Bus drivers under pressure?

Eh they’re parked there. It’s a coach parking spot?
As for the congestion, it’s partly misguided attempts by Dublin Bus to force as much of their fleet as possible down O’Connell Street.

well they’re gonna have to shift em pretty soon when O C St becomes a building site

Apparently the amount of space given over to Dublin Bus for parking will be dramatically reduced too..

Yeah i wish the tour buses weren’t allowed park on O’Connell Street. Stroke of 10am they move onto the street causing tailbacks. Shouldn’t be allowed. They should park on the west side of Parnell Square and that’s where they should pick up passengers

Nice pics Misarchi 🙂
They deserve a little expansion as quite a bit can be gleaned from them.
Firstly,the vehicles to the forefront in Nassau St are Touring COACHES which are engaged in the Trinity College “Experience”.

One of the constant and worsening problems in attempting to get any form of realistic movement from the Civic Authorities is for those worthies to understand and appreciate the vast difference in the needs of a COACH operator and a BUS driver.

Nassau St is one of the finest examples of this lack of comprehension.

One item which misarchi`s pics do not show is the reduction in available roadspace on the street by allocating the right hand lane to Car Parking spaces.
This effectively reduces a main outflow from the City to a single lane.

The Dublin Bus stops along the street are some of the busiest on the system and have had little or no attention in terms of Safety or suitability for the hugely increased Bus Traffic now being forced through the unmodfied street.

Indeed one can see with depressing regularity,foreign registered,left hand drive Touring Coaches disembarking their (often Elderly) passengers directly out into the path of wild eyed and dangerous drivers who may well have been stuck in the City Centre for an hour and now see light at the end of the Nassau St tunnel.

Into this mess are thrown Dublin Bus drivers with their (Many) Managers hovering behind their shoulders,breathing dire warnings about Safety and the disciplinary repercussions which will follow if the Driver should fall victim to this chaos.

Drivers on routes 10,11,14,15,46A,145,for example,must first pull in (roughly,sorta,kinda) parallel to the Kerb to load/unload then attempt to pull over to the extreme right lane to position for a Right Hand turn into Kildare St.

Meantime,Drivers on the 4,7,45,63,45,84, must pull in beyond the others and then position (kinda,sorta) in the middle lane and then do a quich shimmy after Kildare St to position for a straight ahead departure through the Clare St “Chicane” (Take note of the Black Rubber burn marks on the kerb).

I very much doubt if the Dublin City Manager or any of his many and varied courtiers have ever attempted to take an Articulated 18Mtr long vehicle full of sweating,heaving and possibly disabled people through such an arrangement.

Once again,and not for the first time,the City Management have a VERY simple and workable solution at their fingertips.

1. Remove ALL on-street car parking between Dawson St and Clare St.
2.Relocate Bus Stops for most Kildare St routes to the (already existing) Bus-Stops outside the Alliance Francais/Heraldry Museum/College of Physicians.
3.Position these routes to the (Newly available) extreme Right lane on Nassau St to allow for Right Turn into Kildare St.
4.Reallocate the Initial Stops on Nassau St for Rock Road QBC Routes and allow these to pull out much earlier into the Middle Lane to align for Clare St.
5.Realign the right hand traffic lane/footpath at South Frederick St/Clare St to allow for direct exit through Bus Priority Traffic signal.

Total cost….?…Significantly less than €38 BILLION I suspect,and all work largely achieved by removing signage and painting road markings along with a few oul Gards reallocated from their Leinster House “Post” during peak time.

This type of thing is sadly symptomatic of our current administrative vacuum whic currently features skip loads of Men-In-Suits delivering ever wilder scenario`s to an astounded Dail Committee…….Bring on T22 I say !!!!

And while I`m at it…. :p

Another example of “Interesting” traffic and transport planning is thrown up at the Townsend St/Moss St intersection.

This was once a sleepy backwater of a crossroads,enlivened occasionally by the odd RTA.
However,in recent times,as the Dail Committee on Transport has learned from testimonies by many and various shades of Men in Grey Suits,The Civic Authorities have been pursuing a vigorous policy to move Dublin Bus vehicles from Kerbside space.

To this end the Daìl Committee has learned of the massive improvements consequent upon the Quality Bus Network office`s construction and commissioning of the Pearse St Bus Lane which in turn facilitated Dublin Bus to move most of its Tallaght Bound Bus Termini to it own facility at Ringsend Garage.

All excellent stuff and the Councillors are deservedly pelted with rose petals and fragrant scent as they stroll amongst their citizenry….however…one rather small item which the busy administrators and their Professional Advisors have missed in their deliberations is the situation at….yes you guessed it…..Townsend St/Moss St. 😉

The problem is largely one which has manifested itself since the Tallaght Route migration as up until this only the dear old route 2 & 3 had any business operating in-service towards Raytown.

Then one day in a flash of yellow and blue smoke the In-Service Bus Traffic suddenly trebled or even quadrupled as all Tallaght routes streamed coastwards.

Closer inspection of the Townsend/Moss St junction would have revealed a nasty little contradiction in how the junction functions….(could`nt resist that !!)

Approaching from An Làr we see that the Lucan Corridor routes 25,66 etc which are positioning to return to their outer destinations are required to take the OUTER lane for a RIGHT-Turn into Moss St and thence back to Pearse St-College St.
The statutory Road Markings originally in place were Right-Turn only arrow in outer lane and Straight Ahead arrow in inner lane.
All clear so far ..??

Now class…we come to the conundrum…

Under the “Old” configuration all traffic which had correectly approached to proceed through the junction towards Ringsend then sddenly found itself presented with the occupants of,initially a single Private Car Parking Space and subsequently two more such spaces directly outside Advance Tyres or somesuch commercial entity.

The “New” junction configuration is exactly the same as the old one,with one difference…..the statutory road markings are now absent,after the surface of the junction was treated to an anti-skid surface application..(Wonder why :confused: )

So..pay attention down the back please,we now have a situation which features a newly opened Convienence Store on the corner coupled with a vastly increased Service Bus throughput which is then confronted with the very same potential for serious conflict as always existed here simply because the Civic Authorities refuse to surrender 3 Pay and Display Car Park spaces

The abolition of these 3 spaces would immediately make a direct and immeasurably safer route available through the Junction for ALL traffic by allowing such traffic to position correctly well in advance of the actual junction itself,rather than when actually passing through it as currently happens.

I remain unsure if Townsend/Moss St junction even manages a blip on the City Council`s massively powerful Traffic Modelling software,but it SHOULD as it directly controls the efficiency of ALL outward bound services on the Tallaght Corridor and indirectly effects the majority of outbound departures on the Lucan corridor also.

Unfortunately I don`t currently have access to a digital camera so I hope my descriptive powers have managed to convey an accurate picture on a location where our Civic Traffic and Public Transport ship is very much spoil`t for a h`appenyworth of Tar….. 😀

@Alek Smart wrote:

I very much doubt if the Dublin City Manager or any of his many and varied courtiers have ever attempted to take an Articulated 18Mtr long vehicle full of sweating,heaving and possibly disabled people through such an arrangement.

Difficult enough in a feckin VW Golf. I don’t know how the articulated bendy 4A gets through. I always sit in the front bit just in case like 😉

Nice posts btw. Next time I drive down Townsend St, I’ll be so busy assessing it i’ll probably prove your point in relation to it’s safety

Very true Alonso.

One of the most fraught elements of the Clare St chicane is just how illogical and counter intuitive it is for ALL road users.

General traffic approaching from An Làr has little in the way of assistance in terms of statutory signage or road markings.

In addition the peak-time flows here are faced with serious contention as motorists stranded in the incorrect lane often (understandably) panic as they fear being directed off into the bowels of Pearse St unless they can break free onto the Rock Road corridor.

As a result the Busdriver is faced with a very knife-edge situation where he/she virtually requires a 360 degree collision warning and avoidance system if any SAFE forward momentum is to be maintained.

I use capitals for the term SAFE as current Dublin Bus policy is focusing very directly on the safety aspects of driving.

However I contend that locations such as South Frederick/Lincoln/Clare St are by their very configuration inherently UNSAFE and therefore in need of Immediate rectification before any Safety Policies can be applied.

But,I digress,so to return to the point at hand,I would be in favour of removing the current conflicting car-parking on the approach to the junction and the configuring of a bus-gate style traffic signal similar to The Outbound N11 QBC one at the Burlington which if coupled with a minor realignment of existing traffic lanes,stop-lines and ped crossings would offer a smoother SAFER mathod of exiting the City Centre for thousands of Public Transport users and the occasional VW Golf driver……..:D

Hi,

Here are some pics I took on Patrick’s Day which might help illustrate what Alek has been describing…

Firstly, Nassau Street… empty. You can see the parking past the Kildare St. jct. on the left of the photo.

and Townsend St., looking south past the junction…

Note how on the right hand side there is a single yellow line, if a car parks here and in the parking bay, how do buses get passed???
and looking at the lack of road markings on the junction…

Gav

Nice Pics Gav08.
Just whats required to illustrate these and many other similar “Pinch Points”.

My simplistic reasoning revolves around how BASIC many of these problems are.
Yet,it is the essentially simple problems which we tend to leave permanently unaddresed whilst embarking on ever grander projects costing Billions of €.

The actual VERY real benefits which would accrue to ALL citizens from some clear and direct realignment and some new statutory lane-markings would be incredible in comparison to the almost inconsequential cost of such works.

If you get another opportunity Gav08 (Next Paddys Day !) position yourself opposite the Shelbourne Hotel and illustrate DCC`s bizzarre fixation with Imposing less than a dozen highly dangerous nose-to-kerb Pay and Display spaces which serve to mark the effective end of the much vaunted N11 QBC.

If one (like the members of the Dàil Comittee on Transport) listens attentively to the noblemen of DCC and it`s QBN office,we hear much awe inspiring twaddle of a bus-a-minute at peak times.

These fine fellows peddle a notion of a direct,clear,ultra modern high frequency Bus Corridor between Bray and An Làr.(The exact definition of which has been decided by the Advertising Standards Authority as the GPO).
What nobody refers to is the shameful manner in which this flagship Public Transport corridor is bluntly severed by this dozen space Berlin Wall of private cars.

Nor do the Professional bunch even nod in the direction of the dangerous lunacy of compelling the drivers of these one-minute-interval Buses to perform Michael Schumacher style chicane weaving manouveres as they (usually) vainly attempt to align their vehicles with the Bus Stops.

If anybody is tempted to do a photo-montage of this spot,do try to get the statutory lane marking in as well,as the arrangement collapses totally when viewed through the Road Traffic Acts cold filter.(Hint: What does the RTA say about crossing Solid White Lines and Solid Boundary Hatched Traffic Islands)

Try also to do justice to the Spike Milliganesque logic of the placement of the actual Bus Stops….how many buses can a DCC Professional get into a horse trough…..Poor oul Paul Mortons Circle Line really do lose out to the Viking Splash here….as the camera will (hopefully) show….:p

I apologise if I`m labouring this,but at this point in time it seems as if the DCC Establishment” have become totally convinced of their own moral and intellectual superiority in EVERYTHING to the extent that Madcap Lunatic upsidedown Planning is pawned off as acceptable.

It really is tears from a stone material,the simplest of stuff in real terms….Remove the Car Parking.

Realign the Service Bus Stops by moving them Eastwards which would then allow Busdrivers to position far earlier (and Legally) for the hard right hand turn into Dawson St.

Oh well here`s hoping…. 😀

If you get another opportunity Gav08 (Next Paddys Day !) position yourself opposite the Shelbourne Hotel and illustrate DCC`s bizzarre fixation with Imposing less than a dozen highly dangerous nose-to-kerb Pay and Display spaces which serve to mark the effective end of the much vaunted N11 QBC.

Well, Alek mot to be one to disappoint I took advantage of the light traffic volumes last week to get some photo for you to illustrate your points about the Stephen’s Grn. end of the N11 QBC…

Firstly, the state of the road dividing bollards, what happened to the proposed right turn from Kildare St.???

The pedestrian crossings have never been finished, no tactile paving…



and this crossing isn’t in line with the opposite side of the road…

The crossing doesn’t begin here…

Standing with no tactile paving looking across, where do you go???

The surface at the Kildare St. jct is in bits…

No tactile paving at the Dawson St. junction either…

The road markings in the area are very bad,

Part 2 to follow…

Part 2:

This is the inbound stop line…

Rounding the bend on Stephen’s Grn. Nth…

Move out around the parking…

The parking…

and then the bus stops…

Why not, as suggested, move the parking down where the bus stops are now…
The bus stops…


and the cross hatching, how can you pull out without crossing it…


and not forgetting that St. Stephen’s Green East and how wide it is… Where’s the double bus lane that was mentioned…

However, things aren’t any better on Dawson Street… This bus stop must only be in use before 8pm and after 6am as its a taxi rank during this time. Taxi rank hours and bus stop lurking in the background.

as the road marking demonstrate…