Managers says NO to Cycle-Friendly Gorey

mtbireland

Taken from the Revolution Bike Shop website...

http://www.revolvebikeshop.ie/news/2011/01/12/gorey-draft-development-plan---managers-says-no-to-cycle-friendly-gorey.html

The current plans reduce road width to 6 metres and increase footpaths to 2.5m and grassy area to 1m either side of the road.
There will be curbs and bollards on both sides of the road with
NO SPACE designated for cyclists.

Lumen

Any cyclist knows that narrow, curbed roads are extremely dangerous to cyclists, especially when lined with bollards.

I'm not sure I'd agree with that. Narrow roads are very annoying, but only dangerous if cycled dangerously.

edit: on the other hand, campaigning from the perspective of annoyance is hardly like to bear fruit.

fat bloke

Lumen wrote: »

I'm not sure I'd agree with that. Narrow roads are very annoying, but only dangerous if cycled dangerously.

Eh?

Surely the point is that the cyclist will be sharing the same narrow strip of roads with cars. Even more limited space to pass = frustrated motorist, looking at the ar$e of the cyclist in front who is "blocking" the road - leading to ill-judged overtaking manouvers (can ANYone spell that?:rolleyes:) and barging of cyclists off the road.

If nothing else, it only serves to concentrate already existing animosities between drivers and cyclists. Cyclist exits Gorey thinking "that fcukin knob in the car was right up my chuff there:mad:" and driver comes away giving out being stuck behind "that cnut on the bicycle".

Harrybelafonte

"manoeuvre" I had to look it up

Lumen

fat bloke wrote: »

Surely the point is that the cyclist will be sharing the same narrow strip of roads with cars. Even more limited space to pass = frustrated motorist, looking at the ar$e of the cyclist in front who is "blocking" the road - leading to ill-judged overtaking manouvers (can ANYone spell that?:rolleyes:) and barging of cyclists off the road.

I'm not saying it's ideal, I'm just questioning whether it's dangerous. I'd rather have a wider road.

Captain Havoc

google chrome spellchecks as you go along. Is Gorey that big to justify spending money on cycle lanes that'll hardly get used?

niceonetom

Purely subjectively I often feel safer on narrower roads than ones that are slightly (but only slightly) wider.

On really narrow roads it's entirely obvious to motorists that in order to overtake they will need to cross the centre of the road and they seem more likely to wait until this can be done safely. There's also the fact that people tend not to drive as fast on narrow roads as they do on wide ones.

If the road is only slightly wider, some drivers seem to feel tempted to squeeze by without really leaving the lane. The response to this is obviously to take the centre of the lane and present drivers with the same situation as they'd be in on a narrower road, i.e. overtake properly when safe, but this frustrates morons. Frustrated morons are bad.

Anyway, my point is that I think it's simplistic and probably untrue to simply equate road width with safety.

Harrybelafonte

Captain Havoc wrote: »

google chrome spellchecks as you go along. Is Gorey that big to justify spending money on cycle lanes that'll hardly get used?

It also lets the CIA see what your're looking up.


Is it a case of "if you build it they will come" for Gorey? If it were to be of some success would similar projects be launched in other towns in the country.

Lumen

niceonetom wrote: »

Purely subjectively I often feel safer on narrower roads than ones that are slightly (but only slightly) wider.

Except in a traffic jam. Then a narrow road is a major PITA.

Not sure what traffic is like in Gorey now the bypass is done.

tomasrojo

Harrybelafonte wrote: »

"manoeuvre" I had to look it up

There are two spellings, usually classified as British and American.

The British, "manoeuvre", hews more closely to the etymology of the word, with its original meaning of "hand work" and origins in French being more clear. The use of a ligature has been dropped generally, but you used to see: "manœuvre".

The Americans generally drop ligatures or two-character combinations derived from ligatures (hence "hemoglobin", not "haemoglobin"), and also prefer "er" to "re" (hence "center" rather than "centre"), so they spell it "maneuver".

tomasrojo

Why do we waste so much space with grassy verges? Just get rid of the stupid things and then we can have wider sidewalks and wider roads.

I'd understand this trend better if we often put trees on the verges or something nice to look at, but we rarely do: just a narrow, useless, bland strip of green.

Lumen

tomasrojo wrote: »

Why do we waste so much space with grassy verges? Just get rid of the stupid things and then we can have wider sidewalks and wider roads.

Grass verges add safety for pedestrians as a sort of buffer zone.

tomasrojo

Lumen wrote: »

Grass verges add safety for pedestrians as a sort of buffer zone.

They're not used extensively in countries that have better pedestrian safety records than Ireland though. I don't remember seeing much of them in the Netherlands, for example. Or Spain (though now I think of it, Spain might not have a better pedestrian safety record than ours).

smacl

Lumen wrote: »

Grass verges add safety for pedestrians as a sort of buffer zone.

They also significantly reduce the risk of flooding. Rain that hits a hard surface has to be drained, rain that hits grass is absorbed to a large extent. Covering everything in tarmac and concrete requires provision for good storm drainage, which as we have seen in recent years, is often sadly lacking.

doozerie

I'm not convinced either of the dangers posed to cyclists by narrow roads in themselves. Part of my daily commute takes me along narrow roads and on weekend spins on the bike I frequently encounter narrow roads too. The dangers arise from the antics of the road users rather than the roads themselves - such people might well blame their behaviour on the roads ("I *had* to overtake the cyclist/motorbike/car/tractor/etc on the blind bend 'cos on these roads I knew I'd be stuck behind it for ages and my favourite TV show starts in 30 minutes") but that's frequently just a poor excuse for unjustifiable behaviour. It is possible to ride safely on such roads if neither you nor the other road users act the bollix.

Sure, widening the roads allows you to stay further out of the way of other road users, but that's a band-aid approach to road safety at best. You'll always encounter areas where this is not possible and promoting a mindset that pushing cyclists off to the side of the road is the best solution is, to my mind, short-sighted. That kind of thinking has given us the rubbish cycle tracks that we are currently lumbered with which, more often than not, make cycling more dangerous rather than safer.

There may be other factors in this case that make the proposed design unsuitable, but on the face of it I don't see narrow roads themselves as being a serious issue. Generally speaking, I'd rather see an investment of time and money in educating road users about the consequences of stupid and dangerous behaviour than see it invested in a "safety" initiative of installing cycle lanes or equivalent.

lukester

Fixed that for you.

tomasrojo wrote: »

There are two spellings, usually classified as British and American wrong.

...

The Americans generally are scared of ligatures or two-character combinations derived from ligatures and indeed anything smacking of being French or Continental European (hence "hemoglobin", not "haemoglobin"). They also prefer "er" to "re" because the former sounds the same way that it's written, and that's how language should be goddarnit (hence "center" rather than "centre"). Hence they incorrectly spell it "maneuver" .

tomasrojo

lukester wrote: »

Fixed that for you.

I did used to think that myself, but American spelling is at least a decent attempt to tidy up English spelling.

They made a mistake in dropping the rule about doubling next-to-final consonants when conjugating verbs ending in a vowel -- i.e. the past participle of "scrape" and "scrap" being spelt the same way: "scraped". Other than that, a pretty decent attempt. Not entirely consistent, but English orthography is a terrible mess anyway, so it was never going to be perfect.

tomasrojo

http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2010/08/comparisons-of-british-vs-dutch-streets.html

My comment on grass verges was influenced a bit by reading this a while ago.

I find Hembrow rather opinionated and don't necessarily agree with him, so maybe grass verges are a good idea.

doozerie

Lumen wrote:

Grass verges add safety for pedestrians as a sort of buffer zone

On, of all things, a radio comedy program recently there was a reference to a recent study that seemed to conclude that buffer zones between traffic and pedestrians actually increased danger. I think the argument was that buffer zones led to complacency on the part of both parties whereas in the absence of such barriers each group had to pay more attention and that this led to greater awareness and safety overall. I can't find anything about the study online though so I may be mis-representing the actual conclusions. As a theory though it makes sense to me.

Lumen

doozerie wrote: »

On, of all things, a radio comedy program recently there was a reference to a recent study that seemed to conclude that buffer zones between traffic and pedestrians actually increased danger. I think the argument was that buffer zones led to complacency on the part of both parties whereas in the absence of such barriers each group had to pay more attention and that this led to greater awareness and safety overall. I can't find anything about the study online though so I may be mis-representing the actual conclusions. As a theory though it makes sense to me.

Yeah, well that's "spike on the steering" wheel thinking.

People get complacent either way, so I'd happily take the extra visibility.

Aside from anything else, it's much more relaxing to drive when you don't have to worry about a toddler tripping underneath your wheels. And vice-versa for the peds.

doozerie

Lumen wrote:

Yeah, well that's "spike on the steering" wheel thinking.

People get complacent either way, so I'd happily take the extra visibility.

Aside from anything else, it's much more relaxing to drive when you don't have to worry about a toddler tripping underneath your wheels. And vice-versa for the peds.

The "spike on the steering" view is an extreme case, though one that I must admit I have some sympathy for. At the other extreme is the thinking that says that we all need to be segregated from each other by very formal/hard boundaries, be they curbing, fencing, lines on the road delineating cycle tracks, etc. Somewhere between the two is where the right balance of safety versus usability lies, but in general we seem to struggle to find that balance so we end up with a bit of a mess. It seems like this can often lead to people clambering for one of the two extremes in a poorly conceived attempt to tackle the mess. Unfortunately for us, in this country those people are often the ones with the power to have their "vision" implemented.

mtbireland

Captain Havoc wrote: »

Is Gorey that big to justify spending money on cycle lanes that'll hardly get used?

Some info from the net below....

Between 1996 and 2002, the population (of Gorey) has risen by 44% in the town, and by 23% in the surrounding district

Rapid growth has led to an overcrowding problem in the local schools, with the secondary school, Gorey Community School having the largest student population of any school in Ireland.

tomasrojo

Gorey used to get a lot of attention on The Property Pin. They reckoned it was extremely overpriced. Lot of Dublin workers using it as a dormer town, resulting in an inflated population but with amenities completely failing to keep pace.

I have not direct knowledge of the town.

manwithaplan

I think it's entirely appropriate that a town of that name would have a dangerous main street. It would be like Donkey Kong if I had my way.

monument

tomasrojo wrote: »

http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2010/08/comparisons-of-british-vs-dutch-streets.html

My comment on grass verges was influenced a bit by reading this a while ago.

I find Hembrow rather opinionated and don't necessarily agree with him, so maybe grass verges are a good idea.

Side tracking here: I agree with him on the point of "Many people honestly believe that their city, be it London, Los Angeles, Sydney, Cambridge or wherever, has streets which are narrower than usual and can't provide cyclists with the necessary space."

Dublin is a prime example.

I keep hearing that Dublin only has narrow streets. Which maybe true for some of the city centre, but a lot of the main routes into the city are 4 or 5 or 6 lanes wide, excluding footpaths. Sure there are pinch points on these routes, but bicycles can mix at these and many of the apparent pinch points are partly because of on-street parking or turning lanes.

goreyhead

The road is the Avenue ,which conects gorey main street with the main shopping centre and also the train station to the town , it used to be lined with beautyfull trees untill they decided to cut them down last year, it allready has large footpaths on either side, the main reason for cutting down the trees and narrowing the road is to put in parking meters(you can park there free at moment) so none of this aboat safety it all aboat making money from parking meters ,on the other side of the town theres a new link road connecting hoolyfort road and the carnew road and the put cycle on that and it would only get a faction of the traffic of the avenue,

IT ALL ABOAT MONEY

tomasrojo

Interesting you shoudl say that, goreyhead. I was reading recently about how councils are increasingly dependent on revenue from parking. It means they are completely conflicted when trying to encourage non-motorised modes of transport. The congestion is a nuisance and costs business money, takes up vasts amount of public space and kills people prematurely, but the parking makes the council money that they need.

smacl

tomasrojo wrote: »

I did used to think that myself, but American spelling is at least a decent attempt to tidy up English spelling.

That's all well and good, but it murders a good game of scrabble. The one letter Z just isn't enough once you replace ise with ize. Typical yanks, not looking at the wide ranging impact of their actions. Still, beats playing scrabble as gaelige I suppose, where picking up the Q is a death sentance

tomasrojo

Ah, but the yanks didn't replace -ise with -ize. The -ize is the older spelling, and is still preferred by the OED. The British changed the spelling in this case.

Read Laurence Sterne or Jonathan Swift and unless it's an updated text you'll see all -ize spellings.