to be based near the centre.
One must assume that our transport planners are aware of the effectiveness of these approaches in other cities, and that there must be some unspoken reason why Dubliners have been afflicted with such a poor, intransigent transport system for so long. Labour relations, perhaps? – Yours, etc,
JOHN THOMPSON,
Phibsboro,
Dublin 7.