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DUBLIN CITY COUNCIL (DCC) has confirmed that new traffic arrangements will come into effect on the north and south city centre quays from this Sunday.
DCC said the changes are “being introduced to coincide with the Luas Cross City tram testing and to ensure that these permanent changes have time to bed down before regular day time tram testing starts in September”.
From 10.15am on Sunday – following the road closure for the Ironman 70.3 event happening in the city – there will be no right turn for traffic from Bachelors Walk onto O’Connell Bridge – except for buses, taxis and bicycles.
Also on the north quays, there will be a new road layout from Ormond Quay Upper to Eden Quay with additional bus lanes and general traffic reduced to one lane. DCC said new “bus priority traffic signals” on Bachelors Walk, approximately 100 metres before O’Connell Bridge, will control traffic flows and give priority to public transport.
On the south quays, there will be a similar new road layout from Burgh Quay to Essex Quay, again with additional bus lanes and general traffic reduced to one lane.
DCC said the changes are an attempt to:
More commuters
Brendan O’Brien, Head of Technical Services at DCC’s transport division, said the changes are part of an overall commitment by the council and the National Transport Authority (NTA) to improve mobility in the city and allow freer movement of public transport as Dublin expands and the number of commuters steadily rises.
“The additional bus lanes will alleviate the difficulties faced by public transport on the quays, where the worst delays for buses in the city are experienced,” he said.
At the peak morning time of 8am to 9am, over 7,000 people travel along the north quays on buses. This compares to around 500 cars and the same number of cyclists.
DCC said these permanent traffic changes will lead to “an increase in the amount of people using public transport while still allowing access to the quays for general traffic”.
Donal Keating, Head of Operations at Dublin Bus, said the company welcomes the new traffic arrangements.
“The additional bus priority is important for public transport and highlights the importance of buses in tackling congestion in the city centre.
“We carry 400,000 customers per day and these new traffic arrangements will ease traffic difficulties on the quays and help our customers avoid potential delays to their journeys,” Keating said.
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Would be a great idea if we had a frequent on time & inexpensive bus service.
@OU812: and a park and ride services at the Luas that didn’t amount to the €55 a week with leap card caps factored in.
@OU812: To be fair, this is a measure aimed at improving the bus service. Harder to make the bus on time when the city is full of private traffic.
@OU812: one of the reasons for late busses is being addressed by this. Public transport needs to be prioritised in cities, there’s a limit to how many cars a city can handle. And it’s not that expensive if you use Leap cards.
@Carl Nolan: Yeah except the buses in some suburban routes are so infrequent that that if they’re not packed by the time they reach you, they’re slowed down by the frequency at which they have to stop, without factoring in the traffic.
@Carl Nolan: Very well said Carl. Bus times should improve on all routes that use this section.
@Carl Nolan: The problem is the country runs on cars. The Government never developed the infastructure enough but instead just relied on busses and cars.
What this city needs is an underground train network that extends to the far side if the M50. We can turn all the roads in dublin into bus and cycle lanes, but unless some real infastructure is built the situation will not improve.
This seems like a cheap stunt to try show the public that they are working on improving the public transport while covering the fact that they have no clue what they are doing… most involved in the decision process probably never even used a bus.
@Darren Tully: the leap card system is not great though. I’m an infrequent user of public transport but when I try to use it it is not made easy. For example, The top up app is only available on android but I have an iPhone. If I do top it up online I’m told it can take 24 hours to transfer to my card (?), then my card needs to activated but the machine on the bus doesn’t activate it, just the Luas ones do. If I’m trying to get a bus into town, I can’t just transfer money into my leapcard and hop onto a bus. It is unreasonably tricky for a novice user like myself and certainly doesn’t encourage me to get the bus into town. It seems ridiculous with modern technology that it can be so user unfriendly yet other major cities don’t have the same issues.
@d’usachtacht: You’re making life hard for yourself. Activate the Leap Card when you buy it and then turn on automatic up. You’ll never need to do anything again.
The android app is very useful but you can’t blame the NTA for Apples decision making.
FWIW most of the problems you describe happen on smart card systems around the world.
@d’usachtacht: Apple have locked down the use of NFC, so that’s why you can’t do that. Android phones can use that facility, so that’s why they can do the top-up (which is very handy). Should definitely be a better way of topping up online without ‘collecting’ your top-up at a ticketing machine. I’m sure it’s possible…
Its no wonder the M50 has turned into a carpark, no one will try and go through town now
@Les Boyd:
I think the DCC would view that as a success factor.
@Nick Allen: there should be not cars allowed in the city centre
@Boganity: I help to run a martial arts class in the city, we’re not allowed to store our equipment at the studio, so we have no choice but to transport it by car.
@Boganity: it’s a good job most of the cities hospitals aren’t in the city centre so. Oh… Wait…
@Les Boyd: Thats the idea Les. Get people out of their cars and improve public transport into the city. It’s people like you that would have been giving out suggestions like this in the past. As doon as it gets implemented you start giving out. Just can’t please some people.
@The Viking: you must be from the southside viking, as anyone on the northside will tell you we dont have a functional public transport system, and dont tell me what l asked for in the past, l have never asked for streets to be shut down, clown
@The Viking: And while were at it read my first comment. How this affects the M50 , it brings the main artery of the capitol to a stand still which affects businesses, which effects emploment, it effects were housing can be built it effects basically everything in the greater dublin area. How are supposed to get from north dublin to south? Public transport, a 2hr trip on a bus, l think you need to understand what forward thinking actually means
Owen Keegan strikes again.
@Dave Doyle: Exactly this!
@Dave Doyle: fair play to him
@Dermot Lane: exactly fair play, why the hell have we been prioritising 500 cars over 7000 bus passengers, it is insanity. Time for the motorists to be least prioritised, it is them clogging up this city, not bus users and cyclists who are actually part of the solution.
So fair play Owen Keegan and don’t mind the whingers !
@Inanimate Carbon Rod: Hear, hear!
@Inanimate Carbon Rod@Dermot Lane If there was any sort of decent public transport available, and proper park and ride facilities to back it up, i’d be the first to agree. But there’s not.
And the people behind this don’t have to drive trough the city centre on a daily basis…
@Derek Moean: The vast majority of those driving through the city don’t have to and choose to for convinince. It isn’t that convenient either. neighbour of mine happens to work close to where I work. He offered to give me a lift but it would be an extra hour to an hour and half every day to go by car.
@Derek Moean: the majority of people in cars in the city don’t ‘have’ to do so either. They choose to do so. All other modes of transport, including walking, should get priority over cars in city planning. The less cars on the road, the less congestion there will be for those who genuinely need to drive
@Kal Ipers: you pay thousand of Euro for a car, you tax it you insure it, why wouldn’t you want drive it to your work place?.
@Roy Dowling: You can want all you like but all you are pointing out is it is bad value for money too. It is going to keep getting more expensive and more restrictive one way or the other.
@Roy Dowling: Just because you want to drive your car you think that you should be able to? Even if it causes congestion in the city, and slows everyone else down?
Are you suggesting that somebody who buys an even more expensive car than yours should be prioritised above you just because they think they’re entitled to it?
@Dermot Lane: Driving to work with a car – 30-35mins. The same route with public transport – 60-70mins.
Please do explain how ditching the car and burning an extra hour each day would save me something [popcorn ready].
@Termaz Fx: How long would it take if you cycled?
@Kal Ipers: Dublin city centre is too dangerous to cycle in.
@Dublin Northsider: Doing it 20 years and not dead yet. It will be safer when the stop more cars entering which is happening.
Because of the massive restrictions on Private car use, will the Road Tax be reduced to compensate for the fact that private cars costing massive Insurance Premium’s and road tax will now be abandoned in owners driveway’s ?
@Sean Fagan: There’s no such thing as road tax. You have motor tax which is a tax on your vehicle and used to fund the general tax pot.
@Sean Fagan: what “road tax”?
You pay motor tax, it’s a tax on motorised vehicles, not a tax on actual road use.
@Sean Fagan: one word. SORN.
Your *motor* tax will be reduced to 0%
@Sean Fagan: you better get used to it, the future is not going to be privately owned cars. We are coming to the end of that era, especially in cities.
@Brian Ó Dálaigh:
I can have ten cars in my yard and not pay a single cent for them. But I will have to pay the second they go on the road, thus this is de facto a Road Tax and not a Motor Tax.
If it was a Motor Tax you would pay for every engine in your possession, even the ones that are dead but in theory could be fixed (wink wink TV license)
A cow pie wont smell or taste any different if you call it a strawberry pie.
@Termaz Fx: Despite your semantics, it is called a motor tax. It is based on emissions. If you declare it off the road, in theory you should be producing any emissions.
@Termaz Fx: Funny how push bikes or pedestrian don’t have to pay this “road tax”…
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: So the Road Fund Licence no longer exists?
It’s official Dublin City Council are a joke…….
@Sean Higgins: For favouring a majority of bus users over a minority of car users
I’m adjusting to a city centre where vehicular traffic is more and more restricted by using a very comfortable electric bike, a pedelec, with panniers. New technology waterproof clothing addresses the rain problem and balloon tyres not only make cycling more comfortable, the wheels don’t get stuck in the Luas tracks. Electric bikes and electric motorbikes/scooters have a valuable role to play in a more traffic restricted city. Less air/atmospheric pollution as well.
Friend bought a conversion kit that goes into the crank Tony and the motor sits above it with battery on the carrier. 700 Euros, expensive but great gadget. I got a steady 20mph out of it going around the back roads some flyer. I think the range on one charge is about 50 miles.
@Gordon Jono Power: that sounds excellent. I went for the easy option of a purpose built electric bike. I use less and less pedal assistance and am getting fitter. I have a round journey of 26 km per day. It’s easy. I’m mainly burning fat, not oil.
Sure the bus lanes will be full of ministers and junior minister cars.
I think it’s a good idea, I think it’s crazy people that drive through an already gridlocked city unless it’s absolutely necessary which it probably isn’t in a lot of cases. Public transport bus lanes, cycling should get preference over the private car in my opinion instead of sitting in traffic wasting your petrol.
Ah sure, what do DCC care about the average car user. The people who vote them in don’t own a car and get “free” public transport, to go along with their “free” house. This country is set up to worship the welfare dependants and provide for their every need.
@Fred Jensen: yeah, all the thousands of welfare dependents spending fifteen hours a week on a daily eight mile each way bus commute to the city centre will be delighted..
Pity Dublin’s public transport system is extremely unreliable and not fit for purpose! Too infrequent and very slow service. Worst in Europe
@Mark Gerard Lochlain: Yeah it’s a pity. If only they were doing something to improve the public transport gridlock, like maybe, I dont know, add in another bus lane maybe?
@Life in no motion: What’s the point in having lots of space and f’all buses to fill it? In many of the suburban routes the infrequency an of the bus service contributes to it being slow/ unreliable. Unreliable in that it could be completely packed by the time it reaches you. Slow in that it has to stop with greater frequency along the route
@Mark Gerard Lochlain: Well isn’t this idea meant to help with buses getting to places quicker? It’s slow getting through town because of all the cars using town and lack of bus lanes etc.
@Darren Tully: If buses can complete their routes faster, you can offer more frequent services with the same number of buses and drivers. It also makes sense to focus the investment into the area where there are a lot of buses using it. Spending the money where there are only buses every 30 minutes has limited payback.
@Life in no motion: so a lane on bachelors walk is your idea is a well developed integrated and efficient public transport system? Good luck with that love you’ll need it
@Darren Tully: There are currently 135 buses (of all operators) in one hour in the morning peak and up to 40 more will join them if College Green closes to traffic. That’s 175 buses – hardly a small number. Add to that a tram every 3 minutes in both directions on the new cross-city LUAS line and do you seriously think that the status quo can be maintained?
@John O’Flaherty: biggest problem is that the Luas should never have been overground. It should have gone under at Charlemont and Heuston and linked up with the Metro. The metro is what this city needs. We also need huge free multi storey car parks at transport hubs. Currently all parking around the Luas is pay parking. This means that it babe cheaper to drive into the city and park.
Anyone even think of the huge benefits it will make to our emergency services, ambulance, fire brigade etc. Less chance of them being stuck in gridlock and faster response time. For the Garda too.
People sitting in traffic ‘complaining about traffic’ don’t see the irony that they ARE the traffic.
@René Bruun: here’s a better one: first DCC cuts the street capacity by 33-66% (aka extra bus lanes) and then complains that even though they reduced the max capacity of the street, the traffic became worse!
Imagine that – you reduce the number of cars that can pass a street in a given time and this makes the traffic even worse! Who could have thought? :)
The car park owners will be protesting over this because if we cant bring our car into town then there will be less car parking spaces required.
@bings: why would you pay those expensive rates to park your car in town??
I fail to understand why taxis get treated with the privileges that buses get rather than as what they actually are: cars under short private hire. Why are they even allowed in bus lanes?
Long overdue. Im the sort of cyclist evangelist that drivers love to rant about but it won’t be our zeal for cycling that brings about this it will be sheer necessity. Most journies anywhere in Dublin can be made on a high performance bike easily to the point that I see car addiction as a form of disability the need for a sort of wheelchair cage. Our car addiction is not compatible with a mobile city or health and these will eventually force even the biggest petrol heads see that cars are not compatible with a small city with ever increasing population and ever worse health statistics associated with sedentary lifestyle.
@Cyril Butler: Hold on a second, I found the attention you’re crying out for
Good to see more efficient forms of transport in the city centre being prioritised.
That will be fun.
In Tallaght where I live the South D C council do everything in their power to make it impossible to drive with any degree of comfort, Will give you just 3 examples of so many Coming onto the N81 from Jobstown opposite the Jobstown pub at the traffic lights have to wait a long time for the lights to go green as you get around the lights you are confronted with a bus stop with buses stopping at that stop so traffic cannot go nowhere untill the buses move on just next to this stop are pedestrian lights with more traffic and pedestrain lights futher down lhe road and with a futher 4 sets of lights within less than half mile to the Sq shoppingcentre. Its a bloody nightmare I have been in contact with the Council my complaint falls on deaf ears. If the bus service was very good it would help but its not . I have no problem in accusing the Council of of been anti car
@Alan Scott: anti car is the way to go. It’s happening in cities all over the world where planners are finally realising that we have been too car-centric for decades.
Paying car tax and not allowed to drive on the roads,next thing they’ll be taking the family home if you to rent out ,WHERES the revolution against communism’
@Gerard Heery: “not allowed to drive on the roads”
Ah here, are you for real? You can still drive on them, but like any where else, you must follow the rules of the road!
Do you give out because you’re not allowed drive on the right-hand side??
@Gerard Heery: I don’t see any “Road closed” signs in the article? Cars are not being banned from the roads? Instead all I see is longer driving routes! (Longer in distance and congestion) carry on driving… it’ll just cost you more (both time and money).
Gerard must only drive in the city centre
@meatyslaps: I was being sinical cause those in power like to think good of themselves on over inflated wages for very little work ,and basically mess with the public ,to justify their minial jobs behind a desk scratching themselves with a Biro for 8 hours.
What a shower of muppets DCC is..no foresight..nothing..just knee jerk reactionary green tinted cupcakes
Touche Barry
If DCC were really that interested in removing gridlock in Dublin -you would think they’d remove the East link toll
God love truckers and delivery drivers.
What about motorbikes?
Will taxis be able to travel the new bus lanes? They have to be able to get tourists (including elderly and special needs people) and buisness people around to hotels and meetings without long delays and detours costing double the price in fares.
What about the people that live on the quays with cars it will be a nightmare for them
This is a joke. This council doesn’t have a single good idea. It will kill off Dublin for business. There is a better way but these fools will plough down the road to eventual total gridlock.
Poor delivery drivers and truckers. The sh=÷ is going to hit the fan when schools are back. It was bad with two lanes for cars. Can only imagine what it will be like with one. Stay away from quays if you are in a car.
Easy knowing the blue shirts are about
The small population of the country just simply mean we all have to pay considerably more.
The wages around here are outrageous and from where will these come from? At the peak of the Celtic Tiger era, the CEO of ESB was earning significantly more for than his peers in far bigger jurisdictions for being in charge of electricity for approximately 1.9 million homes in Ireland.
We went mad on wages and everyone accepted people should be earning €100k easily in a role that pays around €50-60k in other EU countries and the consequences is to be ripped off left, right and centre.
Will Taxis be able to use the new bus lanes? They have to get tourists ( including the elderly and special needs persons ) And buisness people around to hotels and meetings without delays and long detours costing double the price fares.
Fantastic news, get all cars out of the city centre.
As a bus user I look fwd to faster movement on the bus, I hope the Gardai catch the few motorists that chance their arm driving in the bus lanes ….
What about city centre business. If people are discouraged from driving into the centre it will reduce footfall in all the shops etc. Just look at what happened in Dun Laoghaire if you need an example. People who can will transfer their patronage to somewhere that provides them with what they want.
have your say