Reworking Dublin's quays

Iwannahurl

CIE wrote: »

"May"?

Let me see. No pedestrianisation has ever reduced congestion in Dublin. They closed off North Earl Street, it got worse; they closed off Grafton Street, it got worse still; they narrowed Talbot Street, yes, it got steadily worse; they reduced O'Connell Street from eight lanes to four, yes, things got still worse; half of Abbey Street Lower and Middle (and all of Upper) got taken over by Luas, guess what happened with traffic...yes, worse again. The only places that got relief were ones like the Coombe, because they widened Cork Street and extended it all the way to Dean Street, taking the bus traffic bound for Crumlin and Walkinstown off there; South New Street and Clanbrassil Street also got widened. More like Braess' urban legend.

Urban legend? Not necessarily.

It depends on context, of course, and traffic is a complex phenomenon.

And there is no doubt that transportation and land use planning in Dublin City leaves a lot to be desired: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/1113/1224326524736.html

I doubt reallocating road space to pedestrians and public transport has increased congestion for those modes of travel, however, since they move far greater volumes of people per metre of road width than cars can possibly achieve, even in the unlikely event that most cars have more than one occupant.

When were the timelines for those closure and road space reallocations, I wonder, and how did they relate to the growth in car ownership and use as well as other contemporaneous changes?

Incidentally, my understanding is that the forthcoming travel and transport statistics from the last Census will show a significant increase in cycle commuting. How could that be adding to congestion?

antoinolachtnai

The issue here is the metrics. No one seems to be able to put any metrics to any of these plans for luases, busways and so on.

A certain amount of road space is simply required to cope with traffic that is essential to the healthy functioning of the city as a commercial centre. If you remove too much road space, then the whole thing will stop working.

There is a severe shortage of road space as it is. We have significant congestion, even though we are in the middle of a recession.

There has to be a plan for dealing with congestion. It has to be a plan which isn't going to destroy the city centre as a driving destination, otherwise it will kill the commercial heart of the city and move all the business out to the suburban shopping centres.

If someone believes that removing road space will reduce certain types of road traffic without impacting on the commercial success of the city, i.e., that the improved environment will attract different types of business, then they need to explain what their numbers are.

Otherwise this is all just a nice idea and not really practical.

antoinolachtnai

bk wrote: »

Well if we had proper integrated ticketing [1] then you could terminate the bus routes on the north, south, east and west sides of the city and allow people to complete their journey via LUAS (once BXD is built) and Dublin Bikes.

You cannot do this. Dublin Bikes only has very small capacity. BXD also has extremely limited capacity. It is designed to run in conjunction with a north-south metro. It is designed to carry a few thousand people in each direction per hour through the city centre.

This sort of setup is very common in many European cities. Take Prague for instance, the city center only has trams and metro, no buses. Buses operate from stations that integrate with the tram/metro outside the city and it works very well.

The Prague metro has massive capacity. There is no comparison to be made between Prague's three interlocking underground lines and Dublin's proposed BXD.

Then you pedestrianise College Green, eliminate buses from the city center, reduce the traffic on college green to just one lane for taxis, more space for pedestrians and cyclist, reduce traffic on the quays and increase pedestrian and cyclist space there too.

This would be the end of retail in Dublin city centre. It could no longer commercially compete with the out of town centres. It would also deeply damage the south city as a commercial centre.

Iwannahurl

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The issue here is the metrics. No one seems to be able to put any metrics to any of these plans for luases, busways and so on.

A certain amount of road space is simply required to cope with traffic that is essential to the healthy functioning of the city as a commercial centre. If you remove too much road space, then the whole thing will stop working.

There is a severe shortage of road space as it is. We have significant congestion, even though we are in the middle of a recession.

There has to be a plan for dealing with congestion. It has to be a plan which isn't going to destroy the city centre as a driving destination, otherwise it will kill the commercial heart of the city and move all the business out to the suburban shopping centres.

If someone believes that removing road space will reduce certain types of road traffic without impacting on the commercial success of the city, i.e., that the improved environment will attract different types of business, then they need to explain what their numbers are.

Otherwise this is all just a nice idea and not really practical.

IMO it's standard in this country to conflate the flow of cars with the movement of people. However, experience elsewhere (eg London and a number of other European cities) has shown that the number of people walking in retail precincts and not the number of people in cars is key to getting people inside shops to spend money.

Here are some relevant links:

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/pubs/pdf/streets_people.pdf

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/137370/0034117.pdf

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110118095356/http:/www.cabe.org.uk/files/paved-with-gold-summary.pdf

http://www.walk21.com/papers/Business%20Case%20slides%20Adrian%20Bell%20v2.pdf

seamus

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

This would be the end of retail in Dublin city centre. It could no longer commercially compete with the out of town centres. It would also deeply damage the south city as a commercial centre.

I'm afraid this is a deeply flawed argument. As everyone already agrees, traffic in Dublin is ridiculously congested.

So if accessibility is an issue, then the city centre would already be dead since it's so difficult to get in and out. Every single time pedestrianisation is mentioned, people are up in arms about the death of the commercial sector, but time after time it's been shown that it in fact massively increases footfall for the affected businesses.
It's the same argument as bypassing a town. When you bypass a town, commercial activity increases because people no longer avoid it.

The traffic management plan in Dublin city needs to be geared towards moving people into the city and then moving them out again. At the moment we have a huge backlog of traffic trying to get through the city. This is the traffic we need to shut out of the city, because it's stifling economic activity for business.

antoinolachtnai

I am not conflating anything with anything.

The problem is that you won't necessarily increase the foot traffic just because you increase the amount of road space for cyclists, or for that matter, pedestrians.

As I understand it, the number of people walking in retail areas in the city centre is in decline. A large proportion of this traffic has moved to the suburban centres. Adding more pedestrian space won't in itself reverse this decline.

seamus

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

As I understand it, the number of people walking in retail areas in the city centre is in decline. A large proportion of this traffic has moved to the suburban centres.

And why do you think that is? Shopping centres involve driving parking your car in the car park and then walking around the shopping centre. You don't drive from shop to shop.
Therefore if people are choosing shopping centres over the city, the issue is clearly getting there in the first place. Once there, people want to walk around.

So we need to prioritise the traffic which is terminating in the city centre and penalise or discourage traffic which doesn't. Pedestrianisation doesn't affect the ability of traffic to get into the city, only to get through it. All routes in the city centre should lead to car parks, and force traffic to take painfully circuitous routes if they want to get anywhere else.

Improving pedestrian facilities also makes it a nicer place to walk around, which in turn encourages more shoppers.

antoinolachtnai

For sure, I completely agree. The problem is that if I want to travel from Clontarf, say, to Grafton Street, it will be difficult to do this. If you reduce capacity on the quays and College Green and remove Dawson St as a car route, the route I must take will become increasingly circuitous and the roads I have to travel on to get to these car parks will become increasingly congested.

As it is, Grafton St is increasingly difficult to access from the Northside. There is a lot of congestion too.

Bus traffic is also impacted by pedestrianizing streets.

I would't blame only the transport situation for the decline of the city centre pedestrian areas. What is offered there is jaded and not as good as it should be. But adding more pedestrian shopping districts will not fix this problem.

Anyway, it's all about the numbers. Will the growth from pedestrianisation be grerater than the costs? Someone needs to work this out and explain it.

listermint

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

I am not conflating anything with anything.

The problem is that you won't necessarily increase the foot traffic just because you increase the amount of road space for cyclists, or for that matter, pedestrians.

As I understand it, the number of people walking in retail areas in the city centre is in decline. A large proportion of this traffic has moved to the suburban centres. Adding more pedestrian space won't in itself reverse this decline.

of course it will, you are making 'going to town' far more appealing to the masses. People like to stroll unhindered. Im unsure how you cant see this in the real world.

seamus

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

For sure, I completely agree. The problem is that if I want to travel from Clontarf, say, to Grafton Street, it will be difficult to do this. If you reduce capacity on the quays and College Green and remove Dawson St as a car route, the route I must take will become increasingly circuitous and the roads I have to travel on to get to these car parks will become increasingly congested.

You drive from Clontarf, park in a northside carpark (like Ilac or Arnotts) and you make your way to Grafton street from there. Line BXD will be great for that, and improving ped facilities across college green and on the quays will make this a much quicker and more pleasant walk.

This kind of concept works great in other cities, but there seems to be a cultural idea in Ireland that sitting in traffic for 25 minutes to save yourself walking an extra five minutes from the car to the shop, is a good idea.

bk

+1 seamus Dublin City really isn't that big, according to Google Maps the distance between the Spire and Grafton Street is 800 meters or a 10 minute walk. Hardly end of the world.

I do it almost every day.

I'd imagine many people walk much further then that in Blanchardstown, hell even to get from some of the car parks you would have to walk that distance.

I believe the reason people don't like walking this is not the distance, rather it is the pedestrian unfriendliness of Dublin city center. They don't like having to cross the exposed and relatively narrow footpaths of O'Connell Bridge and Westmoreland Street and having to cross all the roads and deal with the traffic and buses etc.

I believe more pedsetrianisation and prioritisation of the city center will make it much more attractive to shoppers and entertainment/leisure users *

Close College Green and turn it into a square (and take over the Bank Of Ireland and convert it to some sort of civic center, gallery, etc.). Widen the paths (reduce lanes) on O'Connell Bridge and Westmoreland Street.

Also pedestrianise the nice small streets around Grafton St.

* People keep talking of shopping, while forgetting that the pubs, bars, clubs, restaurants, cinemas, gallerys, theatres, etc. are as important to the health of the city center as is shopping and these definitely benefit from more pedestrainisation.

Also people seem to be forgetting that many people actually live in the city center. You know all those windows above the shops and offices often contain apartments with many people living in them, I know shock horror.

Don't we owe these people a safer and more comfortable place to live and don't we want to develop and grow exactly this sort of high density, sustainable living. You know where these people leave their apartment and walk to the local supermarket to do their shopping, walk to their place of work, walk to the pub, etc.

This is the future of Dublin City Center, not cars clogging our streets.

monument

On the economic life of the city centre, car and Luas use is overestimated - Shopping Travel Behaviour in Dublin City Centre, while bus and even more so walking is underestimated:

Abstract
Traders on Dublin’s two main shopping streets considerably over-estimate spending by shoppers travelling by car and Luas while significantly undervaluing the spend of bus passengers and pedestrians. A study interviewed 1,009 shoppers on Grafton and Henry streets seeking to identify differences (if any) between perceived and actual spending levels
by travel mode.

Bus carried 35% of shoppers to Grafton St and 49% to Henry St; this compares with traders’ perceptions of 31% and 40% respectively. Measured in value terms, bus proved the most lucrative mode to both streets, delivering 38% of the total spend on both streets, when outliers are excluded.

Pedestrian travel was similarly under-valued. Traders believed that 11% would walk to shop on Grafton St while on Henry St traders estimated that 6% of their customers came on foot. The actual figures are 20% and 19%, according to the survey.

Car transport was overvalued by traders. On Grafton St traders perceived that car would account for 13% of customers whereas in reality car-borne shoppers made up 10%. Traders on Henry St believed car would carry 19% of shoppers but in fact only 9% came by car.

The situation is similar for Luas: traders perceived 28% of Grafton St shoppers would arrive by tram compared to 13% in reality, and again on Henry St, traders thought Luas would carry 19% but it served just 10%.

Bus priority and pedestrian enhancement may therefore warrant greater investment. The imbalance in cycling mode share between Grafton Street and Henry Street should also be investigated further.

The most striking is how much walking is underestimated on both sides of the city, how much Luas is overestimated a bit more so on Grafton Street but also on Henry Street, how much car use is overestimated on Henry Street, and how much the bicycle is underestimated on Grafton Street.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

You cannot do this. Dublin Bikes only has very small capacity. BXD also has extremely limited capacity. It is designed to run in conjunction with a north-south metro. It is designed to carry a few thousand people in each direction per hour through the city centre.

The Prague metro has massive capacity. There is no comparison to be made between Prague's three interlocking underground lines and Dublin's proposed BXD.

This would be the end of retail in Dublin city centre. It could no longer commercially compete with the out of town centres. It would also deeply damage the south city as a commercial centre.

I agree, it would be over kill to try to stop buses and fully stop car access to the city centre. Bus, pedestrian and cyclist priority/enhancement can be done together with car access to retail and leisure aimed car parks (commuter car parks are not as important -- tho I'm not exactly saying cut them off, just don't give them much priority).

bk

Wow, that is a fantastic report, it shows that almost as many people cycled (9%) to Grafton St. as drove (10%).

So in other words 90% of people shopping on Grafton St and 91% of people on Henry St. didn't drive there.

This pretty much blows away any argument that cars are important to retail in Dublin City. They in fact play a very small percent. This report clearly shows that reducing car access while increasing pedestrian, cyclist and bus access would lead to far more shoppers, not less.

bk

Another interesting point in this report is that Grafton Street has far more people cycling there (9%) versus Henry St (3%). I believe this is down to better cycling facilities on the south side of the city:

- The excellent Drury Street Car Park with it's free excellent bike parking. It is a really pity there isn't a similar facility on the North side of the river.
- Better Dublin Bikes location to Grafton Street then Henry St.
- More on street bike parking near Grafton St then Henry St.
- Dublin Bikes extending further into the southern suburbs then the northern.
- Cycling on O'Connell St. isn't great *

* The big problem is that it is a bus station for Dublin bus, I wonder if something could be done about this, perhaps a completely segregated bike lane down the center median of O'Connell St (with proper access of course) or alternatively move the bus lane/stops into the center of O'Connell St.

The latter is a really interesting idea, obviously it would have to be carefully designed. But if done well could be a real boast to the city as it would put distance between the buses and pedestrians and cyclists walking along the footpaths of O'Connell St.

seamus

I've cycled down O'Connell St a few times and half of the problem is that its layout isn't conducive to an easy mix of cyclists and pedestrians. Every traffic light on the street is like college green x 10. If you're not drafting a bus or a taxi, then you don't exist as far as peds are concerned and they'll just walk out. So in that regard I think separating the cyclists from the vehicles will make it less cycle-friendly.

Maybe removing all right-hand turns from O'Connell St (busses don't take them) and running the cycle lane on the right-hand side of that lane would work?
So path|kerb|buslane|lane|bollards|cyclelane|kerb|path

Iwannahurl

seamus wrote: »

All routes in the city centre should lead to car parks

Ghent in Belgium, home of possibly the largest car-free zone in Europe, has a system of that nature. They have a parking route around the city centre:

The P-route (parking route) is like a mini ring-road around the city centre linking all the car-parks. The purpose of the P-route is to ensure that every road-user is able to reach the car-park of their choice as smoothly and easily as possible. There is a P-route in a clockwise direction and one in an anti-clockwise direction. The clockwise P-route is sign-posted in green and the anti-clockwise P-route is sign-posted in yellow.

The population of Ghent is substantially larger than that of Cork City, I believe.

Iwannahurl

seamus wrote: »

there seems to be a cultural idea in Ireland that sitting in traffic for 25 minutes to save yourself walking an extra five minutes from the car to the shop, is a good idea.

In Galway the aim is to avoid walking an extra five metres...

Chris_5339762

Part of the problem is that we dont have enough cross city routes and those routes aren't high spec enough. Unfortunately, everything in the city is S2 with traffic lights. To get across the city without using the M50 is very difficult. The eastern bypass will help, but not solve these issues. I don't really know either what the solution is.

MJohnston

I'd like to throw a few things into the mix here that I don't believe have really been mentioned, disconnected ideas, mostly based on my own experiences:

- People don't take a car when they're shopping because they don't like public transport, they do it because they want an easy way to get the stuff that they buy home. The thought of taking a bunch of shopping bags onto a busy bus would fill me with dread.
- The bus is horrible. Just my opinion, but it's a fairly common one. DB has probably got a lower proportion of dodgy passengers than say the Luas, but it's just, for the most part, not a pleasant way to travel. I say this as someone who travels on 2 every day on each of my daily journeys to and from work. This may be coloured by the fact that it's currently winter, probably the least pleasant time to be there (getting onto a cramped, roasting bus whilst soaked and wearing a big coat because it was freezing and raining. Ugh)
- A certain (large) percentage of the population will never cycle.
- Dublin is incredibly difficult city to traverse in a car north-south without contributing to the traffic on the quays at least partially. I'm a car driver too and I know well that nobody who uses the car through the city centre wouldn't prefer to be anywhere else (excepting the people who must work there).
- Are taxis worse contributors to traffic than single occupant vehicles? How much does this affect rush hour versus Saturday nights for example?
- Why are buses and cyclists forced to share road space? This doesn't work well for either party.

BostonB

MJohnston wrote: »

...- People don't take a car when they're shopping because they don't like public transport, they do it because they want an easy way to get the stuff that they buy home. The thought of taking a bunch of shopping bags onto a busy bus would fill me with dread.

I wonder how much of the daily traffic is people shopping though. I would expect the majority of it is commuting. Or people socialising, or going to events.

MJohnston wrote: »

....
- Why are buses and cyclists forced to share road space? This doesn't work well for either party.

I'm the same in that the bus is my least favourite and slowest way to get around.

But I don't get why buses and cyclists can't co exist. Works ok on the North Quays. (at least for me). But it kinda depends on the specific road your talking about. Some drivers seem to accept and adapt, some seems to take it as challenge. In my experience anyway.

MJohnston

BostonB wrote: »

I wonder how much of the daily traffic is people shopping though. I would expect the majority of it is commuting. Or people socialising, or going to events.

I can only speculate, but I'd imagine, on a weekday, during rush hour, there is probably very little traffic in the city centre that is there "voluntarily", rather just workers.

As an aside, I would say that traffic in the city centre between 10am and 4pm is actually fine. I've never experienced much congestion, just queuing at traffic lights. (obviously this is also usually true before 8am and after 7pm too)

BostonB wrote: »

While I'm the same in that the bus is my least favourite and slowest way to get around.

But I don't get why buses and cyclists can't co exist. Works ok on the North Quays. (at least for me). But it kinda depends on the specific road your talking about. Some drivers seem to accept and adapt, some seems to take it as challenge. In my experience anyway.

I can only comment on my usual bus route, but I see two stretches causing problems. Most of Pearse Street from Westland Row down to just after the Tara Street junction, and then the second would be the Amiens Street - North Strand - Marino Mart road. The traffic is usually full in the non-bus lanes and this means that the bus has to stick behind the cyclist for quite some distance, usually at quite a slow speed. This is probably not very nice for the cyclist themselves and a bit annoying if you're a passenger on the bus. Not blaming either party here, but it certainly goes against the idea of co-existence that needs to happen.

BostonB

I don't get the point about voluntarily?

Maybe theres enough room on those roads to give the cyclist a dedicated lane.

MJohnston

BostonB wrote: »

I don't get the point about voluntarily?

Maybe theres enough room on those roads to give the cyclist a dedicated lane.

The point is if its involuntary, then measures to reduce congestion probably won't have very much effect, if the root problem isn't tackled. It'll just make it more painful for those car commuters who might have no choice.

Mr Simpson

Probably very simplified but, my solution would be to rework the quays as suggested and introduce a congestion charge in the city centre. That congestion charge should then be used to fund greater dublin public transport only.

BostonB

I think involuntary isn't the right description. People have to go to work yes. But a huge amount don't have to take the car. But do. I include myself in that. I only take the car because I can and its easier. If it was harder (took too long) or I couldn't, (no parking for example) then I'd have to take an alternative.

Chris_5339762

MarkMc wrote: »

Probably very simplified but, my solution would be to rework the quays as suggested and introduce a congestion charge in the city centre. That congestion charge should then be used to fund greater dublin public transport only.

In the future, thats what we need to work towards. However, we need much better public transport before thats a runner.

Mr Simpson

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

In the future, thats what we need to work towards. However, we need much better public transport before thats a runner.

I agree, thats actually why I'm in favour of a congestion charge. It could go quite a ways towards helping to fund public transport

Aard

Congestion charge puts a premium on road space by charging for it. Another way of putting a premium on road space is reducing its supply. (For example, by turning car-lanes over to bus lanes, or giving busses priority at junctions.) There's a lot that could/should be implemented before a congestion charge, which would really only be as a last resort.

monument

This is how I'd try it, sadly (or more likely thankfully) I don't have traffic modelling software...

- bikes two-way on northside quay side
- lots of extra footpath space and some parkland on northside
- traffic eastbound stays on northside with reduced lanes, but mostly goes where the current bus lane is
- traffic westbound stays on southside, more turning restrictions
- buses in both directions on southside

Best viewed zoomed in a 45 degree turned off:

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=203986226054652982108.0004d035726d41cae7844&msa=0&ll=53.345229,-6.273424&spn=0.001777,0.005284

jimmycrackcorm

BostonB wrote: »

I think involuntary isn't the right description. People have to go to work yes. But a huge amount don't have to take the car. But do. I include myself in that. I only take the car because I can and its easier. If it was harder (took too long) or I couldn't, (no parking for example) then I'd have to take an alternative.

I used to do the same (drive to work) until I discovered cycling. I'm all for making it more difficult / expensive for car users in favour of more efficient public transport.

Part of the problem is that motorists won't switch until there are better options but better options are difficult to implement until the alternative capacity is in place which is hampered by so many cars on the road!!!