Dublin to follow London?

Participants in today’s conference were attempting to overcome motorist scepticism that this is all technological tinkering at the edges, rather than dealing with the congestion problems.

The motorists are right. The government (in my mind) seems to be still avoiding any real and lasting solution to the traffic/location of houses problem.

fjp

I wonder is it really a drive by the cash strapped government to find new sources of revenue or do they really care about traffic congestion.

When you put it like that, we must consider that public transport will only cost more money, and potentially loose revenue from the taxes of the ever-increasing car market.

I remember talk about the bad traffic a full ten years ago now. They should just enforce bus corridors, get a tonne of new busses (so that people won’t have to wait 15/25 mins at rush hour) and actually DO that park and ride thing they lied about ages ago. A couple of consecutive no car days for the city centre (real no car days – not till 9.30 and with FREE bus access for all) would soon let us see what it could be like.

If only those reclaim the streets people weren’t useless. I’d love to see them declare certain days bus only and then just block the roads. As long as Dublin Bus could handle the popularity.

fjp

Gas to see the use of rail transport overlooked and underfunded by the government as I saw on the news recently. Freight is being forced onto the roads as rail is becoming more redundant leading to more juggernauts and artics on the roads.

As they say, I think Seamus Brennan says more than his prayers.
The guy has made more wild suggestions in the past three months than the rest of the Cabinet. He just shoots off at the mouth and nothing ever comes of any of it. All his ideas are half-baked, and not thought out. He also interferes where he has no business. The DubCityCouncil road signs debacle was a classic example. Surely, those signs would have been better than what we have now – which is nothing. I think we’d be half-used to the new traffic layout signs by now, only for Bullshit Brennan.

Speaking of which, does anyone know why the plan to make cars on pearse street turn at tara street was dropped, suddenly and quitely, about a week before it was supposed to happen. i was quite keen on the idea for the selfish reason that i seem to spend half my waking trying to cross college green.

Im not convinvced of the need to introduce congestion charging in the city centre. The CC is quite a small area – I would be mush more in favour of banning cars outright from the area and only allowing buses, taxis and motorbikes. Improved public transport in the form of an expanded LUAS, better crosscity bus routes and proper cycling lanes would all benefit.

We can’t close off the city centre because all of the multi-storey car parks (grant-aided when they were built) are very central.
Think of how many there are: Arnotts, Jervis Street x 2, Andrew’s Lane, Brown Thomas, aso.
They would go bust if the city was closed off. Most of them should never have been built but DubCityCouncil could never afford to pay them off now.
Also, what about the people who live in the city centre. How do you do road pricing for them?

In Stockholm they are closing down and demolishing city centre multistorey car parks, but then again thats in a civilised country

kefu: You give them a residents windscreen pass or something like the easypass thing on the Toll Bridge.

Although, in fairness, unless there are dramatic improvments in the bus services, I don’t see the charging plan being very successful.

anyone know the rationale for the double length ‘bendy’ buses that Dublin Bus bought recently. Surely the double deckers made more sense on roads where congestion is a problem?

Hmm…

Then there’s this school of thought: we’ll always have bad traffic. The alternative is to allow public transport to move feely and then entice people onto it with shorter journey times. If the traffic were to disappear, then some people on the busses might simply get back in their cars. So the actual “ideal” is stuck cars and moving busses/trams. Becasue the cars will probably never learn…

Long Bendy busses: the extra length is only about the same as two cars. Or maybe this is Dublin bus getting revenge. Also, there’s less chance of them getting sued by people falling down narrow steep stairs, the driver can see more, etc, etc.

And standing in the middle on the join is seriusly good fun….

fjp

Re bendy buses: answer officially is anti-social behaviour on upper deck.

Re road pricing: I’m aware of the windscreen style pass system. But it would be subject to rampant abuse, that’s all I was saying. Where would it start and finish.

Would it be the so-called inner orbital route (very roughly Gardiner Street, Church Street, Patrick Street, Stephen’s Grenn) or at the outer orbital route (the circular roads and the canals)

If it was the outer, which would be only proper, there must be 200,000 people living within, many with cars.

My main point is say if one had cottage in Rialto and was entitled to windscreen pass. Knowing Irish people, all of a sudden, you’d have about ten people registered as living in each house for the purposes of free travel.

bendy buses: they fit more people because you stand the whole length, you can’t stand upstairs on a double decker. they work really well if you have more doors, here, because we only have front doors, they don’t load so easily.

According to today’s Indo, the plan is intended for within the canals.

There is also an article about a proposed ‘high-tech’ plan, where you can pay parking charges for on-street parking using a mobile phone, which presumably then goes on your bill.

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=864743&issue_id=8296

Anyone get the feeling the the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing?

And in other news, it took Pat Rabitte one hour and fourty one minutes to drive from Clondalkin to Donnybrook yesterday… Welcome to Dublin, Pat…

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=864736&issue_id=8296

Melborne have this system where all cars had to be fitted with an electronic device which was activated each time you entered the charge area. Each roadway has a kind of electronic toll booth on it. You then have until midnight that day to pay off your charge or else you face a fine. Its very high tech and simple. I think thats what they plan for London