Introduction of two way system on Blackthorn Road, Sandyford Industrial Estate

Irish and Proud

cisk wrote: »

WTF! Idiots, do they have any common sense at all, the difference will be negligible.

Looking at the street view on google maps, the pedestrians seem to have had better facilities with triangular layout - in fact, it was quite close to what Patrick Brophey suggested a while back. The only problem that could have existed there was speed - in a destination area like this, that's what ramps are for - controlling speed! With the revised changes (2 right turning lanes), it's not so much a downgrade for motor traffic in terms of road space now, but it's IMO, a total downgrade for pedestrians - they can now only cross on two sides of the junction with much greater crossing distances - sure there was only one lane (no more than 6m) to cross at any one time with the triangular layout - this would surely have been good for people with mobility issues. Now the crossing on Blackthorn Road involves 12m at least - how are the less able supposed to cross that? A traffic island is needed there. As for cycling, where is the right turn facility for cyclists coming out of Blackthorn Road gone? What was all this money spent for? Would it have cost more to raise the junction with ramped entries?

I'd say get rid of that contra-flow on Blackthorn Road, build the new cycle paths, have 3 unidirectional lanes (one left, one mixed & one right) fanning into 2 left and 2 right divided by a 2.1m refuge island, place another refuge island on Blackthorn Avenue where the right filter lane (for the contra flow) is now and provide a pedestrian crossing, bring the cyclists up along the left verge on each arm and phase them in (of course, proper transition slips will be required) - the operation as a whole should 3 three phases - that includes all pedestrians, cyclists and motor vehicles - you do this by taking each movement (both ways for motorists and cyclists) and letting pedestrians cross the vacant arm on each phase.

Regards!

So i have just been looking out the window for the last 10 minutes at what is the start of peak traffic in the estate.

95% of cars turning right towards leoparstown are staying in the right-hand lane but this seems to be a good thing, traffic is moving significantly faster and there are actually some gaps up the road rather than the constant queue that we have been seeing.

Except for the one taxi drive stopped outside the non Microsoft building with his hazards on.

meijin

Irish and Proud wrote: »

Looking at the street view on google maps, the pedestrians seem to have had better facilities with triangular layout

That's right! It took much less time to cross before.

melekalikimaka

its ridiculous if walking, lights are to long and not synced right down by luas, accidents will occur

_Kaiser_

So they seem to be done with the junction outside the window here and yet the same problem persists since they started this mess - cars turning left ignore the filter lane and continue up the new middle lane and only at the lights themselves do they move left.

This is even more evident with buses and trucks.

homer911

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

So they seem to be done with the junction outside the window here and yet the same problem persists since they started this mess - cars turning left ignore the filter lane and continue up the new middle lane and only at the lights themselves do they move left.

This is even more evident with buses and trucks.

They are taking the extra space to turn afforded by keeping right as much as possible as the lane is very narrow after making this corner - more of the verge should have been used. The coco are not happen unless they can slow all cars down to walking pace..

Irish and Proud

homer911 wrote: »

They are taking the extra space to turn afforded by keeping right as much as possible as the lane is very narrow after making this corner - more of the verge should have been used. The coco are not happen unless they can slow all cars down to walking pace..

...and all the pedestrians down to snails pace. I walk a lot, but I guess the people devising these new road designs don't walk much at all outdoors. Lack of left slips often annoy me while walking - I find these help speed up my progress in getting across the road - in fact, left slips and diagonal pedestrian crossings at signal junctions would be cool. However, cyclists must be factored in too - the Dutch have junctions that seem to cater well for motorists, pedestrians and cyclists.

BTW, who is auditing expenditure in this country??? - it's a joke - the NTA do not know how to design roads IMO - yet they are getting taxpayers money to wreck our infrastructure - this has to stop!!!

meijin

People actually get beeped for using the second lane to turn right... everybody thinks it's for turning left. And the second lane after the turn is not used at all! What a waste... :mad:

Irish and Proud

meijin wrote: »

People actually get beeped for using the second lane to turn right... everybody thinks it's for turning left. And the second lane after the turn is not used at all! What a waste... :mad:

...I wonder has it improved the traffic situation on average, since the latest round of works were implemented?

Glencarraig

I almost got the front of my car clipped today by a guy turning right in the outside lane, I was in the new middle lane turning right, and indicating, but of course yer man has no idea whats going on and just drifts across in front of me. The pullback of the curb to allow two lanes going right is not back far enough, it needs to go back to its original position or else there will be many incidents like mine today.

GreeBo

low traffic the last 2 days anyway...fwiw

i think the next step is to remove the filter left leaving the estate at the beacon. this constant stream of traffic prevents adequate cars crossing the junction from the unfinished apartments side, causing huge tailbacks and people using the outside lane to skip the queue.

Irish and Proud

I was in Sandyford today and saw the junction for myself. All I can say is that it's a joke of a junction seemingly designed to accommodate a few cars wanting to take a short cut at the expense of everyone else - particularly pedestrians and the bulk of motorists following the one way system (maybe another excuse for thwarting motorists in general). The left lane from Blackthorn Road onto Blackthorn Avenue has to be seen to be believed - if I did take a picture of it, people would think it was photo-shopped - it's that bad. The NTA's ideology is a load of diddley dee diddley dum - in short, what would they know???. Yet, the cars turning right onto Blackthorn Road have a decent right filter lane - yes, the movement that's seemingly causing all the problems (oh yeah, let's encourage it! :mad:). It doesn't end there - where are the cyclists turning right out of Blackthorn Road supposed to go - more diddley dee diddley dum.

To end it all, I decided to test this junction and wait for the lights to cross both roads (coming from the Luas) and it's a pain in the neck - takes far too long - I reckon that it takes 3 minutes to do - that's ridiculous. There's just one thing for it ATM - return the junction to it's original triangular state and have zebra crossings (for both pedestrians and cyclists) from each side - if speed is an issue, then raise the whole junction thereby creating a table. Like before, one decent lane for each direction of traffic and no shortcut traffic lane (no need for that nonsense that's really about thwarting cars IMO) - only cyclists should be allowed a contraflow lane - in other words, nice and simple!!! BTW, the newly laid concrete path along Blackthorn Avenue (from that farce of a junction) is excellent - the way paths should be - nice straight and smooth - no pesky leg wrecking dishes to contend with!

Back to the main subject, if we are to take cycling seriously, then the NTA and their ludicrous anti-car ideologies need to be taken out of the equation and Dutch Engineers brought in - people who should know something about urban roads and cycling (and indeed, walking). What the NTA is doing is just plain anti-car IMO (you only need to see the latest design for the Killiney Towers Roundabout - I don't think it's anything to do with cycling when one sees the rubbish that cyclists will have to contend with), and using cycling as an excuse to punish motorists could be diminishing the cause of cycling by turning people against cyclists - I have come across a couple of articles on the net warning about this in general.

NTA Out, Dutch Engineers In!

Larbre34

Irish and Proud wrote: »

NTA Out, Dutch Engineers In!

Who are you telling this to? Send it to the Oireachtas Transport Committee or the C&AG, someone who will scrutinise this stuff.

Incidentally, I have a friend who is a planner with the City Council and she tells me the NTA are running seminars on their current design standards for planners and engineers and the lecturers are Dutch designers. Don't wish too hard.