Cyclists - Junction of Dame St/South Great Georges St

bigar wrote: »

I think I will start a thread each time I see cars or pedestrians breaking the law. Be prepared for a daily post which will include sentences in all caps, exclamation points and generalisations.

That sounds like a great idea. When posting, could you also generalise as much as possible, tarring great swathes of the population based upon their mode of transportation? Thanks.

ballooba wrote: »

I've recently started cycling and find this junction dangerous to use on the vehicle light sequence. I prefer to take it slow and cross on the pedestrian lights. While having respect for other road users. I've been trying to think of a way to avoid this junction.

what's your general route.

you can always dismount cross with green light then get back on the other side.

Garda should make cyclists speeding stop and tell them they are going too fast for that location.

No Pants wrote: »

Can cyclists speed? Non-motorised and all that.

I'm taking about using a bit of cop on for the conditions.

If you want to nickpick over what precise charges could be applied go right ahead. For me that's really a minor detail.

The concept of going too fast so that you cant stop or will do serious harm if you hit or clip someone should be obvious. Doing through a red light and with pedestrians crossing hits every branch on the stupid tree.

Let's look at the highlighted junction. Every traffic movement in this area is an ill thought out disaster. Try approaching it in a bus, from any of the three approaches. Turn left from Dame St to Georges St, and the bus has to swing into the path of northbound traffic, or else sit and wait for a line of taxis who most certainly will not give way to anyone or anything.

Come eastbound, and two lanes from the Olympia become a lane and a half passing through the junction, and no amount of wishing from the engineers can make a lane and a half become two safe lanes.

Come from Georges St itself, and everything is wedged into two very tight lanes, with no room for cyclists, and a wide swinging bus from Dame Street coming right across your path. Only the fact that bus drivers generally give way to each other, is what keeps the junction moving at all.

Then look at the footpaths, not a third big enough for the enormous volumes of pedestrians passing through here. Look how narrow the northmost path is, with hundreds of people crammed onto the kerb waiting for a green man, while buses pass within inches, and taxis barge through determined to be first past the post.

Then look at the sheer volume of poles, clutter and general obstruction on those footpaths, forcing people to step out onto the road just to keep moving. Who the hell decides to erect literally hundreds of ugly steel poles every couple of yards along a kerb, the man with the contract to sell them?

Twenty into three will not go, and somebody needs to make a decision to say so. Of course, then, the local retail interests kick up, and Mr.FFer, or whoever is flavour of the day, says leave everything well enough alone, it's grand.

My own opinion is that Georges Street is too narrow and busy, and should be one way, southbound. There are too many narrow arteries feeding traffic into the too-congested core. More outbound one ways and less inbound incursions would alleviate the central congestion. That would suck a bit of traffic out of Dame Street, and leave more scope for longer pedestrian greens.

Of course, I would be on the side of the complete pedestrianisation of College Green, in which case traffic volumes would be severely curtailed. I'd like to see costings for a free, multi door, single deck, flat floor, standee rapid and frequent bus service, in a colourless LUAS style livery, running two minute frequencies on a very short ten minute lap around the central core area of the city, on prioritised and often exclusive access, which would shove ungainly double deck buses out of the core area, feed into them, and carry large volumes of people free of charge into and out of the area, banning a lot of private car access in the process. It could be paid for by subscription of the inner city retailers.

It would never happen, not in a million years. But I'd like those kind of ideas to be the basis of some discussion of alternatives. The present mess is a complete joke. Well we know that decades of mostly FF-inspired planning doesn't see the world that way.

In the meantime, I'd like to see Dame Street single lane both ways, Georges Street outbound only, proper cycle lanes, wider footpaths, and less street clutter and junk. I dearly wish Lord Edward St was not a lane and a half wide each way, masquerading as two lanes each way when clearly it isn't.