Could this money be better spent?

DUBintheSTICKS

While driving to Carlow from Kilkenny on the N9 today, a road marking crew was out putting down a new broken yellow line on the hard shoulder side of the road. However the new line was in about 4/5ft from the old line narrowing the lane.

By chance I found out that they are creating a cycle track from Carlow to Kilkenny on the old road - N9 and it is going to cost €463,000!!

I was just thinking this money could be better spent on other cycling infrastructure than this stretch of road which has for the majority a nice big hard shoulder running on it bar a few pinch points, railway bridges etc

http://kclr96fm.com/news/work-starts-on-carlow-to-kilkenny-cycle-route/

I cycle this road a lot and don't see the need for this at all. Especially with the motorway now taking the bulk of the traffic off the N9.

Peterx

I think it must be spend spend spend the remaining budget time of the year again.
The council are putting in a new set of traffic lights and traffic calming and ramps on a quiet enough road close to me.

TonyStark

Peterx wrote: »

I think it must be spend spend spend the remaining budget time of the year again.
The council are putting in a new set of traffic lights and traffic calming and ramps on a quiet enough road close to me.

Usually you see the "pot hole filling crews" do the rounds as well.. so I imagine its a case of use the budget or lose it next year.

buffalo

It also allows them to say "we've laid 23475620345 kilometres of cycling track". I don't think I've ever seen that sort of statement qualified with feedback from cyclists to say whether the track was asked for, needed, useful, effective, etc.

HivemindXX

DUBintheSTICKS wrote: »

I was just thinking this money could be better spent on other cycling infrastructure than this stretch of road which has for the majority a nice big hard shoulder running on it bar a few pinch points, railway bridges etc

Just to add to the pile on (without knowing this road at all) I'll say that in my experience you will find that the cycle path disappears in those few places that it would actually be useful.

Here's how I imagine it goes in the planning office-

"So we need to put in some cycling infrastructure so on this clear, straight stretch of road with a wide shoulder we are going to stick down some red tarmac and a few signs".

"What about here where the road narrows and takes a few sharp bends?"

"Hmm, that would be difficult alright. Let's do nothing."

bambergbike

HivemindXX wrote: »

Here's how I imagine it goes in the planning office-

"So we need to put in some cycling infrastructure so on this clear, straight stretch of road with a wide shoulder we are going to stick down some red tarmac and a few signs".

"What about here where the road narrows and takes a few sharp bends?"

"Hmm, that would be difficult alright. Let's do nothing."

Either that, or the road narrows, and the cycle lane gets narrower too, to the point where cyclists keeping a safe distance from the kerb have to ride on the cycle lane markings, and cars that overtake without moving out of lane also have their wheels within a few centimetres of the cycle lane markings.

I came across a new way to mark cycle lanes on narrow roads recently. Have only seen the sketch in the link, though, so I'm curious as to how it would work in practice.

DUBintheSTICKS

This is what they are at - I'm sure they will be doing more to the road marking, well I hope so.

I took this parked in the hard shoulder, this stretch of the road is quite wide

galwaycyclist

Highly questionable use of public money - Cyclist.ie has already raised this in relation to other schemes.

http://www.thejournal.ie/cyclists-want-cycle-lane-scheme-halted-209479-Aug2011/

Yes there are all kinds of better things that could be done with this money.

bambergbike

The Kilkenny People article says this scheme is modelled on cycleways developed in Perth. No indication of why, though...

griffin100

I cycle this route quite a bit and this is definitely not needed at that cost. The road between Carlow and the outskirts of Kilkenny has a good wide hard shoulder for 95% of the distance. The only really narrow bits are under some bridges. I'd rather see half a million spent improving some of the road surfaces coming off Mt Leinster!!!

Captain Havoc

I'm not sure but I suspect you may have seen the same fb status I replied to OP. I was against it as a hard shoulder is according to the rules of the road a cycling and pedestrian lane. This was passed a while ago but last winter I was cycling from home in Kilkenny to work in Carlow 2-3 a week and I really don't see the need and the money could be very much better spent. I noticed the widening of the hard shoulder coming home tonight alright. The argument for the plan was that cars can legally swing into a hard shoulder so long as there's no cyclists, pedestrians or junctions. I've never encountered enough pedestrians to warrant crazy manouveres. The only thing that could be done is a few cycle friendly signs that direct people to Kilkenny.

Huff n Puff

DUBintheSTICKS wrote: »

This is what they are at - I'm sure they will be doing more to the road marking, well I hope so.

I took this parked in the hard shoulder, this stretch of the road is quite wide

It will get worse - they will soon blast away the old yellow markings, leaving multiple potholes where the old yellow line used to be. They will remove the cats eyes and not fill in the holes properly - leaving more potholes. As each bad winter goes by these potholes get bigger. They will then paint a white line one foot from the new yellow line.

We have had to endure the same nonsense in Nenagh. They converted the full length of the Nenagh to Limerick N7. The total cost was huge and the final job made the road surface worse. New tarmac was laid in places where they widened the road but you can't cycle on that new tarmac as it is so uneven (think rumble strips). This whole thing is little more than a sign post erecting exercise.

It is the sort of thing that people should be getting fired over.

The idea is good but the execution for the amount of money invested has been apalling. How can you spend so much money and make things worse?

mossym

Huff n Puff wrote: »

We have had to endure the same nonsense in Nenagh. They converted the full length of the Nenagh to Limerick N7. The total cost was huge and the final job made the road surface worse. New tarmac was laid in places where they widened the road but you can't cycle on that new tarmac as it is so uneven (think rumble strips). This whole thing is little more than a sign post erecting exercise.

It is the sort of thing that people should be getting fired over.

The idea is good but the execution for the amount of money invested has been apalling. How can you spend so much money and make things worse?

agreed on the N7, parts of it are terrible. was better before they made a dedicated cycle lane.

they're doing something similar in Killaloe/ballina right now, in order to use up the budget they're putting in unneccesary cycle lanes and are narrowing already restricted roads almost to where two cars can't pass safely. IN an effort to spend their precious budgets they're doing something which will anger drivers and they'll blame cyclists for it. a lose lose situation

the way politicians and councils continue to find new ways to sink lower into the depths of stupidity year after year truly amazes me. there are no shortage of roads around the locality that could have used maintaince, instead they're redoing sections of road they just did in the last couple of years and making them even worse

tomasrojo

bambergbike wrote: »

The Kilkenny People article says this scheme is modelled on cycleways developed in Perth. No indication of why, though...

A design from the cycling paradise of Australia? What could go wrong.

michael196

obviously a delegation was required to travel to Perth via the Government Gulf stream jet , over the four seasons to see how cyclists cycled on the sections in Perth.

TheBlaaMan

They have recently completed something similar between the Waterford ring road and Tramore - 6km at an eye-watering cost of over €300,000. Full details here http://www.smartertravel.ie/sites/default/files/uploads/NCN%20Application%20Form-Tramore%20Final.pdf including a breakdown of where the costs were being spent, and some rather dubious justifications for the project.

mp31

TheBlaaMan wrote: »

They have recently completed something similar between the Waterford ring road and Tramore - 6km at an eye-watering cost of over €300,000. Full details here http://www.smartertravel.ie/sites/default/files/uploads/NCN%20Application%20Form-Tramore%20Final.pdf including a breakdown of where the costs were being spent, and some rather dubious justifications for the project.

Estimated cost of €125,000 for lining (150mm) :eek:
Does it really cost that much to paint white lines along 6km of road?

CramCycle

mp31 wrote: »

Estimated cost of €125,000 for lining (150mm) :eek:
Does it really cost that much to paint white lines along 6km of road?

LOL, I must go into this business, Raw materials and labour, and wages. I could do it for 25,00 and make a tidy profit.

Stripe painter - between 200 and 4000 euro (depends how quickly and straight you want it
Wages - between 1000 and 2000 euro
Paint - 2000euro including excess (and thats dramatically overpricing it)
Insurance - unsure, would presume it would be covered under the councils general insurance, maybe someone could help out with this
Traffic cones and lighting to warn motorists would be almost free as they council would have a stock of them already.

So 10,000 without insurance, anyone up for starting a new business.

buffalo

CramCycle wrote: »

LOL, I must go into this business, Raw materials and labour, and wages. I could do it for 25,00 and make a tidy profit.

You're missing a ruler to make sure the stripes are straight.

seve65

How on earth can this kind of criminal waste go on in a recession. Superficially I notice it all the time with all kinds of over-spec'd repair work, and then the opposite ie. dangerous roads in dire need of attention left for months on end. From a cyclists perspective, I would just expect less pot-holes around the place and the occasional road widening in a few dangerous spots. These guys get paid to do this stuff, how do they go home at night not feeling like complete fools ?

CramCycle

seve65 wrote: »

These guys get paid to do this stuff, how do they go home at night not feeling like complete fools ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO0JaecRWy0

Lumen

seve65 wrote: »

How on earth can this kind of criminal waste go on in a recession

One man's pissing money against a wall is another's "economic stimulus".