DCC want to *expand* the 30km/h limits

Isn't it pointless to extend the 30km/h limit when it hasn't reduced traffic speeds in the city centre areas where it's supposed to be in force?

The lower limit had been introduced in the interests of road safety and to make the city centre more attractive for pedestrians and cyclists.

However, senior executive engineer with the council Niall Gormley said recent speed measurements showed the 30km/h limit “has not brought about any reduction in traffic speeds”.

I thought it was daft to have a 30 limit on the quays, and not have it in residential areas.
There was a sign outside the long stone where the limit went up to50 as the street narrowed and you have pedestrians and cyclists mixed in with heavy traffic

It seems daft that engine alley or John Dillon street; or Fitzroy avenue or lienster, Munster& ster streets have a 50 limit

bambergbike, awesome post.

Islington Borough in London found that while they changed the speed limit they control to 20 mph (32 km/h), the found that an awful lot of casualties are on roads that Transport for London controls - these retain a 30 mph (48 km/h) speed limit.

Victor wrote: »

Islington Borough in London found that while they changed the speed limit they control to 20 mph (32 km/h), the found that an awful lot of casualties are on roads that Transport for London controls - these retain a 30 mph (48 km/h) speed limit.

I'm always really cautious about interpretations of casualty figures - although those ones certainly seem to make sense - because the most dangerous roads can have a perfectly clean slate not because they are safe, but because people know they are dangerous and keep their children locked up well away from them. Casualty figures are worth looking at, of course, but only in tandem with other "quality of life" or "level of service" indicators.

SeanW wrote: »

As a motorist, I found the ability to legally travel at a speed appropriate to the settings to be welcome, and made good time when I travelled it by car, normally in the off-peak, night times etc.

I won't deny that speed limits are a crude and blunt instrument to some extent. If all drivers always drove with due consideration towards other road users in general (and vulnerable road users in particular), we could get rid of a lot of formal rules (including speed limits) and replace them with one simple message: road users must always be attentive and considerate. If more people used their judgement and their common sense more, they could be given more scope to do so. In principle, I would like people to be encouraged to use their judgement rather than being bombarded with hundreds of separate instructions. We have some roads with such huge signs warning drivers of upcoming bends that the bends are frequently hidden behind the signs; those grate with me because I would like to think that drivers incapable of recognizing a bend clearly marked with plenty of reflectors shouldn't be on the roads at all. At the moment, however, I think there is still scope for using additional restrictive rules like 30 speed limits as a means of redressing the current power imbalance between people driving powerful, heavy vehicles and people who are "naked" in traffic, unprotected by an exoskeleton and often also afforded pathetically inadequate protection by our road traffic engineers, our justice system and the education and instruction we provide to road users. If we progress to the point where "might is right" is replaced by vision zero and a mutual respect agenda, we can then talk about restoring powers of discretion to drivers.

In the meantime, I'm not going to get into the specifics of Dorset Street, although it would be interesting if you could quantify the time saving made under the higher limit. How much time did you save anually by making good time? I think I can remember reading that cost-benefit analysis tends to show that the costs of road accidents cancel out the minutes shaved off journeys here and there by drivers travelling at speeds that make collisions more likely, but I haven't got a reference for that handy and it didn't specifically refer to Dorset Street anyway - maybe Dorset Street is different.

I will, though, respond to your general point about it being safe to speed up a bit at quiet, off-peak times. I strolled down to my local supermarket to pick up a few things for dinner a few days ago. It's on a street where the limit was changed to 30 and then changed back to 50 after a gentleman took and won a court case to protest that he ought to be able to drive to work in a timely fashion on what is a major traffic artery as well as the main shopping street in the village/suburb. He won. It was just before eight in the evening, so not the dead of night, but certainly an off-peak time with no commuter traffic. In the space of a few minutes, I counted lots of pavement cyclists. They all had decent lights, so it wasn't that they felt safer on the pavement because they were invisible. And they weren't using the pavement to take a shortcut by riding against traffic instead of crossing the road to ride on the correct side; they already on the correct side. So the only obvious reason for them choosing to use the pavement was that they didn't feel safe in the road because of the speed of the traffic.

They basically had 3 choices:

Option 1: ride in a stream of fast traffic on a dark, wet night (scary, high subjective risk of being rear-ended, the cyclist as mobile traffic calming device)
Option 2: ride in the door zone (scary, high objective risk of being doored and thrown into the main traffic stream)
Option 3: ride on the pavement (not scary, somewhat unsafe, and illegal).

Now, I hate pavement riding - I would have taken Option 1 if I had been cycling, and I know the cars would have slowed to match my speed - but I could really see where the cyclists were coming from. It's not fun being a mobile human traffic calming device doing 30 in a 50 zone where parked cars and heavy traffic in both directions mean that drivers can't overtake and stay behind cyclists long enough get quite frustrated. Riding in the door zone instead of in the main traffic stream can feel a bit safer, but one cyclist has already been killed on this street doing that since the limit was changed back to 50; these cyclists seemed to be aware of the danger. In a way, I was happier to be personally inconvenienced by cyclists using the pavement than to see cyclists risking their lives in the door zone for the sake of keeping motor traffic moving.

Victor wrote: »

The problem is that leaving the main streets at 30 mph fails to deal with many collisions / casualties. Those streets are the ones with the most users, most traffic and most casualties and the point has to be made that they should be included in the lower speed limits and have work done to passively enforce those limits.

I disagree, the streets in your post are arterial, main routes, so naturally they would have a greater number of cars, ergo, more accidents because of the fact that there's more traffic. It's the arterial vs. local nature of the streets, I expect that lead to that difference more so than the 20MPH speed limit.

As to the matter of main streets being included in 30kph limits, again I disagree: the whole point of any kind of well thought out policy is that it is fair to all. So while 30kph limits are a good ideas for secondary or central streets, a sensible compromise allows motorist to minimise their exposure to them for all but the shortest, start/end of journey uses. The current 30kph regimes in Dublin and Cork do this, blind expansions would not.

Victor wrote: »

The problem is that leaving the main streets at 30 mph fails to deal with many collisions / casualties. Those streets are the ones with the most users, most traffic and most casualties and the point has to be made that they should be included in the lower speed limits and have work done to passively enforce those limits.

This brings us back to the quays in Dublin, I think. Of course they don't look like quiet neighbourhood streets where traffic calming could easily and cheaply be implemented to provide pedestrians and cyclists with a very high level of service. The need to re-engineer them to provide an adequate level of service to pedestrians and cyclists arises precisely because they are busy streets used by thousands of people.

SeanW wrote: »

As to the matter of main streets being included in 30kph limits, again I disagree: the whole point of any kind of well thought out policy is that it is fair to all. So while 30kph limits are a good ideas for secondary or central streets, a sensible compromise allows motorist to minimise their exposure to them for all but the shortest, start/end of journey uses. The current 30kph regimes in Dublin and Cork do this, blind expansions would not.

I am familiar with a number of cities that have about 30 limits covering about 70% of streets; that generally does seem to cover the start/end points of journeys and a central area and not much else. I can understand your general objection to anything - however sensible - being applied blindly. So what I would suggest is making all urban streets 30 in principle and then very carefully and systematically sifting out the exceptions where good reasons for higher or lower limits can be demonstrated. The bottom line is that it should be objectively and subjectively safe and pleasant to make direct, efficient journeys using sustainable modes. Unsustainable modes should be facilitated wherever it is possible to do so without compromising the safety and comfort of sustainable transport users unduly. Of course nobody wants to be delayed, "unfairly" or otherwise, but cyclists and pedestrians are often concerned about arriving at their destinations alive; we need to address these concerns.

robertxxx wrote: »

Why do this when its not obeyed when its on the drag strip called the south quays.

People not abiding by laws is not a good reason for not having them.

Was thinking about this today. I was cycling on the Quays and I can safely say that I was the only person traveling below 30kph.

would welcome the limit on many residential streets but what is the point if there is to be no enforcement?

Aard wrote: »

Enforcement through design. It should be more of a long term project to turn residential streets into slow streets through redesign.

So long as that doesn't involve putting speed bumps on ever street and road I'm ok with it.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/dublin-s-30km-h-limit-fails-to-reduce-traffic-speed-1.1589133

"The council lowered speed limits for most of the shopping and central business area of the city from 50km/h to 30km/h in 2006.
In January 2010 it extended the zone from Bolton Street on the north side to St Stephen’s Green on the south side, and from Church Street in the west to Gardiner Street and Dawson Street to the east.
O’Connell Street, Dame Street and the north and south quays, previously excluded from the zone, were also brought under the new limit ".

I read the above in Saturday's Irish Times. This extension was news to me. As one of the relatively few people who take speed limits seriously, or try to, I had not seen any signage to indicate this extension and was not aware that the slow-drive areas had been extended.
Would it have been too much to expect Dublin City Council to erect speed limit signs when (rightly or wrongly) they decide to change speed limits from the default 50kpm to 30kpm or extend this to new areas?
Writing on the road itself is not necessarily enough as such markings are obscured by other cars.
In view of this, it is hardly surprising to me that DCC have found that average vehicle speeds have not decreased.

You people mustn't be looking very hard.

There are very clear 30kph signs in place.

Valentine1 wrote: »

So clear that I miss them every day?

So clear that I see them every day.

Look at either side of the road turning off O'Connell Bridge onto Aston Quay for example.

They were and are in place at each point where the zone starts.