RTE report:

A Dublin Bus driver was severely assaulted and the bus he was driving hijacked before a passenger took control of the vehicle in the Liberties area last night.

The driver has been treated for broken bones in his hand and severe bruising.

A man has been arrested.

John McGrane of the National Bus and Rail Union has called for action to be taken against attacks on buses and drivers.

There were about 15 passengers on board when the bus was hijacked between 9.30pm-10pm last night.

Earlier two passengers, a man and a woman, were involved in an altercation with the driver.

When he stopped to contact gardaí he was pulled from the bus and beaten.

The bus was then driven down Cork Street in south inner city before being stopped by a passenger who took control of the wheel.

Gardaí arrested the man driving the bus and he is being questioned in Kevin Street Garda Station.

The driver has since been released from hospital after being treated for two broken bones in his hand and severe bruising. He is said to be badly shaken by the incident.

Mr McGrane told RTÉ that attacks on buses have increased in frequency. He said that in parts of West Tallaght services have been curtailed due to thirty such attacks taking place.

A spokeswoman for Dublin Bus said that the company is co-operating fully with gardaí in their investigations and expressed concern for the welfare of the driver.

RTE reports:

A private bus company has begun High Court proceedings against the Minister for Transport over what it says was a decision allowing unfair competition.

Swords Express claims the Dept of Transport allowed Dublin Bus to change its route to compete with the private service.

The private bus company claims it is being put out of business because of the decision, which affects a route from Swords to the city centre using the Port Tunnel.

The company is seeking a judicial review in the High Court in which it will say it cannot compete with a State-subsidised service, and will ask the High Court to quash the decision.

The company will claim the decision to allow Dublin Bus to change its route was irrational and unreasonable and that the public interest was not considered.

It will also say that Dublin Bus and a public representative who lobbied on its behalf were told the application to change the route would be successful before the decision was made.

Frank Callinan SC told the High Court that the matter was of some commercial urgency, as Swords Express was being put out of business.

The case has been adjourned until September.

While the plans to establish the Dublin Transport Authority move along at a pace akin to a Dublin bus, it’s predecessor, the DTO, is busy making noise.

We wouldn’t dare suggest that the people running the DTO are after top jobs in the new authority, but some of the things coming from them of late are a tad avent-garde, to say the very least.

It’s not just the street signs that, current DTO chief, John Henry is proposing to remove, but also the footpaths and all road markings. There’s no mention in the interview if this includes bus stops or even bus lanes, of which there are not enough as it stands.

Another idea being floated yet again and presented as new is to allow trams priority at traffic lights. That sounds very nice for tram users, but what about the buses? Dublin Bus carry far more passengers than the Luas system ever will, why not give our buses priority at the lights? In fact, what not let our buses share road space with the trams?

The Irish Times’ Frank McDonald reports:

TAKE A street in Dublin. Eliminate the footpaths. Get rid of all the “clutter” – traffic lights, direction signs, pedestrian crossings and guard rails, then see what happens.

That’s the experiment John Henry, director of the Dublin Transportation Office, wants to try out in the centre of the city.

“Without any signs, traffic will automatically slow down and there will be fewer accidents because drivers will take more care,” he said confidently.

“The environment is what controls speed, not signs or rules. It’s psychological. Signs like ‘slow’, ‘stop’ and ‘yield’ are often not seen by drivers. If you take the signs and kerb lines away, and say ‘go figure it out yourselves’, you’re creating uncertainty – and that’s safer.”

Evidence from abroad, rather surprisingly, supports Mr Henry’s novel proposal. Five years ago, the Dutch town of Drachten removed signs and traffic lights as part of a “naked streets” experiment – and accident figures plummeted as drivers became more cautious.

The idea of “going Dutch” was taken up by Daniel Moylan, deputy leader of the Tory-controlled London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

Mr Moylan said it was “about re-civilising the city, to the benefit of all people who use the roads. We want to stop this top-down system of signs and signals to keep drivers and other road users apart, and give everyone back a sense of shared ownership and responsibility.”

And that’s what was done in Kensington High Street three years ago.

Following the removal of pedestrian crossings and guard rails – those sheep-pen railings so favoured by traffic engineers to keep pedestrians corralled – accidents have been cut by 44 per cent, compared to 17 per cent for London as a whole.

Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins noted how: “Drivers undirected by signs, kerbs or road markings are faced with confusion and ambiguity. Since they do not want to cause accidents at junctions, or damage their cars, they reduce their speed and establish eye contact with other users.”

Meanwhile, Mr Henry says several minutes could be shaved off Luas journey times if traffic lights were tweaked to give trams priority.

In an interview with The Irish Times, Mr Henry said there was no reason why the computer-controlled traffic lights could not be altered to detect the approach of a tram.

“If a Sandyford tram carrying a full capacity load of 200 passengers is held up by 90 seconds at, say, Hatch Street and Cuffe Street, that equates to a delay of five person hours. So what’s needed is a ‘hurry call’ on the traffic lights at these junctions.”

Mr Henry said the DTO favoured “optimising the movement of people, rather than vehicles” and believed that the same rule should apply at pedestrian crossings, where people often have to wait for four minutes or more to cross a street legally.

Repeated reviews and constant consultations have halted progress and stifled innovation in our transport network, writes Tim O’Brien

ON MONDAY May 12th, the Department of Transport announced the end of public consultation on its sustainable Travel and Transport Action Plan. On Monday May 19th, the Minister, Noel Dempsey, announced the start of a period of public consultation on the Future of Transport in Dublin.

In the week between, the Dublin Transportation Office (DTO) called for the public to engage in consultation on its new Transport Strategy for the Greater Dublin Area (Dublin, Kildare, Meath and Wicklow) for the period up to 2030.

The new DTO strategy will replace the DTO Platform for Change 2000-2016. The Platform for Change is similar, but not the same, as the Dublin elements in yet another policy document: Transport 21.

Confused? Well you ought to be. The State’s policy in relation to air and sea ports, road and rail plans, even road safety strategies and the encompassing legislative framework is, and has been for a decade, beset by review and counter review.

The National Roads Authority (NRA) is proceeding with the 1999 plan to link Dublin to regional cities and the Border by motorways or high quality dual carriageways, having reviewed the 1998 Roads Needs Study. It subsequently reviewed both the cost and timescale of the plan.

A controversy over the maximum height of lorries on Irish roads led to former taoiseach Bertie Ahern announcing in 2006 that the maximum height of lorries using the Dublin Port Tunnel would be 4.65 metres and any lorries higher than that should be “turned back” in the port. This is currently under review by the North South body InterTrade Ireland, which recently recommended a standard maximum height North and South of 4.95 metres.

The NRA also reviewed the use of 2+1 lane roads and decided they should be replaced by 2+2 roads. It also reviewed the dropping of plans for the Eastern Bypass which it says should again be Government policy.

Dublin Port itself was subject of a review by the Progressive Democrats, whose former leader and tánaiste Michael McDowell called for the Government to relocate the port to north County Dublin and build “Manhattan” in the docklands. Plans to relocate the port or reclaim additional land in Dublin Bay are currently under review by Government, although both are said to be progressing.

Séamus Brennan’s 2003 plan to set up Cork and Shannon airports as independent entities free from debt was reviewed by the Government and the plan is now that they should be partially free from debt.

The Strategic Rail Review was published by Brennan in 2003 and this found against the reopening of the Western Rail Corridor and the Dublin to Navan line. This was reviewed by the Government in 2005 and both schemes are now policy. Mary O’Rourke “reviewed” the plan to have a Luas link in Dublin City Centre, and this review was subsequently reviewed. We now know that there will be a link but we don’t know exactly when.

The plan to ban private cars from Dublin City Centre in 2010, in time for the construction of Metro, was “reviewed” by the Oireachtas Committee on Transport. Committee chairman Frank Fahy proposed in a draft report that this be brought forward to 2009. But, following prompting from his committee members and the City Business Association, this plan is under review.

In road safety terms, a plan to roll out speed cameras across the State was first mooted in 1987, by Dempsey and Bertie Ahern. It was never actually reviewed, but it has not happened either. Nor has the plan to reduce the acceptable level of alcohol in drivers’ blood.

In legislative terms we have had the 2007 Roads Act, the 2008 Dublin Transport Authority Bill, and the soon-to-be launched review of the 1932 Transport Act.

And we haven’t even started on the M50!

The Irish Times [subs required] reports:

A man has secured €143,000 damages from the High Court after he had to have five toes amputated when a bus drove over his foot.

The action by Sean Horan (58), unemployed, McClean’s Court, The Coombe, Dublin, was against Dublin Bus arising out of the incident at Usher’s Quay, Dublin, on December 18th, 2003 as he was attempting to board a double decker bus.

Dublin Bus had denied negligence and also pleaded that Mr Horan had failed to remain in the designated bus queue.

Today, Mr Justice John Quirke ruled Dublin Bus was 65 per cent liable for the incident and Mr Horan was 35 per cent liable In light of those findings, he reduced the damages from €220,000 to €143,000.

Mr Horan had denied he was drunk at the time of the incident and said he had drank three cans of beer that day. He told the court he was with a number of people in the queue when he saw the door of the bus open and close.

He claimed that, when the bus moved off, he had attempted to wave it down with his hand and, when the bus driver did not see him, he had stepped out onto the roadway where the accident occurred.

Mr Justice Quirke said he was satisfied that the consumption of alcohol was not a primary cause of the accident and that the bus driver was in breach of duty to the plaintiff in failing to keep a proper look out.

The court was told Mr Horan is likely to be left with a limp and permanent stiffness of the shoulder.

A blind man has been awarded €3,000 for suffering discrimination when a driver remarked “your wife is no use to you now” as he struggled to board a Dublin bus in his wheelchair.

Neill King said the driver made the comment after his wife got on the bus to ask people with a buggy if they would mind folding it up to make room for him.

The Equality Tribunal found that Dublin Bus was liable for the behaviour of the driver and its measures to train him in dealing with disabled customers were not enough “to prevent him from acting in a discriminatory manner”.

Mr King told the tribunal he had gone to the local bus stop to catch a bus to the city centre with his wife.

When a bus arrived, he said the driver told them they would have to wait for the next bus as he had a buggy on board.

However, Mr King’s wife had already boarded the bus and asked the people who owned the buggy if they would fold it.

When the buggy owners obliged, the driver lowered the wheelchair ramp. But as Mr King was boarding, his wheelchair began to tip over and the driver said “your wife is no use to you now, is she?”

He admitted he swore at the driver when they got into an argument after this.

Mr King later submitted a written complaint to Dublin Bus about he incident, which took place on March 29, 2003.

However, less than two months later on May 17, Mr King and his wife were approaching the same bus stop when he said the same driver pulled up and shouted at them:

“Do you remember me? I hope you have learned your lesson after your behaviour the last time.”

:

A 61-year-old woman died in yesterday’s incident, when a bus was driven at speed on the Naas road dual carriageway and in the LUAS tramway. More than a dozen people were injured in the incident. The bus had been taken from the Dualway Coach depot in Rathcoole, south county Dublin.

Gardaí fired shots at three separate locations in an attempt to stop the bus, while a number of vehicles, including garda patrol cars, were rammed.

In a statement, a spokesman for Dualway Coaches expressed sympathy for the dead woman’s family.

The Metro has been abandoned, the Luas delayed, and extensions to the project cancelled. CIE is to be scrapped, rail lines are being closed, bus services are being axed due to underfunding, other bus services are being privatised, integrated smart-card style ticketing plans (which were due to be in use by Autumn 2002) have been shelved, Dublin Bus are not allowed to decide on it’s own fares and the price of diesel fuel, which the buses and trains run on, went up 2¢ per litre in the budget.

Meanwhile, the government is committed to lower the cost of car insurance, they have halted plans to take provisional licensees off the roads, they are forcing through all their road building plans, the port tunnel is on schedule, toll bridges and roads are going up all over the place, and the price of petrol did not go up at the budget.

Is it just us, or did the car lobby successfully stage a coup d’éta last June?

Last January it was a different story, as reported on BUSRAGE, the government gave the go-ahead to the Metro project, with twelve to fourteen kilometres of the seventy kilometre rail system set to be underground, with lines running from the Dublin Airport to Bray, and from the City Centre to Blanchardstown. The Luas was meant to be upgraded to Metro status along the way.

All of this was due to be completed by 2007. It seems now that this plan was announced, like so many of this government’s ‘plans’, as a cynical pre-election stunt with no prospect of delivery. The Metro is no more, just another faded dream down at the Dublin Transportation Office (DTO). The DTO have been pushing for a metro system since their development plan at the start of 2000, the government only adopted it, it seems, as a temporary measure to beef up their public service credentials. Meanwhile, the Luas is delayed. Although the Minister denies this is as a result of cuts, he isn’t forthcoming with an alternate reason .

Now, here’s a quick question, who do you think said this:

“In most other countries a lot more people use public transport systems than do here, and I am anxious to get more people on public transport, to grow the market, give people choice…I believe that will provide more choice, more services and therefore the public will have a better service. And if the public have a better service they will use public transport a lot more.”

Yes, you’ve guessed it, it was Minister Seamus “Golden Gate” Brennan gushing over his plans for Irish public transport. Leaving aside the obvious point that in other countries public transport receives, quite rightly, a decent state subvention, let’s look at these plans.

Such as they are they seem to be in fact government cuts disguised as innovations, a neat trick if you can get away with it. That isn’t to say the changes being put in place by the Minister are simply money saving initiatives. No, they are much more than that. For better or for worse, these are some of the biggest changes to the public transport sector since the foundation of the State.

For starters, CIE is to be wound up, with Irish Rail, Bus Eireann, Dublin Bus and, presumably, CIE Tours International to become separate companies. They are, strangely, expected to be competing with each other. This is a popular idea with the PDs and people such as the Competition Authority, who would like to see the plans go further, with the splitting up of Bus Eireann in to its urban, long-distance and rural parts. Do we really need a handful of bus companies chasing the same passengers on plum provincial routes, while people in unprofitable areas are without a bus route because it isn’t worth the private sector’s while to provide a service?

Dublin faces a similar problem, with the Minister expecting that by the end of 2004, 25% of public bus routes in Dublin will be ‘franchised’, i.e. serviced by private companies. Considering that the one company currently serving the city does not turn a profit, is this really a sensible idea?

Aren’t the private companies simply going to chase the business along roads like the N11, which is already adequately served by a bus service? Can anybody see a private company sending it’s buses up to somewhere like, for instance, Neilstown or Jobstown every day? Didn’t think so. It seems that this is all really an excuse for a few private bus companies to start making money in a few choice parts of the city where, under current regulations, they are not permitted to operate.

As it is, if a route is serviced by Dublin bus, a private operator is not able to run the same route. Under the new proposals this will, by and large, remain the case. It boggles the mind, but the linchpin of the entire privatisation scheme for Dublin is the idea that it will “give people choice”, nobody seems to have noticed, but under Brennan’s scheme, private companies will operate their routes under a monopoly basis, not unlike the current situation. The only difference is that if Company X doesn’t turn up at your stop one morning, there’s no Minister to complain to, or Dail committee to come to the rescue, zilch, nada, nothing. If a private company lets you down it is simply that, a private company, with nobody to answer to except it’s shareholders. And we don’t need to look far for an example of public transport privatisation gone wrong, do we folks…anyone ever hear of “Railtrack” ?

Speaking of rail, the Minister has been doing nothing to help Iarnród Eireann through all of this. No sooner had they confirmed a €25m deficit then closures of rail links in the South East of the country were being hinted at. If the government had done more to help promote and foster the rail fright industry instead of, once again, pandering to the road lobby, Irish Rail may not be in this mess at all. As it is, the Western Corridor railway, another NDP scheme, looks likely to fall on it’s sword, with the removal of certain sections of track by the company. Local politicians pleaded with the Minister, but to no avail, for a Minister who likes to intervene an awful lot he remained strangely silent, while Irish Rail bleated on about how they could “put them back if necessary”. Some chance.

So what else has gone wrong? Anybody remember integrated ticketing? It was announced by Dublin Bus back in December 2000, they planned to have it up and running by the end of 2002. Well, it’s the end of 2002, and we don’t see them selling these tickets, do you? How does the Minister respond to this? How any politician responds, by announcing the same scheme all over again. The Minister says we will have an integrated ticketing scheme by 2004, although smart-cards are totally off the agenda, there are no plans for them at all now, long term or otherwise, and the Department won’t even comment on the issue! Who would like to wager he’ll be announcing the same scheme in a couple of years, to come into operation by 2006?

Understandably the unions are not happy about any of these plans, Liam Berney of ICTU has gone on record saying the plans caused grave concern.

“It is our belief from our experience that the franchising of public transport in other European cities has been an unmitigated disaster,” he said. Berney has gone on record as saying ICTU were not prepared to jeopardise a service which its members had been running successfully for years.

Spokesman Liam Tobin, also of ICTU, has come out stronger, saying “If he goes ahead with that, well then we are in for a future of industrial strikes, there is no doubt about that. We will not sit back idly and allow it to happen.”

Meanwhile Tony Tobin, the railway division secretary of SIPTU, says that the Minister faces “war” if he tries to implement his plans without first reaching agreement with staff representatives. He says public transport in Britain has “collapsed” because of privatisation and unnecessary competition. “We will not lie down in front of Mr Brennan. He may have succeeded in removing some traffic signs in Dublin but he will not bulldoze us out of the way.”

Ah yes, with “Golden Gate” Brennan at the helm, the many new motorists on our roads will not be impeded by annoying things like traffic signs or even buses. Public Transport run like a Public Service? You’ve a better chance of some cigars and brandy than getting that this Christmas.

Campbell maintains that the broadcasting of AA Roadwatch is in breach of the Broadcasting Act. Firstly, AA Roadwatch is part of the current affairs output of RTE and must present a balanced view of the news. It does not do this, of course, but presents things like car accidents, as it says on Campbells website, “..not by the severity of the injuries, but by the severity of the delays..”

Secondly, the AA is a motorist lobby group, and it being given airtime without equal airtime being given to groups who lobby for better public transport, such as BUSRAGE, or who lobby for cyclists, such as the Dublin Cycling Campaign (DCC).
This is a clear breach of the act.

Thirdly, Campbell maintains, by reporting things like street demonstrations or strikes in a fashion which simply gauges their impact on the use of the road by motorists is biased, once again a breach of the act.

A large volume of correspondence was entered into between Campbell, RTE & The BCC (see below), with the AA even sticking their oar in, even thought action was never taken against them specifically and they were not in breach of the Act, since they are not the licensed broadcaster.

After many letters and rebuttals, the BCC decided that RTE was not in breach of the act. However Campbell felt that the BCC didn’t consider the matter fully, as their decision failed to address many of the points raised during the course of correspondence. The application to the High Court for judicial review was unsuccessful, and Campbell is now appealing to the Supreme Court.

At the risk of appearing as biased as AA Roadwatch is, we must say that we at BUSRAGE support Campbell fully in his fight to make the airways balanced. We aren’t interested in seeing the AA’s slot taken off the air, but would like to see it complemented by broadcasts, of similar duration and at similar times, by groups lobbying for cyclists and public transport users.

You may view all the correspondence between Mr. Campbell, RTE and the BCC at his website,
here.

DB plans to increase the size of the fleet by 500 buses to bring it’s size to 1,500 buses, operating out of existing and new depots, including the new depot at Broadstone (which cost over €7 million) and planned one at Harristown, near the M50 (to cost over €50 million). DB also plan to integrate their communications system, about time, we say. Anything would be better than the current situation, where if an inspector from one garage wants to talk to a driver from another garage, he has to phone that garage to have a message sent to him! This is clearly insane, and can lead to a total breakdown in communication between inspectors and drivers and ultimately contributes to some of the distrust they hold for each other.

There are even plans for “real-time information displays” at each stop, similar to the Dart system. This has been tested in the Lucan area and will be extended to the QBCs for Ballyfermot and Clondalkin this year. Unbelievably, DB plan on having it in service across all routes by 2004 or 2005. Call me cynical, but do they expect to have less routes to worry about by then, or have they invented a new type of display that can’t be smashed in by drunken yobs?

The number of QBCs is to increase, but of course that is to be expected. It isn’t a new proposal, but another reannouncement of old news. What is new is the improvement in journey times across the city,
with the new restrictions in place at the junctions of Dawson St & Nassau St and South Great George’s
St & Dame St. When Dublin Corporation finally pull the finger out, and sort out O’Connell Street, there should be quicker journey times into the city from the Northside. If only the Corporation would take more of an interest in Public Transport and spend less time actually building needles an O’Connell St., but that’s another story.

There are some worrying plans to ‘reorganise’ the ticketing system to reduce
the number and variety of ticket options. It’s bad enough that they got rid of 10 journey tickets, what else have they got in mind for us? I dread to think. While the Rambler tickers are, of course, useful for people who use the bus every day, and know they are going to be using it on 5 or 7 consecutive days, they are of no use to irregular bus users, who can be put off by the need for exact change every time they board.

BUSRAGE calls for the re-introduction of 10 journey tickets. They would be a valuable aid to getting people out of their cars and onto the bus.

The ticketing arrangement will change yet again, of course, at the end of 2002 (they announced this last December), as DB plan to roll out the new smart-card system. This will link up with the Luas and Dart ticket systems. If the tickets are genuinely ‘smart’ this could actually be a useful development.

BUSRAGE applauds any improvements which Dublin Bus, Dublin Corporation and the Government make to the plight of Dublin’s commuters. However, we smell a rat when these plans are announced with barely any mention of the topic of privatisation or the proposals to contract out and sell many routes. Dublin Bus employees are telling us privately that they are up in arms about some of these plans, and that industrial action may be in the cards over the next year.

We hope it doesn’t come to that, and that whatever happens Dublin Bus is retained in a form where it can, first and foremost, perform it’s public service duties on all it’s routes, from the likes of the profitable 46a all the way
to it’s poor cousin, the 75. Unfortunately, if the plans for the modernization of DBs infrastructure go the way of so many others we could be in for another few years of standing in the pissing rain waiting for our ride home.