"A virtuous cyclist, for one day only"

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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A great article by Colm Keena in Saturday's Irish Times

[FONT=&quot]A virtuous cyclist, for one day only[/FONT]

He travels to work one morning strictly obeying the rules of the road. It shows the problems cyclists face.

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A few metres farther along I am stopped again by bicycle lights, at North Wall Quay. The lights are green for traffic going in my direction. Another cyclist whizzes past, ignoring the red light.



I press the button for the pedestrian lights, unsure if it affects the bicycle lights. I wait.



A taxi drives through a red light. The lights change for the cars, allowing them go in various directions. I am joined by two other cyclists, who also wait. More than a minute has passed by now.



[FONT=&quot]A bus goes through a red light, hotly pursued by a small car. The lights change to green for pedestrians but stay red for bicycles. Then, after the pedestrians are told to stop, the cyclists are green to go. [/FONT]
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I have never understood these cycle lights. They are of no benefit to anyone. In fact, it's much quicker to get out of the cycle lane and join the road or else, to get off your bike and walk through when it's safe.
 
I did the same and gave up after a day. I presume you mean the canal psychopath. Forget it, use the canal psycho lane on the main road instead.
 
While I don't cycle around Dublin CC - I do ride a motorbike daily and always stop for Red lights, however there are a number of frustrations around the city for motorbikes also - eg Turn into Phoenix Park from North Circular Road (approaching from Phibsboro) - the filter light into the park never triggers for a motorbike - forcing you to break the red light to enter the park, unless a car comes up behind you to trigger the lights.

Sometime common sense has to be used !
 
Hi nai

If a motorbike doesn't trigger it, then a bicycle certainly won't.

I have reported these in the past to Dublin City Council and they adjust the sensitivity of the sensors so that they do see bikes.

As a matter of interest, do you ever drive in the bus lanes?

Brendan
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Hi nai

If a motorbike doesn't trigger it, then a bicycle certainly won't.

I have reported these in the past to Dublin City Council and they adjust the sensitivity of the sensors so that they do see bikes.

As a matter of interest, do you ever drive in the bus lanes?

Brendan
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There a a few lights that aren't triggered by bicycles around the city. It's either wait for a car, be stuck there or break the light.

The city council changed one of the cycling routes (happened to be mine) earlier this year. The changed the direction of a one-way cycleway to inbound rather than out. No notice, one friday I was going the right way, then on the Monday I was suddenly going the wrong way. The problem is the alternative routes mean a much more hazardous journey at peak times competing with buses and cars for space and at lights.

And some of those lights have the bicycle filter which can mean waiting two complete cycles of the lights and pedestrians and then going. But, the cycleway is on the opposite side of the road to the direction of traffic, so you should cross across traffic, cross at the cycleway, cycle, then cross back 200 yards ahead.

But I'm sure they put a lot of thought into it.

Anyway, that's the bug bears. I track all my cycles via iphone app, the data can be interesting (3 years worth at the moment), essentially those unlucky days when I get stopped at every traffic light adds an average 4 minutes to my journey. That's four minutes to a 10 mile cycle. No matter how frustrating it can be, it's nothing really and that's worst case scenario.
 
those unlucky days when I get stopped at every traffic light adds an average 4 minutes to my journey. That's four minutes to a 10 mile cycle. No matter how frustrating it can be, it's nothing really and that's worst case scenario.
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Hi LA

It's not just the additional 4 minutes.

The big problem with stopping and restarting a bicycle is that it takes up a huge amount of extra energy from the cyclist.

There was an interesting annual lecture to the DCC some years ago and he showed the energy use in various conditions. A hilly journey takes up an extra 30% of energy - of course it depends on the amount of hills. But starting and stopping takes up around 30% extra as well. The lecturer was trying to design cycle lanes which were continuous so that cyclists did not have to stop too often.

Brendan
 
The cycle lane system was not designed with the cyclist in mind;

For example;
Cycle lanes on footpaths
Cycle lanes that just end

Both of those pose hazards for cyclists. Cyclist are safer on the road-every body is going the same way and you dont have prams, joggers, walkers to avoid!
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Hi LA

It's not just the additional 4 minutes.

The big problem with stopping and restarting a bicycle is that it takes up a huge amount of extra energy from the cyclist.

There was an interesting annual lecture to the DCC some years ago and he showed the energy use in various conditions. A hilly journey takes up an extra 30% of energy - of course it depends on the amount of hills. But starting and stopping takes up around 30% extra as well. The lecturer was trying to design cycle lanes which were continuous so that cyclists did not have to stop too often.

Brendan
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I agree, but it's the same with cars too, hence the stop start nature of urban driving being a killer for mileage rates. It's 4 minutes extra on my journey to wait at every stop light and yes it brings down my average speed and I have to work a bit harder. The actual stopped time on my log for days when I have to stop at every light shows a maximum of two minutes, so the additional 2 minutes are lost time from slowing down to a stop and setting off again. Some days I'm lucky with lights other days I'm not.

Overall though it's not just bad planning for cyclists, it's bad planning and traffic management for ever road user. But just like we'd expect car drivers to suck it up and wait at the lights and suffer far greater inconvinience, delays, costs, etc, for a very minor inconvinience I think cyclists can observe the lights.

There are bad spots and silly spots that are annoying, but I find overall it's not that big a deal to let a few exceptions justify breaking red lights.

Interestingly, lights where out the other day on my journey home, a spot that is usually gridlocked with vehicles at peak time. No lights, no gridlock, traffic flowed perfectly for everyone. It's not a case of planners not considering cyclists, I think it's a case of planners not understanding traffic flow (or deliberately slowing it down).
 
Latrade said:
Interestingly, lights where out the other day on my journey home, a spot that is usually gridlocked with vehicles at peak time. No lights, no gridlock, traffic flowed perfectly for everyone.
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Obviously I wasn't there but I sincerely doubt that. Do you mean that every single arm of the junction was treated fairly and every type of road user was treated fairly? Because in my experience whe this happeneds, traffic on the busier road dominates (and flows well) which means cars of the quieter roads can't get out until there's a break. Cyclists will find it extremely difficult to turn right and pedestrians stuggle to cross the road because motorists are a) generally unwilling to stop for pedestrians and b) even less willing when the lights are out and there's a chance they might lose control of the junction and be unable to get moving again.

And then there's the upstream affects. If one direction of travel dominates the junction, it can cause a surge of traffic upstream which can cause delays elsewhere.

People are always quick to cast aspertions on traffic engineers but they rarely see the bigger picture or care about anyone but themselves.
 
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