Automatic Red Light and Bus Lane Cameras Coming

bk

Looks like finally we will get red light cameras and bus lane enforcement cameras in the next year.

https://www.irishtimes.com/transport/2024/04/15/traffic-light-cameras-to-be-place-by-early-next-year-eamon-ryan/

Fantastic news all round, badly needed.

SteM

Great news, but when I hear him say the cameras did not involve “huge costs” and the pilot scheme has been running 9 years I wonder why we didn't implement this sort of stuff years ago.

KevRossi

About time. Bane of my existence them.

For the naysayers, it's easy; stay the fcuk out of bus lanes and obey the red lights and you'll be grand.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122027053#Comment_122027053

They had them all over California in 2012. Simple idea, reduces crashes, which in turn reduces congestion, which in turn speeds up the commute

Another place we should have cameras is the continuous white lines at motorway junctions. There's a crash once a week at the M20/M7 junction because people are in a rush to get home 30s earlier

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122027053#Comment_122027053

The pilot scheme only ran for 6 months, it was 9 years ago that the pilot was run. In the 6 months it brought in over twice as much money in fines then it cost to run!

This is very much in line with the experience in Belfast where bus lane cameras more then pay for themselves.

BTW Ironically only today there was a crash between a van and the Luas on a red line, no cause yet, but it is a junction plagued with red light jumpers and was part of the red light camera pilot 9 years ago!

coylemj

Silly question…

If there is greater observance of red lights at junctions, will the council then reduce the time between each leg of the cycle at the junction? At places like White's Cross on the N11, there is a significant delay between each leg and this appears to be related to the incidence of red light jumpers. At other lights like the junction of Carysfort Ave. and the Blackrock bypass, the timing gap between legs can be related to the width of the road and the time allowed for pedestrians to cross, it's not a factor with the timings at White's Cross.

This is the pardox of erring on the side of safety and leaving so much time between legs - it just enourages people to jump the red light because they know the timing allows for it.

MJohnston

There's something about the timing of traffic lights in Dublin that induces a lot more impatience than I experience in other places. For example, Northern Irish traffic light timing seems to go more for shorter phases but less time between phases. Whereas Dublin is mostly long phases with a lot of waiting if you miss one.

I'd be curious about any data on this, I can imagine it doesn't help discourage red light jumping.

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122039336#Comment_122039336

It shouldn't matter if the time was 1 second or 10 seconds, there's no excuse.

RonanG86

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122027054#Comment_122027054

But what about my rights as a motorist to break the law?

More repression of the car owning class by the walking and cycling mafia, this.

MJohnston

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122039922#Comment_122039922

I don't think the poster is attempting to excuse red-light jumping, but it's totally fair to wonder about the psychology of it all.

Charles Babbage

I'll bet you that the fine for bus lanes which has nothing to do with road safety will be similar to that for breaking a read light, which is plain dangerous.

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043836#Comment_122043836

But there's no penalty points for being in the bus lane

Tenzor07

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043836#Comment_122043836

Private vehicles staying out of bus lanes is a safety issue for bicycle and motorcyclists. I've seen plenty of dangerous driving behaviours by those illegally using Bus lanes to skip traffic and it won't stop until they're caught and fined..

Viscount Aggro

I heard that the timing of light sequences is designed to frustrate car drivers.

Its to persuade people to switch to "active travel".

There are lights at junctions that are about 3 seconds in duration.

They can be changed if councils wanted to.

alentejo

Timing of lights frustrates pedestrians and cyclists

Kaisr Sose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058347175/automatic-red-light-and-bus-lane-cameras-coming

Fantastic news..

Just one thing jumps out ...Why did it take so long to do something as obvious as this?

StreetLight

If traffic lights are designed to frustrate car drivers, that translates to bus users since buses are lumped in with general traffic due to a lack of meaningful bus priority.

I was on a bus recently travelling along Dublin's North Quays at about 6 a.m. Almost every traffic light the bus approached turned red for the full sequence of opposing traffic, the pedestrian sequence and the cyclist head-start despite almost no opposing traffic, pedestrians or cyclists.

The pedestrian lights at both Millennium Bridge and Hapenny Bridge both turned red at exactly the same time, despite not being activated by any pedestrians.

If Dublin City Council have a programme of attempting to deliberately frustrate road users, then mission accomplished.

bk

As a person who does more then an hour of walking every day for the past 5 years across Dublin City (I’ve been doing the whole 10,000 steps a day thing for years now), I can assure you that 99% of traffic lights are designed to favour motorists and to keep car traffic moving. It can take an exhausting length of time to wait to get a pedestrian light to go green and then you take your life in your hands as motorists continue to blitz through the red lights (pedestrian green).

Cookie_Monster

Agree with bk, pedestrian lights in Ireland take an absolute age to go green, especially in a large junction mixed cycle.

Pedestrian green should match vehicle green per direction of travel with turning cars having to yield initially until ped light go back to red. That's how it's done here in NZ and it speeds up everything massively by removing redundant cycles of lights specifically for pedestrians at most junctions

Burt Renaults

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122047244#Comment_122047244

On roads where the loop-sensors are activated, traffic lights are designed to frustrate bus users in particular. By the time the bus moves off, the gap between it and the faster-accelerating traffic in front means that the lights will usually change just in time to stop the bus.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122047173#Comment_122047173

The election cycle, nobody would remember if they did it mid-cycle. Now it looks like it will be done by the end of the year and a General Election coming early next year. That's not a coincidence

nachouser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122047687#Comment_122047687

The junction at Kevin St Garda station takes about 4 mins for pedestrians. And when we finally get a green a few cars will still pile through their red to save the 15 seconds until they get a green. And this is right outside a f*cking police station:-)

MJohnston

Kevin/Bride Street is one of those horrific junctions that DCC do so well. A better local authority like DLRCC would radically rethink it.

noelfirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122051396#Comment_122051396

Ditto Kevin/Aungier/Wexford, Kevin/Patrick, Christchurch and a myriad of other shite ones around the inner city that correspond with the failed road widening efforts from the 70s/80s. Essentially every piece of road and associated junctions related to those efforts need to be put on a diet, have all arms pedestrianised and have any left turn slips torn out.

And please all to be overseen by an AI-driven camera enforcement system that fines anyone who decides that they're special and important enough to go beyond their lines and into the junctions when they shouldn't be doing so.

loyatemu

Dublin City Council have a "rate my signals" site where you can comment on a particular set of lights:

https://www.dublincity.ie/residential/transportation/faulty-traffic-signals-lights/rate-my-signals

whether they act on these reports, IDK - I reported the glacially slow pedestrian lights outside Pearse Station, but I guess they won't make any change around there until after the through-traffic changes come into effect in the autumn.

MJohnston

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122052663#Comment_122052663

The thing about all these junctions is that inevitably they all include very confusing additional traffic lane configurations which make the efficiency of the junctions for vehicles worse. Like Cuffe Street to Kevin Street — where one lane suddenly vanishes.

Rethink those junctions, rationalise the lanes, and reclaim the space for pedestrians and bicycles and I almost 100% guarantee the traffic efficiency would improve too.

G_R

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122047709#Comment_122047709

Same here in Canada (and in a few countries in mainland Europe I've been to!) pedestrian green matches the car green in the same direction. Cars can turn over the pedestrian crossing, but need to wait for pedestrians to finish. On very very busy junctions, there's an extra phase that allows the turn before pedestrians get the green light.

Everything moves so much quicker for everyone.

loyatemu

given my experience with locations where there's a flashing amber for turning left across a cycle lane (drivers just turn left anyway and I've been nearly cleaned out several times) I wouldn't be in favour of "turn left on red" being introduced here. Irish drivers already take red to mean "a few more cars please".

Anaki r2d2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122050177#Comment_122050177

be interesting to come back here in a years time and see if anything was done at all!

Easy to say this is happening and claim the election credit. Harder to implement and deal with the left wing loonies concerned with GDPR/invasison of privacy etc.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122064985#Comment_122064985

I suspect this time next year they might have 1 or 2 installed with a "major national rollout" starting in 2030, coincidentally the end of the next dail term

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122064910#Comment_122064910

In the situation of the amber flashing light, cyclists in cycle lanes are meant to wait for the green pedestrian crossing and give way to vehicles on the road. A cycle lane was designed without a light for cyclists is a bad and dangerous design

In a "turn on red" situation, cars would have to give right of way to pedestrians and cyclists who would have a green light. Although I think it would complicate things for drivers who already aren't great at driving