Submission in relation to
BusConnects Core Bus Corridor Proposals
Corridors 10 and 12
Introduction
Terenure Residents Association represents residents
living in the area of Terenure, south, east and southwest of Terenure Cross. This represents about 800 households. It includes Templeogue Road, Rathfarnham
Road, Terenure Road East. We are
established for over 30 years.
The proposals for Bus Corridors 10 and 12 seriously
affect our members on Rathfarnham Road, Terenure Road East and Templeogue Road. All of our members would be affected by the
consequent disruption to general motor traffic caused by proposed diversions. This submission will relate to the plan as it
affects the area and households we represent.
We are aware that there are some ad hoc groups which will also be making
submissions for areas covered by these bus corridors.
General Reaction to Plan
TRA held a general meeting on Tuesday
16th April. While there is
agreement that there is a pressing need to improve public transport commuting
times the BusConnects proposals, as they
affect the area we represent, are TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE to the members of our Association. The damage that would be caused to the local
environment and ambience of Terenure is completely out of proportion to the
benefits (if any) gained.
Loss of Amenity
There is strong opposition to the concept of four lane highways through well-established
residential areas. Apart from the loss
of amenity this would cause, it would destroy the village life that the
community thrives on. Terenure is a community, not a corridor. There would be serious loss in value of properties
that border on the highways. Loss
of gardens on Rathfarnham Road and Terenure Road East is of significant concern.
Nobody agrees that any of this is worthwhile and the likely cost of reinstating
old cut stone walls and cast iron railings will make the project horrendously expensive for very little
benefit Many of the properties
involved are protected structures. Another
potential cost is compensation paid to residents who will be assessing the loss
in the value of their properties. On Rathfarnham
Road many houses are at a level well above the road and shortening of gardens
will leave unacceptable gradients on driveways.
Shortening of driveways will also cause motorists to have to back out of
their driveways on to a very busy road –
dangerous (major health and safety risk to the public)
It should be noted
that much of Terenure is zoned Z2 – Residential Neighbourhood Designated Area
The proposed plan
calls for the removal of a very large number of mature trees. This is unacceptable. Loss of parking spaces at the Terenure end of
Rathfarnham Road will adversely affect the village.
There is a general
feeling that there is very little delay at present to traffic passing through
the area except for a few hours a day at peak times so the concept of having
the full proposal in force for 24 hours a day is ridiculous and unnecessary.
Diversionary Routes
Implementing the plan would result in no general
traffic entering Terenure from Templeogue Road or going towards the city via Rathmines
Road or Kimmage Road Lower. That means
that two out of three direct routes for city bound traffic from a large catchment
area have gone and traffic will be diverted on to unsuitable and sometimes
already overcrowded, residential side roads. Examples are Bushy Park Road, Orwell Park and Castlewood Avenue. The BusConnects Plan assumes that commuters
will transfer to travelling by bus and that there will be much reduced numbers
of cars. Many commuters do not work in
the city or along the bus corridors and will continue to use their cars. There are many other reasons why people have
to use their cars. Even now there is considerable
road congestion in the Dundrum and Churchtown areas in spite of the large
numbers who use the excellent Luas service.
If any of the scheme is to be implemented, the impact on the roads in
the diversionary routes will need to be comprehensively assessed.
CBC 10 Templeogue Road.
The proposal for general traffic on Templeogue
Road is one way outbound only from Terenure Place to Fergus Road. Local traffic
only would be allowed down Templeogue Road beyond Springfield Avenue. General inbound traffic would be diverted via
Springfield Avenue and Dodder View Road.
:
1. Difficulty in preventing non local traffic
beyond Springfield Avenue and consequent rat
running in Rathdown. There are so
many genuine designations of local traffic that it would be impossible to
enforce the restriction, e,g, patrons of Bushy Park and, school runs and traffic to and from Fortfield Road.
2.
It
will be impossible to implement the proposal because of the enormous problem
that the diverted traffic will cause,
particularly at Rathfarnham Bridge and
on Rathfarnham Road. This would be
totally unacceptable because of the congestion caused and impact on residents.
CBC 12 Rathfarnham Road and Terenure Road East
The proposed land take of gardens on
these roads is so drastic that it should
not be implemented as proposed. A
very large part of the land take is for cycle lanes. Provision of these does not justify the
damage to ambience and environment that would be caused. It would be much more satisfactory to divert
cycles on to quiet parallel roads where feasible, or to reduce speed limits to 30km/hr.
and allow cycles to use the bus lanes
Suggested Immediate Improvements.
As mentioned
earlier, TRA agrees that there is a pressing need to improve public transport
commuting tines in Terenure. Detailed below
are suggested changes that should be implemented, with immediate effect, to
improve these times.
1. Introduce bus priority at traffic lights
with minimum adjustment to present arrangements for bus lanes etc. Ensure that bus priority only operates when
buses are present
2. Reduce speed limits in appropriate areas to
allow cycles to use bus lanes in relative safety.
3. Vastly improve the frequency of buses at
peak times. We get many complaints of all
inbound buses being full when they reach Terenure at peak times in the morning. This is causing potential users to travel by
car. It has been noted that the
frequency of buses to Terenure proposed in the Jarret Walker report is actually
less than that it is at present. The
credibility of the BusConnects plan is thus very much diminished in this area.
4. Reduce dwell time for buses at stops by the
following means.
a. All fares to be cashless and generally low
to attract bus users. Additional
subsidies may be required.
b. Introduce a flat fare system to avoid
having to give Leap cards to the driver.
c. Introduce a system to swipe bank debit
cards.
d. Compared with other cities the response
time of the swipe pads on Dublin buses seems very slow and sometimes uncertain.
This is a cause of long dwell times. The
system needs to be optimized.
e. Reduce congestion and consequent delay around
the door of the bus while people swipe cards by introducing extra pad locations.
f. Consider swipe pads at bus stops
g. Make it mandatory
to exit the bus through the centre door.
At present most people exit through the front door, causing delays,
because they don’t know whether the centre door will be opened.
h. Introduce additional inspection to ensure
cards are swiped as the driver will lose an element of supervision.
TRA strongly recommends
that the above suggestions are trialed.
If the results are good, it may not be necessary to do anything else to accommodate
buses.
In the longer term
the TRA AGM agreed that the only satisfactory way to achieve reasonable and predictable
commuting times is to work towards an
underground Metro solution. With the
cancellation of the Charlemont Bridge to Sandyford proposal to convert the Luas
to Metro an opportunity exists to bring such a system to the Terenure area. Such a solution would be much more
satisfactory than the BusConnects plan and would receive full support from TRA
members.
25th
April 2019