Putting the Buses on a new ‘old’ footing

Consider private enterprise built the first metro in world with the pearse to dun Laoighre route. Ireland built the most dense network of rail lines in the world also. Dublin had 20 trams lines. The companies in dublin were even able to start upgrading the dublin network to use electricity.True they switched to buses, but at that time there were no cars. Fourty years later in the seventies, traffic management started in dublin with the reorganisation of stephen’s green. Would the bus companies have realised then that the buses days were up back then and started a changeover to trams again (which had advanced).

Sure the luas is working, in fact it’s jammed according to the bus review. Trying to build a network of 7/8 trams lines is going to take 30/40 years. Would private enterprises do a better, cheaper, faster more competent job ?

Has ‘public’ transport worked ? If no is it because it was starved of money ? Would a huge increase in funding mean a huge increase in service ? If yes , could it do better , how ?

The question is loaded but i would love to hear people views.

I am surprised that noone has taken the bait. The review published on monday gives some fascinating insights into the future shape of dublin.

Perhaps i was too focussed in how i started this thread. And so as a prod towards some discussion, i will add a few ideas.

Dublin bus are proposing to effectively take over the entire city centre (excepting access): East & North Stephen’s Green, Dawson, Nassau, Pearse, Westmorland, & O’Connell street. Parnell Square, and the quays north and south on both sides of O’Connellstreet. Westland Row ,Pearse street and D’Olier is left for luas Bx and Dame street for the lucan luas.

Dublin bus want to ‘leave’ outside the m50 to private operators. They want focus on cross city routes that start and finish in the vicinty of the M50. This would tend to confirm the observation of David McWilliams that dublin will slide towards an american city: pink in the suburbs, and black/yellow/white in the city.

As for efficiency , it is clear from the numbers that for all the luas hoopla , it is the buses that have provided improvements to traffic. speeds on the N11 have increased over the last few years.

The RPA seem to be tremendously over ambitious with their metro scheme, as the census figures clearly show that people are moving east not north. This would suggest that the western metro/luas should be built first.

The county of meath is not mentioned , nothwithstanding that the M3 will a green light to housing ,housing ,housing. So one can only assume that they are being left to drive.

The review makes no suggestion of any effort to work with a developer/council in order to build a fully ‘integrated’ high density village/town with schools/shops etc. Furthermore all the current tram projects will be fully/over subscribed when finally built.So for now public transport is following development. This points to no improvement in the end product for families.

It’s not all bad : the report clearly, but politely points out that the city is now so big and thinly spread that dublin bus can’t keep extending it’s services away from the city. Finally the poor planning is making one state agency look for changes !

Other things are horrendous : the charts have been rejigged to give a positive impression, but there is no mistaking that the company’s cost have ballooned. Too many single decker and mini buses have been replaced with double decker, resulting in higher costs. This is euphamistically described as passengers growth not keeping up with capacity, as opposed to a purchasing cock up.

Nothwithstanding that the company is in disagreement with the government over private competition (and as a result hasn’t got any new buses recently ), there are now more staff per buses than before. The review brazenly states that it expects the cost of running a service to rise as it receive more buses. Micheal O’Leary would vomit at this!