#blockedbuslane — Who’s blocking the bus lane? Dublin Bus and a driver’s union seem a bit confused, so let’s help them out

We’re looking for cyclists and bus users to come together and catalogue who’s blocking the bus lanes of Dublin and other Irish cities.

You can tag your images with #blockedbuslane (on both Twitter and Mastodon), or email them to cian.ginty@gmail.com.

Why do this? We keep seeing images like this:

So, it’s very strange that Dublin Bus — publically at least — hardly ever mentions traffic enforcement. Not when they are interviewed, not on social media and not at local or national transport committee meetings.

Today, Dermot O’Leary, general secretary of the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU), was also paraphrased by the Irish Independent as saying it’s traffic jams due to cyclists and trams.

O’Leary, the newspaper reported, referred to the known main issue of recruiting and retaining bus drivers and the need for more drivers for BusConnects. Then goes on to talk about traffic jams caused by trams and cyclists.

O’Leary said, according to the Irish Indepdent reporter’s words: “Added to that is unrealistic journey times set out by the NTA which do not accurately reflect what is happening on the ground in terms of traffic-jams in the Dublin city centre due to the presence of cyclists and Luas trams operating on the same roads as buses, he said” (Again: This is a quote of how the newspaper paraphrased O’Leary, it’s not a direct quote from him).

So, who’s really blocking the bus lanes in Dublin? Tag your images with #blockedbuslane and tag @irishcycle (on both Twitter and Mastodon), or email them to cian.ginty@gmail.com.


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2 comments

  1. I was at a spot on Red Light with a narrow lane ahead of me to share with the Bus behind me. Having been harassed by bus drivers (beeping horns etc) previously I felt pressurized to take off early so as to avoid slowing the bus down, and since no tragic was coming I started into the lane through the Red light. A passing Cop pulled me in. I attempted to explain that bus drivers harass us for slowing their busses down and that’s why I took off early, to get out of the busses way but the Cop wouldn’t accept it as an excuse and said all I have to do is phone the Gardai. That’s a joke. We all know they wouldn’t do anything about it, so why bother. I should have kept strong and cycled at my own pace in front of the bus and if the driver had a problem, that’s his problem. But its a lot easier said than done at the time. Cyclists are damned whatever we do.

    Reply
  2. @Charlie – I used to think I should keep strong and cycle at my own pace, but the stress of close passing, sudden beeping and abuse became unbearable. Now I choose quiet roads or dismount onto footpaths. What I lose in time for a single journey – or risk paying if I’m fined the €40 – I gain in quality of life and life expectancy. I navigated down the south quays yesterday, had to get in and out of lanes to avoid being crushed between the walls of steel that are Dublin bus at 6pm. it was crazy. The traffic gardai I’ve seen are usually young, male and (apparently) strong – I imagine that if they ever cycle, they are blessed with the sense of invincibility those attributes confer. Show me a mid-50s female traffic garda with balance issues and heavy panniers and I might listen.

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