Cycling from (Phoenix Park) Conyngham Rd to IFSC

Fairfunk

Duplicate - please see http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=78592222

johnk123

What's wrong with the quays? Just out of interest

Fairfunk

A lot of traffic, just wide enough for 2 cars. In my opinion not enough for 2 cars and a bike. Especially during the winter months. If there’s a quieter route I'd rather cycle that.

johnk123

There's a cycle track for most of the way, and even a bus lane for a lot of it... When I first started cycling in town I found the quays daunting.... a bit of practice and you'll be flying. I cycle the exact route you'll be taking a few mornings a week as far as O'Connell bridge and you get to know where all the bus stops are, where the traffic builds up etc etc.... You'll be grand!

Mycroft H

Quays are grand. Bus lane 90% of the time, hold your lane and you'll be flying.

Fairfunk

Many thanks Johnk123, what you say makes sense. I'd actually forgotten about the bus lane.

I guess I've just had it easy living elsewhere and the quays are a little more full on!

irishmotorist

I cycle the north quays and find it great. There is only one section that I'd isn't fantastic - leading up to Bargaintown. However, it's only 'not fantastic'. It's perfectly fine.

Personally, I'd be less happy with cycling home along the south quays (Aston and Wellington quays in particular). The road is narrower and I think less easy to progress as you want. You would be either slower than you want or taking risks that you shouldn't. Perhaps Thomas St. as a parallel alternative would work here?

Wishbone Ash

Fairfunk wrote: »

wide enough for 2 cars. In my opinion not enough for 2 cars and a bike

You need to "claim" your lane when necessary - don't allow traffic to squeeze past.

Fairfunk

Cheers for the responses. It seems like the trip in will be easier than the trip back, which is probably for the best as at least I'll be 5 coffees up or so by the time I tackle the south quays. It’s reassuming to know that other people (and of course they do) find it ok.

Jawgap

Follow the Luas line?

Lumen

Mind out for left turning traffic on the North quays and for cars pulling left into the bus lane.

It's the safest on-road part of my commute.

Dord

Jawgap wrote: »

Follow the Luas line?

Illegal to cycle on the tracks apparently. I got stopped by the gardai one day a few years ago. The fine is quite hefty but luckily I only got a tellin' off.

The quays are fine (north at least). There's a good road surface most of the way now and a bus lane too. Going back I'd prefer Dame St. - Thomas St. route. The south quays are quite narrow and very busy in places.

buffalo

Lumen wrote: »

Mind out for left turning traffic on the North quays and for cars pulling left into the bus lane.

It's the safest on-road part of my commute.

Agreed. Always found a danger spot was the Swift's Row turn-off, heading past the Jervis centre.

Jawgap

Dord wrote: »

Illegal to cycle on the tracks apparently. I got stopped by the gardai one day a few years ago. The fine is quite hefty but luckily I only got a tellin' off.

The quays are fine (north at least). There's a good road surface most of the way now and a bus lane too. Going back I'd prefer Dame St. - Thomas St. route. The south quays are quite narrow and very busy in places.

It is indeed illegal, but if it's a quiet, safe route someone wants it's the way to go until their confidence builds.

The North Quays are fine, bit of common sense and care are all that are needed to navigate them.

Wishbone Ash

buffalo wrote: »

Agreed. Always found a danger spot was the Swift's Row turn-off, heading past the Jervis centre.

+1

Also watch for jay walkers in the vicinity of the Ha'penny Bridge.

And at the bottom of Capel Street some cyclists waiting to cross to Grattan Bridge will encroach onto your cycle lane. Ensure you give a quick glance back before moving out of the cycle lane.

Doctor Bob

Jawgap wrote: »

It is indeed illegal, but if it's a quiet, safe route someone wants it's the way to go until their confidence builds.

If we're not bothered about the legality of the solution, why not just suggest riding on the footpath? It's safer than the Luas tracks, after all.

***

OP: As others have said, the north quays are generally fine for cycling. If you haven't done it before it can seem intimidating, but a bit of practice will work wonders.

Having said that, there's no shame in preferring a quieter, less congested route over a more direct but busier one. I used to do a pretty big detour to avoid Pearse Street and Tara Street, and I've been commuting by bike for 20 years- I was happy to take longer in order to skip the stress of four-lane one-way streets with no cycle tracks.

The problem with the north inner city is that there are very few realistic west-to-east routes running between the Liffey and the North Circular Road, thanks to a combination of an over-extensive one-way system, the impermeability of the Grangegorman site, the lack of right turns off the North King Street-Dorset Street axis, and the pedestrianised area west of O'Connell Street.

1. Benburb Street to Abbey Street is the only other direct through route aside from the quays themselves, but that's generally for Luas only so not an option for the bike.
2. Further north, you could go via Arbour Hill/Stoneybatter, Church Street and Mary's Lane, but you still end up re-joining the quays at Capel Street.
3. If you want to avoid Ormond Quay and Bachelor's Walk, you need to detour almost as far north as Blessington Street in order to come south on O'Connell Street, and even then you still have to deal with the buses on Eden Quay.
4. Avoiding Eden Quay will send you around Cathal Brugha Street and Gardiner Street, but the link from there to the IFSC is crap and littered with Luas tracks.

In other words, the quays are probably the best bet, partly because they're actually grand once you've done them a few times, partly because the other northside routes are so poor. If you still have concerns, you could take a route south of the river, i.e. cross the river at Islandbridge, then take South Circular Road, Kilmainham, James's Street, Thomas Street and Dame Street, though you'd still have to negotiate the north quays from O'Connell Bridge onwards.

Your best bet may be to do a couple of practice runs on a Sunday morning, when traffic is pretty quiet, to familiarise yourself with the layout of the north quays from a cyclist's perspective. As others have said, keep an eye out for the bus stops, the pinch point at Bargaintown, left turning cars at Jervis Street and pedestrians at the Ha'penny Bridge and Milennium Footbridge.

For reference, this is option 2 from the list above: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1160535 (I hope you can see the map.) Not a bad route, but there are some hot spots such as the hill and right turn on Infirmary Road (Temple Street West might be better as it avoids the right turn onto Montpelier Hill, though it still has a nasty hill), crossing Stoneybatter (no traffic lights), the surface on Mary's Lane, and the Jervis turn mentioned above.

Jawgap

I would have if the OP was a kid - but if it's a choice between being safe and being legal - I'd rather be safe.

monument

I'd echo what others have said about the north quays being a lot better than the south quays.

If you really don't want to use the quays, here's some alternatives mapped.

All of the routes usefulness deepens on exactly where the OP lives and works, and how much they want to avoid the quays.

If you're working in the south Docklands and living at or past Islandbridge, then following the Grand Canal and the SCR is surprisingly not that much longer than the quays.

The NCR is only recommended as a westbound route if you want to avoid the south quays and only if you work in the north Docklands, while the NCR isn't as flat as the others, it's the most straight forward in that there's no one-way systems and there's a cycle lane most of the way (and this will be improved when adult Mater site is finished soon -- the works nearly finished are blocking the bus lane).

It really depends on what suits you.

Fairfunk

Thanks very much for all the suggestions especially the mapped Google routes, well above the call of duty! It has certainly given me a lot to think about and also made me realise that both the north and south quays will probably be fine just with a little practice. Will prob give each route a try and to see what works. Cheers again everybody.

doozerie

I've been doing the stretch from the end of Inns Quay to Commons Street each weekday for several years now and I find it fine. An ounce of common sense is all that you really need to keep yourself safe. I sometimes see people on bikes along there undertake turning cars, cut inside stopped buses as passengers are alighting, weave through pedestrians and/or cars crossing on green, etc., which is just dumb, dangerous, and completely unnecessary. Such behaviour introduces many dangers that don't arise if you ride sensibly.

People have already mentioned some of the areas/things to beware of, such as the Jervis Street turn, but the stretch that I'm particularly cautious of is Eden Quay. Eden Quay is the bermuda triangle of car indicators (and observation). Motorists and cyclists often casually switch lanes there with no apparent regard for anything else on the road. There is a cycle lane there which splits near the next junction so that you can keep straight to go towards IFSC or hang a left to head towards Busaras. You should be able to expect that the cycle lane is treated as a traffic lane but it's not. Other road users cut across it at random to take the left turn at the lights, without indicating and all too often without even looking - essentially the cycle lane, and anything on it, simply doesn't exist as far as many users of that stretch of road are concerned. Things are not helped by the fact that Eden Quay is the end of the 30kph zone so some people seem to feel the need to go extra fast along that stretch to satisfy their (briefly) curbed appetite for speed. If you ignore the cycle lane entirely, and take the appropriate position in the relevant lane (for me that means keeping to the left of the straight-ahead main lane) then it's fine as you remain within the clear field of vision of others in that lane behind you. And/or just assume that every other road user is completely untrustworthy and assume that anyone going past you is planning to swing across your path, and you'll be fine too - that has certainly worked for me. So basically that stretch of road is fine so long as you keep your wits about you (much like any road in that sense) and don't invest too much, or any, faith in the cycle lane there.

Mycroft H

doozerie wrote: »

I've been doing the stretch from the end of Inns Quay to Commons Street each weekday for several years now and I find it fine. An ounce of common sense is all that you really need to keep yourself safe. I sometimes see people on bikes along there undertake turning cars, cut inside stopped buses as passengers are alighting, weave through pedestrians and/or cars crossing on green, etc., which is just dumb, dangerous, and completely unnecessary. Such behaviour introduces many dangers that don't arise if you ride sensibly.

People have already mentioned some of the areas/things to beware of, such as the Jervis Street turn, but the stretch that I'm particularly cautious of is Eden Quay. Eden Quay is the bermuda triangle of car indicators (and observation). Motorists and cyclists often casually switch lanes there with no apparent regard for anything else on the road. There is a cycle lane there which splits near the next junction so that you can keep straight to go towards IFSC or hang a left to head towards Busaras. You should be able to expect that the cycle lane is treated as a traffic lane but it's not. Other road users cut across it at random to take the left turn at the lights, without indicating and all too often without even looking - essentially the cycle lane, and anything on it, simply doesn't exist as far as many users of that stretch of road are concerned. Things are not helped by the fact that Eden Quay is the end of the 30kph zone so some people seem to feel the need to go extra fast along that stretch to satisfy their (briefly) curbed appetite for speed. If you ignore the cycle lane entirely, and take the appropriate position in the relevant lane (for me that means keeping to the left of the straight-ahead main lane) then it's fine as you remain within the clear field of vision of others in that lane behind you. And/or just assume that every other road user is completely untrustworthy and assume that anyone going past you is planning to swing across your path, and you'll be fine too - that has certainly worked for me. So basically that stretch of road is fine so long as you keep your wits about you (much like any road in that sense) and don't invest too much, or any, faith in the cycle lane there.

If I was to pick my least favorite spot along the quays, its eden quay and then leading onto beresford place. Lots of unobservent bus drivers along there heading into busaras and cars racing to the lights at Amiens Street.

Need to be really observant there.

mikemac1

buffalo wrote: »

Agreed. Always found a danger spot was the Swift's Row turn-off, heading past the Jervis centre.

Yep, definitely the worst part

That's where the other post about claiming the road and being assertive comes in

Other then that, the North quays are grand

buffalo

mikemac1 wrote: »

Yep, definitely the worst part

That's where the other post about claiming the road and being assertive comes in

I found occasionally even taking the lane wasn't sufficient - somebody would just start indicating and move in on top of you regardless. Nought you can to do to avoid those psychos.