Proper two way cycle lane to be built on Dublin quays


Just to point out Andrew Montague is a Labour Party member, not a green.
 
what makes Dublin so special ? Other EU cities manage this and the recent article in the Irish Times pointed out the success stories of cities like Copenhagen where the bike is so popular that its a victim of its own success. And Copenhagen has a good public transport system also...

Slightly off-topic, this is Bikeweek. An Bord Taisce in conjunction with schools are giving bike training to encourage cycling.

I recently got my bike out of the shed and fixed it. Feel better for it !
 
This is a stupid idea.

Simply put, we have limited roads available to those who genuinely need them for private motor transport.

The city is built in such a way that it cannot really accomodate more roads or wider roads and until such time as the Government successfully arranges good alternative public transport to remove the need for motor cars to be brought into the city at the current levels, we will only make matters worse.

Bring in decent public transportation, invest in infrastructure first (via PPP schemes if the Government doesn't have the money) .... then reduce the amount of road space available to motorists.

Road space is a comody and needs to be used to maximum advantage for the benifit of the population and our economy - not permitted to be toyed with by a dreamer ....
 
I'm not so sure about the 'little or no public transport' thing. Are there many people in the commuter belt who aren't within striking distance of a Bus Eireann stop or a train station?

Yes, that's a huge issue. I read that there are more secondary school girls driving themselves to school than cycling to school. Is it any wonder we're heading for an obesity epidemic?

Part of what makes Dublin special is our obsession with the 3-bed semi with garden as the only option for a family. Other cities really don't support this. We need better sized apartments and duplexes, with better facilities for families, including storage space for buggies and bikes. I despair when I go into apartment developments that now have lots of families with kids who expected to have upgraded to their 3-bed semi by now, but are trapped by negative equity, and I see 'no ball playing' signs on the green areas.
PyritePete said:
I recently got my bike out of the shed and fixed it. Feel better for it !
Click to expand...
Woohoo, perfect weather for it too.
 
RainyDay said:
I'm not so sure about the 'little or no public transport' thing. Are there many people in the commuter belt who aren't within striking distance of a Bus Eireann stop or a train station?
Click to expand...
I live in the suburbs of Dublin and work on the suburbs on the other side of the city. It’s 10Km. The www.hittheroad.ie route planner gives me a time of 1 hour and 4 minutes. I can drive in 25 minutes and cycle in 30-35. I need my car straight after work 3 days a week so cycling is out of the question on those days. Therefore public transport is not an option for me most of the time. I don’t think I’m unusual in that regard.


RainyDay said:
Yes, that's a huge issue. I read that there are more secondary school girls driving themselves to school than cycling to school. Is it any wonder we're heading for an obesity epidemic?
Click to expand...
That is an issue but bad urban planning means that kids have to travel further.


Do you live in a house in the leafy South Dublin suburbs or do you live in an apartment or duplex?
 

Where they live doesn't matter it's that the choice of builders (and planners) is that the type of apartment built to date in Dublin are not family-friendly, if they were built to a more mainland European style then we wouldn't have as much traffic on the roads.
 
I have to go from one side of the city to the other. That involves crossing the river so yes, I have to go near the quays.
The alternative, for the days I don't cycle, is to use the M50. Nearly 3 times the distance.

My point is that it's easy for people living in the leafy suburbs to tell other people they should live in apartments, family friendly or not.
 

Is it not a case of you chose to?

I'm not talking semantics here but at essence there were choices involved in your job and your home, no?
 
dereko1969 said:
Is it not a case of you chose to?

I'm not talking semantics here but at essence there were choices involved in your job and your home, no?
Click to expand...

In theory I could stay at home and not work at all so I would never clog up the public roads but in practice, given my skills and work history no, I don't choose to, I have to.
 
Purple said:
In theory I could stay at home and not work at all so I would never clog up the public roads but in practice, given my skills and work history no, I don't choose to, I have to.
Click to expand...

I think you're deliberately mis-interpreting what I stated. Was that the only place you could live or work? No, so choices were made. The choice of "needing" the car after work 3 times a week is also a choice.

For the city to work, given the finite space (and funding) for transporting those people to work and education and socialising, there needs to be choices made regarding what is the most efficient use of that space. Encouraging cycling and public transport by reducing the space available to cars that, in the main, travel short distances and carry only 1 person is the choice proposed by the Council and voted upon by all these Councillors who conveniently seem to have forgotten it's in the Development plan!
 
MrEarl said:
Road space is a comody and needs to be used to maximum advantage for the benifit of the population and our economy - not permitted to be toyed with by a dreamer ....
Click to expand...

You're right - roads are a commodity. The way to make a road carry the most people is definitely not by car. Approximately 65% of vehicles in the city centre are cars but they're carrying less than 35% of the people. If you want to carry more people, the statistics prove that you wouldn't do it by car.
 

Hi,

So what do you suggest, given:

- many people commute to the city from locations where there is not satisfactory public transport

- cycling may not be an option due to such things as safety, distance, necesary dress code (for work, school etc)

In the short term, while trying to roll out longer term infrastructural projects to help deal with the lack of decent public transport would you agree to allowing cars use bus lanes if they had say three or more people in them for example ?
 

I'm only in favour of HOV lanes with heavy enforcement. Since that never happens here, I'd be totally against it. And even then, I'd never countenance converting a bus lane into a HOV lane because the relative carrying capacity of a fully laden car doesn't even come close to approaching that of a bus. If you want to maximise the use of urban roads, HOV lanes aren't it.

People in Ireland want it both ways. They don't want to spend money on building public transport infrastructure (Luas). They don't want to spend money subsidising public transport (DB, Dart subsidy). They don't want to see cycling facilities being built even if someone else is paying for them (Dublin Bikes). They don't want to convert road lanes into cycling or bus lanes. They don't want to see turning or road restrictions which helps public transport work (SSG reorganisation, O'Connell st restrictions, College Green Bus gate, Memorial Bridge turning restriction, north quays bus lane to the Point). They don't want to see low urban speed limits which would make it safer to cycle. They don't want to live in apartments, they want a semi-d and garden. Some of them don't want to live in towns or cities even though they know that's where they'll end up working because they're not farmers.

And then they complain that they have no choice but to drive because public transport is poor or cycling is unsafe.
 

Right on the button.
 
RainyDay said:
Can I ask for the basis of your conclusion that there is little data and no discourse? Have you engaged with the Council on this? Have you reviewed discussions at relevant Council committees? Have you participated in public consultations?
Click to expand...

Sure, and am well open to correction.

1. www.dublincitycycling.ie is the city council's official cycling website and it contains no policy data that I could locate
2. the official city council website returns no data on the genesis of the proposed policy
3. the city development plan repeatedly mentions different forms of transport (cycling being but one) and it espouses a policy vision BUT it does not provide the DATA to explain why that vision is a) the best one and b) the consequences of implementation
4. where the council's policy on cycling is mentioned its only support is by way of reference to the government's sustainability strategy
5. I have examined the minutes of council meetings for the last 2 years and they contain no debate of any significance with any factual data.

So, my opinion, is that the policy data is sparse and the policy debate is negligible. I should hasten to add that this does not make the decisions wrong, just ill-conceived.

Perhaps RainyDay you have some data sources which you could share on the topic?
 

Perhaps I can shortcut the debate with a different contribution to the one I made originally on Friday.

I'm really not sure that you're looking in the right places. If you'd like to indicate what data you had in mind, I might be able to help dig it out. I guess that traffic volumes on the quays at present would be included. What else did you have in mind?

However, it does look to like to me that you've attacked the Council unfairly. For example, prior discussion of this initiative is more likely to have been at the Transport SPC than at the full Council council meeting, but you seem to have assumed that there was no prior discussion.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register