Canal Way Cycle route, traffic lights sequence

Paulj

Hi folks,
I take this route twice daily between Portobello Bridge and Grand Canal and find it pretty frustrating. Sometimes i walk, sometimes I drive but mostly I cycle.

It seems to be frustrating for all modes of transport.

The traffic light sequence is all wrong in my opinion. See here for a description of the way it currently works.
In my opinion it leads to excessive waiting for all modes of transport and doesn't allow people to exercise common sense at all. Instead, everyone is frustrated and breaks the rules. The pedestrians cross when cycle light is green, and the cyclists cross when the pedestrian light is green.

Firstly I think the sequence is wrong, it would work better if the flow was something like this:
1: Car green time
2: Cycle green time with flashing amber for pedestrians
3: Pedestrian green time with flashing amber for cyclists
<repeat>

An even better approach would be to give the cars a green filter light for going straight through while the adjacent pedestrians and cyclists also get green lights. You could provide either a flashing amber for the cars to turn left when the way is clear or a simple sign “Cars must give way to pedestrians and cyclists when turning left”. This is regularly done in countries such as USA or Denmark.

The cycle lane has been open now for 1 year and the situation is not improving. I just wanted to start a thread to get an idea for what others here think.

check_six

I travel on and near that bit of canal every day. The sequence is a mess. It frustrates all users, I feel. I don't use the cycle path near there at all. I use the other side of the canal (Percy Pl, or Mespil Road) or the road near the path. No advantage to using it that I can see with the way the lights are set up currently. Of course, there were near misses when the cycle lane didn't have an independent light and the cars turned in on top of the bikes on the junctions.

BostonB

+1

I use the road on the other side. I travel a good 15/20 mins along the canal.

Someone made the point in a previous thread about this that those lanes are really aimed at short local commuters and tourists and families and kids who aren't really in a hurry and take their time, perhaps just to access the canal.

I just think its bad design.

Paulj

Just following up on this thread, i submitted a fault to fixmyarea.ie so as to make the council aware of the issue, i've proposed a possible solution too:

http://fixmyarea.com/issues/15704-dangerous-traffic-light-sequencing-on-grand-canal-cycle-way

If you agree you can click "Support" to raise the profile of this as a dangerous issue. This might encourage the council to make some improvements.

idiottje

I take this route also, but tend to stick to the traffic side of the canal.
I usually stick to average 26kph when I get on from the end of Davit Road. I usually get stuck at the Rathmines junction, but apart from that, tend to be green lights all the way. Might get caught more than that on the odd morning, usually at Rathmines, but it is the odd time.
On the way back, I turn on at the Barge end, and tend to get stopped at Harolds Cross. Might get stopped at Rialto on the odd day also.
I use the Ballyfermot section up to the 12th lock then to go as fast as I can manage. Lots of people cruise on by, and I tend to give them space, and they are all lined up at the next lights.

EDIT: fix a typo, and add the side I cycle on.

CramCycle

My favourite is the motorcyclists who hopped off and pushed his bike around the corner Mr. Bean style. The junction is not great but an even quicker solution, albeit temporarily would be to shorten the crossing traffic green time. The rock road seems to get a couple of minutes, peds get 10seconds, cyclists maybe another 10 or 15 and then a half a minute for motorists travelling along the canal and then the Rock road gets a couple of minutes again, I remember pulling up before and the rock road was green before I turned up from Grand Canal, it was green when I got to the jucnction and was still green for a further 2 minutes without any heavy traffic in the rock road direction. Whereas there were now 20 peds waiting, a couple of cyclists and the traffic along the canal was backed up to the T junction even though there was no traffic accross the junction.

Iwannahurl

In Dublin City Council's video about the new Canal Way cycle lights, who is the green light for at 0:12 and where is the cyclist crossing from?

I'm a bit confused by the relative positioning of light and cyclist in the frame.

monument

Iwannahurl wrote: »

In Dublin City Council's video about the new Canal Way cycle lights, who is the green light for at 0:12 and where is the cyclist crossing from?

I'm a bit confused by the relative positioning of light and cyclist in the frame.

At 0:13?



The cyclist is on the footpath. The green light is an all green / four-way for pedestrians only.

AndrewJRenko

Am I right in thinking that the timing of the amber sequence is unreasonably short?

https://streamable.com/lgkxv

It went from green to amber just as I passed the light this evening, but it was already well red by the time I reached the far side, and I was fairly clipping along.