Dublin Bus cuts the 172 route
I LEARNED today that my bus route to work is ceasing completely on Sunday. Brilliant. Aside from the reasons I’ll go into shortly it is completely ludicrous to cut public transport. According to the powers that be no one took the bus. Well as a daily user of the route that is nonsense. Fair enough that isn’t a busy route, but it is busy in the mornings.
Aside from that it is a route that goes down Oxmantown Road and invaluable to many of the elderly residents that live in the area. Course I suppose their voice doesn’t matter as they will hold bus passes and generating no income.
I understand it is a quiet route for most of the day but what was stopping Dublin Bus from scheduling a morning service and maybe one or two during the day so the older people in my community can get their pensions and shopping.
It is a service that more could have been made of, such as actually advertising where the bus is going. In the 18 months I have lived here I have never once seen the bus properly labelled (is that right) as to its destination, other than Dunard. I don’t even know where Dunard is, but it is the start of the route as it goes into town. So many people let the bus go by as it doesn’t say it is going into town.
It’s also really annoying that we the customers were given two days notice, nice. While this has been mooted and I did, as I said earlier, hear reports that Dublin Bus were adamant that the 172 had no passengers and would go, know it was probably inevitable, still I am peeved. Nevermind the fact that as a daily user of this route it is not empty, far from it unless you count a full bottom deck and some people on the top deck as empty.
Even more annoying, even though the route doesn’t stop until Sunday, the timetable is no longer available on their website, you are redirected to one of the Blanchardstown routes.
Maybe the answer is to get a car, yaeh, get more people off public transport and into cars.
Sorry I doubled up on my 365 but there you go, or there goes my bus.
April 27th, 2009 at 5:38 am
You make lots of good points here. It’s very frustrating that Dublin Bus are cutting people in your area off cold, leaving them with no good public transit solution.
My friend is experiencing a similar situation in a suburb of Toronto. They changed the bus route so now it no longer goes by her area, leaving her a 30 minute walk to the next nearest route.
Between the environmental concerns and the current economic crisis you’d think these crucial services would go the extra mile to come up with innovative solutions. But no…
April 27th, 2009 at 9:50 am
This is what your local councillors are supposed to be for! I’ve had three of them at my door this weekend as elections are looming. Collar a few of them and get them to look into it. The squeeky wheel gets the grease – so if you feel strongly about it – kick up about it!
April 27th, 2009 at 10:01 am
@CK it is something that seems to be happening a lot everywhere, but I still feel its false economies really.
@Sinead I have written to Dublin Bus as well as my local reps. There’s an online petition too (http://www.petitiononline.com/172bus/petition.html) . Dublin Bus was adamant that no one uses the route, which they do. As I said the bus was busy during peak rush hours. Where I live is just one of many areas hit, and in other areas the same concerns would be raised, ie older people left with no service.
April 28th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
You in Stoneybatter?
Ah, many’s the good time I had waiting outside Maureen’s shop for the 172. Not.
Many’s the heartbreaking, soul-destroying aeons spent slumped in the rain waiting for this rare sighted beast, more like.
Now I live on the southside, and I get to wait for equally unreliable buses instead.
Wait, no I don’t. I did what everyone else in Dublin did who could, and got a car.
Silly Dublin Bus.
April 29th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Private bus services are needed.
April 29th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
If Dublin Bus didn’t receive all the Government hand outs they would have been gone years ago.
Perhas they should have been let go to the wall. We would have something better by now !
May 10th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
I live in Fairfax county, Virginia, USA. My local bus routes are being cut about 25%.
This is absurd, we have money to send soldiers to Afghanistan and all around the world, but I guess not for local bus routes!