Cycling in the capital

Beasty

Article in today's Irish Times:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0717/1224250843824.html

Gavin

A fairly unimpressive article.

It would be nice if commentators pointed out that cycling through the city is not dangerous rather than reinforce misconceptions.

Lumen

A journalist who uses the word "thoroughfares" in place of "roads" deserves execution by the plain English police.

I suspect the author may be an under-cover bureaucrat/politician.

BostonB

Not much of an article. But at least its something about cycling in the press. Personally I think an increase in cycle lanes would increase people cycling, and drivers awareness of cyclists. Some roads/junctions are dangerous for cars never mind bikes.

tomasrojo

Given how cycle lanes are implemented here, I'd rather they didn't make any more of them. There's not a lot of point in people thinking they're safer when they're considerably less safe using a typical cycle lane.

BostonB

tomasrojo wrote: »

Given how cycle lanes are implemented here, I'd rather they didn't make any more of them. There's not a lot of point in people thinking they're safer when they're considerably less safe using a typical cycle lane.

Fair criticism. I just think they raise awareness of cyclists on the road. If nothing else most motorist try to stay out of them. Some cyclists aren't going to be dictated by them anyway. Despite their problems I feel they make my route easier.

Some one in another thread used the phrase, net gain. Thats how I feel about them too.

tomasrojo

BostonB wrote: »

Fair criticism. I just think they raise awareness of cyclists on the road. If nothing else most motorist try to stay out of them. Some cyclists aren't going to be dictated by them anyway. Despite their problems I feel they make my route easier.

Some one in another thread used the phrase, net gain. Thats how I feel about them too.

Fair enough! I don't feel the same way, but I see your point!

monument

It's a leader or editorial, it is written by the editor of the newspaper or another journalist. In days gone by much attention was paid to them by people in power at different levels. Attention is stilled paid to them, but likely not much.

In that regard, this is the important bit at the end:

Even in these times when a “slash-and-burn” approach is being advocated for public expenditure, a strong case can be made for investment in more widespread facilities for cyclists.

dingbat

Cycling numbers would increase drastically by putting two-way cycle lanes on one-way streets. Nassau St. would be the perfect place to start.

BostonB

Funny enough on Nassau St you see cyclists do that a lot

Nietzschean

dingbat wrote: »

Cycling numbers would increase drastically by putting two-way cycle lanes on one-way streets. Nassau St. would be the perfect place to start.

nassau street isn't dangerous enough already with all the bus stops and people walking off kerbs onto the street? if they had railings most of the way along the right maybe you could do it...but as it stands no pedestrians would look the right way and it'd be chaos...

cyclopath2001

dingbat wrote: »

Cycling numbers would increase drastically by putting two-way cycle lanes on one-way streets. Nassau St. would be the perfect place to start.

There's quite a bit of scope there, removing the wasteful on street car-parking would make plenty of space available. some kind of separation would be needed though. The Andrew Street contra-flow is much abused by cars and vans.