Proper two way cycle lane to be built on Dublin quays

Brendan Burgess

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New Quays cycle lane to lead to restrictions for Dublin motorists

 
I cycle more now than I have in 20 years but I think this is a stupid idea. Dublin isn't just for the people that live in it, it's the capital city and lots of people visit by car and train and this will make slow journeys even slower. Then there's the people who need to travel by car due to physical ability, dropping or collecting children before or after work or the people who have to commute long distances each day where public transport is not a viable option. The idea that these people could or would start cycling is silly.
 
Stated goal is to increase percentage of commuters who cycle from 4% to 10% by 2020, so I don't think they're suggesting everyone starts cycling. It's no secret the council want to eliminate as much private traffic from the city centre as possible to make public transport more efficient/attractive.

I've never cycled the quays myself, and from driving it, I wouldn't fancy it at all in its current configuration. I'd imagine this change will back up the entire city when there are big events in the point, Croker, etc.
 
It's a silly idea.

Irish weather isn't conducive to cycling into work on a regular basis. And then there is that most work places don't have showering facilities for people to clean themselves once they arrive in work.

If you want to reduce the number of private cars going into the city every day, give a real alternative i.e. public transport. Cycling in the rain/ wind/ cold is not an alternative.

People will not give up their cars and buy a bike instead. They will sit in even worse traffic because they have no alternative.

It's a silly idea that is more personal aspiration than logical.

Steven
www.bluewaterfp.ie
 

By how much will the proposed change reduce the car capacity along the quays? I'm sure it will be more than 6%.
 
SBarrett said:
Irish weather isn't conducive to cycling into work on a regular basis. And then there is that most work places don't have showering facilities for people to clean themselves once they arrive in work.
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Sorry, but this is nonsense. Irish weather is remarkably similar to Dutch weather and Danish weather, where large numbers of people cycle all the time, wearing ordinary clothes - no hi-vis and no helmets. If it rains, wear raingear, or get wet and change your clothes at your destination.

And lots of larger buildings do have showering facilities. Smart councils like Fingal have insisted on this as a planning condition for all new developments for years now.

What really needs to change is car-centric attitudes, like the attitude of the Irish Times sub-editor who wrote the headine.

On the overall idea, I'd reserve judgement until I see more details of the design and how it might work. Is it a segregated lane, like the one at the Grand Canal? How will the junctions be managed? How will they keep pedestrians off the lane?

It's worth remembering all the naysayers who told us that the Dublin Bikes scheme will never work and all the bikes will be at the bottom of the Liffey in a week. The Dublin Bikes scheme now has one of the highest usage rates of similar schemes worldwide.
 
I don't work in the city centre but when this goes ahead I won't bother shopping there either.Is this what Owen Keegan (and more importantly the shopkeepers)want?
 
As it stands the quays are a disaster for vehicular traffic, except late at night. A balance needs to be struck and cyclists need to be both protected and encouraged. However, this is, as it stands, another example of poor policymaking: there is little data to support the achievement of the policy objectives and there is no discourse of either the risks inherent to the proposal nor of potential alternatives to achieve the objectives...typical of Irish policymaking.
 
SBarrett said:
Irish weather isn't conducive to cycling into work on a regular basis.
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This I take issue with, compared to Sligo, Limerick, Galway, there is practically zero rain in Dublin, and as for wind, have you cycled in an Atlantic gale, I used to daily. And Dublin is, flat, as compared to Cork.

They even have a particularly kind of rain in the West, I call it horizontal, you won't see umbrellas in Galway on a wet and windy day, of which there are very many.
 
I was going to disagree with you about the Dutch and Danish weather but I checked and Amsterdam gets more days of rain than Dublin, though Dublin gets more in the summer. I also agree about wearing the correct clothing.

RainyDay said:
And lots of larger buildings do have showering facilities. Smart councils like Fingal have insisted on this as a planning condition for all new developments for years now.
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That’s ok for the upper middleclass employee in a service job in the city centre but many of us work in older buildings and factories and showering is not an option. I’ve very little hair and being a man I don’t wear makeup (in public anyway ) so I don’t have to spend much time “getting ready” in the morning but for many women looking professional after cycling to work would be a challenge.

RainyDay said:
What really needs to change is car-centric attitudes, like the attitude of the Irish Times sub-editor who wrote the headine.
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I think people need to be less emotional about these issues. There are zealots on both sides and they don’t help.

RainyDay said:
On the overall idea, I'd reserve judgement until I see more details of the design and how it might work. Is it a segregated lane, like the one at the Grand Canal? How will the junctions be managed? How will they keep pedestrians off the lane?
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Good question re how to keep pedestrians off the cycle lanes. I won’t use cycle lanes that are just a white line on a footpath. I feel safer on the road. People let their children, their dogs and often themselves wonder across cycle paths. If I hit their child at 30Kmph I could be badly injured!

It is, but that was a good idea that was well implemented (kudos to the Greens and the civil servants involved). We usually take good ideas and implement them badly.
 

Dublin gets 129 days a year of rain, Cork gets 146. Not a massive difference, though Cork gets 1205mm and Dublin only gets 729mm so when it rains in Cork it's heavier.
 

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?
 
Owen keegan, did a great job with the traffic in Dun laoghaire, looks like he's going to do the same in Dublin City..
 
Purple said:
By how much will the proposed change reduce the car capacity along the quays? I'm sure it will be more than 6%.
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Well, the article states reducing two lanes to one, so 50% reduction for private cars on the north quays, no change on the south. All feeds into the Council's aims to reduce private car usage.

An argument in their favour would be that currently, 39% of commuters into Dublin do so by car (down from ~50% in 2011), these 39% take up far more road space that would be commensurate with their numbers.
 
Leo said:
An argument in their favour would be that currently, 39% of commuters into Dublin do so by car (down from ~50% in 2011), these 39% take up far more road space that would be commensurate with their numbers.
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The question then is what proportion of that 39% could not use public transport or cycle no matter how good their respective infrastructures were.

There are people who have to drop children or family members off on their way to work. There are people who just live too far away. There are people who may need to use their car during the day for work. There are people with reduced mobility.
In summary many people have no other choice than to drive into work. What proportion of that 39% do those people constitute.
 
People can still use their cars.

It will just make the buses and taxi's and bicycles more attractive to use.
 
Purple said:
It is, but that was a good idea that was well implemented (kudos to the Greens and the civil servants involved). We usually take good ideas and implement them badly.
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Dublin Bikes was the brainchild of the then-Lord Mayor of Dublin, Andrew Montague. It was (initially) done entirely without funding from or involvement of the government, the civil service or the (central government) public service. The only people involved were DCC and JCD.

The second phase involved an investment by the Dept. Of Transport but the work was done by DCC.
 

Oh, I know, and I'm kinda just playing devil's advocate here. Our problem versus other European capitals is that we don't have the standard of public transport or planning that means you don't need a car on a day to day basis. The building boom that resulted in so many young families living in the outskirts/commuter belt with little or no public transport has played a significant role in that, but our inherent laziness and apparent need to get wherever we're going 5 minutes ago also plays its part.

There are a lot of people with reduced mobility or who need to drop off kids who currently don't own cars, these people manage.
 

I think in the majority of cases it's not a case of have to but chose to. See here from the CSO
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The number of secondary school students travelling to school on a bicycle has decreased from a peak of 50,648 in 1986 to 6,592 in 2011, a fall of 87 per cent.
The decline in the number of girls using a bicycle has been particularly stark, falling from over 19,000 in 1986 to only 529 in 2011.

When I were a lad there were very few kids dropped off by their parents to school, most walked or cycled. Now 6 out of 10 primary school kids are driven to school, why?

[broken link removed]​

 
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