Bus gates on Dublin quays are set to start with minimal changes

Comment & Analysis: With all of the exaggerated and misleading media coverage of the Dublin City Centre Transport Plan, some people still think cars are being banned from central Dublin — this is just so far from the truth.

After the decision was made to proceed, the plan is due to be rolled out on August 25th, just over two weeks from now.

Even when all of the measures contained in the Dublin City Centre Transport Plan are implemented, people will still be able to access city-centre car parks, on-street parking, etc, by car. But it’s worth stressing how minimal starting changes are planned to be.

It will likely annoy the supporters of the traffic plan who want to see faster progress. But it will also make some of the objectors look rather silly — I’m thinking of those who said that the plan should be implemented on a more phased basis.

Because that’s exactly what’s planned: A phased rollout with temporary measures at first with the ability to adjust layouts after the traffic changes time to bed in.

The changes could be said to be too minimal to start with, and the city council should examine the traffic layout between Capel Street and Jervis Street to make it clearer that there is only local access on the quays east of Jervis Street.

Here are the council’s explainers of the changes on both quays:

This is the drawing of Bachelors Walk provided by Dublin City Council to this website:

It’s worth highlighting that the number of cars per hour being diverted is not a huge figure given that the motorists are highly unlikely to all take the same route. Past experience and evidence show a significant number will also switch to walking/cycling/bus/Luas/train or not making some trips.

• 200 — the approximate number of cars and other private vehicles per hour on Bachelors Walk.
• 390 — the approximate number of cars and other private vehicles per hour going straight from Burgh Quay to Aston Quay past O’Connell Bridge.

To give these figures context, the passenger-carrying capacity of a single green-line tram is 408, and 80-100 people is the approximate range of the people-carrying capacity of most Dublin Bus vehicles.

And when I say unlikely about all motorists diverting into the one route, I mean to the point of it being next to impossible. No single route would take all of this extra traffic.

If motorists are not accessing the area around or before O’Connell Street, the detour around the restrictions should take place at Jervis Street and before it, such as the North Circular Road or Church Street. But that does not mean that there’s going to be huge amounts of extra traffic on these streets and roads.

Many of them are at or near capacity. What happens is that these roads or extra busy for a while, but the same effect of pushing people to use other modes happens again on these routes. It takes time for people to adjust so that’s why these kinds of traffic changes need weeks or even months to fully bed in.

Some should divert well before even the city centre. For example, if you’re going from the N4/M50 at around Liffey Valley Google and going to somewhere around the Point Village, Google Maps doesn’t even recommend using the quays for most of the day, even during the summer:

If motorists go as far as O’Connell Street, the detour is significant — because people really should be detouring before that point.

There are also very few changes on the south quays at O’Connell Bridge — most of the changes are already in place with the cycle path that’s been under construction for some time.

The changes on the north quays should push motorists to divert ahead of O’Connell Bridge.

I’d be a bit more worried that the right turn from the south quays, from Burgh Quay to O’Connell Bridge, might be more problematic for buses and trams on O’Connell Street. Depending on where somebody is going, it might not be much of a detour compared to the Bachelors Walk detour, which should encourage detouring earlier.

Being able to hold back traffic at the Burgh Quay turn to O’Connell Bridge may be key to not allowing the bridge and O’Connell Street from being clogged up.

As far as the already problematic area of Parnell Street to the west of O’Connell Street where Luas, most northbound buses and cars share space and valuable traffic light time.

Strangely, this section of Parnell Street was not named in the traffic plan. It needs bus priority measures and a redesign of Parnell Street in general. It has relatively narrow footpaths with high footfall and a lot of carriageway space that’s not really used much. It’s ripe for a redesign.

If all goes well, Dublin should be looking at a core area with far more lower-traffic areas, starting with the most central sections of the quays. But Dublin City Council should be looking at a wide set of streets to see what happens with changes in movement patterns and be ready to respond with further changes.

As though traffic is removed, actions might include avoiding extra access-only traffic to car parks filling the free-up space. This famously happened in Amsterdam with what was called the de Bijenkorf traffic jams — which was a line of traffic to a car park beside the department store with that name.

Cycling could play a part in providing motorists with an alternative mode of transport, but it will require more continuous segregated cycle routes for that to happen, and it looks like it won’t be happening on Day 1 to the level it’s needed.