Proposed alterations to Stilorgan Park Road

nomdeboardie

From http://www.dlrcoco.ie/aboutus/councildepartments/transportation/findit/cycling/stillorganparkroadupgrade/

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is currently preparing plans to improve the pedestrian and cycle facilities on Stillorgan Park Road from the N11 to Carysfort Avenue, Blackrock. ...

See links there for plan details.

In my opinion the current 'cycle tracks' there are, of course, a joke, going W-E anyway.

My impression on brief perusal is that the rejig involves:
-- keeping the cycle tracks off-road (meh - see below)
-- seperate cycle and foot paths all the way both sides (improvement)
-- but with short 'shared areas' at bus stops (not great)
-- formal segregation of cycle and foot paths (improvement, if :rolleyes: respected)
-- cyclists cross side-road junctions back on the road with priority (yes!)
-- except for one junction at a roundabout (if staying 'on-track'), where they are, however, recognised as having a legitimate choice of doing so on the main carriageway (good!)


However, even if the surface is good and maintained well, and pedestrians and and their dogs stay off, I still think off-road tracks can pose a problem for cyclists passing each other.

Feedback can be directed to DLRCOCO at the site until Fri 19 July.

Rock of Gibraltar

Not sure about how widening the car space at the Carysfort Av from 3 to 4 lanes (diagram 7) could be done in the name of improving pedestrian and cycle facilities, the extra lane looks very narrow as well so I suspect the straight cycle lane will end up being blocked by cars.
I suppose they're doing this because of all the schools in the area, not sure if this kind of junction design with placate the fears of parents.

DirkVoodoo

How will this affect the interaction between bikes and cars at the roundabout?

nomdeboardie

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

How will this affect the interaction between bikes and cars at the roundabout?

Looks like the track goes on-road for a few metres then peters out(!), implying that bikes must merge into traffic? Not a problem if motor traffic is light, when it will be easy to take the lane, but otherwise could be problematic to get into the stream?

nomdeboardie

Rock of Gibraltar wrote: »

Not sure about how widening the car space at the Carysfort Av from 3 to 4 lanes (diagram 7) could be done in the name of improving pedestrian and cycle facilities, the extra lane looks very narrow as well so I suspect the straight cycle lane will end up being blocked by cars.
I suppose they're doing this because of all the schools in the area, not sure if this kind of junction design with placate the fears of parents.

Hard to tell. There's something like this at the junction of the ring road with Deansgrange Road, heading west, and I think that works well enough, though I haven't been there at rush hour, and the road may well be a lot wider there.

Rock of Gibraltar

nomdeboardie wrote: »

Hard to tell. There's something like this at the junction of the ring road with Deansgrange Road, heading west, and I think that works well enough, though I haven't been there at rush hour, and the road may well be a lot wider there.

I'm not familiar with that junction but the same design is used on the turn onto Leopardstown road (White's Cross) from the northbound section of the N11, it's been created recently so it's not on google maps.
The left turn lane is narrow and short and often overflows (always at rush hour) onto the straight cycle lane. Luckily there's a bus lane adjacent there so you can get past the queuing cars but that's not available at this proposed junction.

This proposed design seems to taken from the cycle design manual

http://www.cyclemanual.ie/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/5615_LFT_14_2D1.jpg


from here
http://www.cyclemanual.ie/manual/designing/4-5-left-turns/

I don't think we should be using this kind of design here, I don't see why the cyclist should be made shift right and onto the road only to have cars cross the bike path when the track could be continued straight through the junction with left turning cars crossing the bike path when signaled on the junction. Also means left turning bikes wouldn't be needlessly controlled by lights.

Like this example in the Netherlands but vice versa:



The Dutch have stopped designing junctions like the proposed one because of the conflict with turning cars.
http://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/state-of-the-art-bikeway-design-or-is-it/

nomdeboardie

Rock of Gibraltar wrote: »

I'm not familiar with that junction but the same design is used on the turn onto Leopardstown road (White's Cross) from the northbound section of the N11, it's been created recently so it's not on google maps.
The left turn lane is narrow and short and often overflows (always at rush hour) onto the straight cycle lane. Luckily there's a bus lane adjacent there so you can get past the queuing cars but that's not available at this proposed junction. ...

Come to think of it, I remember queueing to turn left there in a car once, watching the cars ahead of me smother the straight-ahead bike lane

nomdeboardie

Rock of Gibraltar wrote: »

... I don't think we should be using this kind of design here, I don't see why the cyclist should be made shift right and onto the road only to have cars cross the bike path when the track could be continued straight through the junction with left turning cars crossing the bike path when signaled on the junction. Also means left turning bikes wouldn't be needlessly controlled by lights.

Like this example in the Netherlands but vice versa:



...

Left-turn-on-red? But would that not also require there to be a protected cycle track on Newtownpark Ave to continue on to? (Don't think there is one there currently)

Rock of Gibraltar

nomdeboardie wrote: »

Left-turn-on-red? But would that not also require there to be a protected cycle track on Newtownpark Ave to continue on to? (Don't think there is one there currently)

Yes sorry for some reason I thought there was one there.

Fuzzy_Dunlop

Haha amazing. Literally just about to start commuting daily to Dun Laoghaire and this was the one stretch of road on my way that's in very bad nick.

Hopefully it won't take two long to get done. Although the report suggests 6 months detailed design and 4 months construction.

Doctor Bob

Rock of Gibraltar wrote: »

The Dutch have stopped designing junctions like the proposed one because of the conflict with turning cars.
http://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/state-of-the-art-bikeway-design-or-is-it/

The layout in the NACTO document is not the same as is proposed for the Stillorgan Park-Carysfort Avenue junction. The NACTO design requires cars and bikes to cross each other simultaneously and makes priority ambiguous. The principle underpinning the DLRCC design is that the cyclist, who is going straight, has priority over cars that are turning- the cyclist doesn't 'shift right' at all. At least, that's the theory.

While I'd accept that at times of congestion cars mightn't leave the cycle lane clear, in my experience these crossovers work quite well where they've been put in on the N11, though I haven't used the White's Cross northbound one in the morning time.

As for the roundabout, as outlined by nomdeboardsie there is an option to go on road and merge with traffic, but there's also an option not to go on road and to use the off-road track instead, for the more risk averse among us. Of course, dyed-in-the-wool vehicular cyclists won't be on the cycle track in the first place, so merging into traffic on the approach to the roundabout won't be a concern for them.

Rock of Gibraltar

Doctor Bob wrote: »

The layout in the NACTO document is not the same as is proposed for the Stillorgan Park-Carysfort Avenue junction. The NACTO design requires cars and bikes to cross each other simultaneously and makes priority ambiguous. The principle underpinning the DLRCC design is that the cyclist, who is going straight, has priority over cars that are turning- the cyclist doesn't 'shift right' at all. At least, that's the theory.

While I'd accept that at times of congestion cars mightn't leave the cycle lane clear, in my experience these crossovers work quite well where they've been put in on the N11, though I haven't used the White's Cross northbound one in the morning time.

As for the roundabout, as outlined by nomdeboardsie there is an option to go on road and merge with traffic, but there's also an option not to go on road and to use the off-road track instead, for the more risk averse among us. Of course, dyed-in-the-wool vehicular cyclists won't be on the cycle track in the first place, so merging into traffic on the approach to the roundabout won't be a concern for them.

Ah yes I get ya, bit like N11 northbound just after Donnybrook garage?
When I said shift right I was actually referring to the cycle manual design which I'm assuming this is based upon:
http://www.cyclemanual.ie/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/5615_LFT_14_2D1.jpg
Where potentially a straight cycle track is moved and creates a potential conflict before the junction.

I cycled down the Park Rd today from Stillorgan to the Deangrange Rd and the design I'm moaning about at Carysfort is actually already in place. I was there at about 2.25-2.30ish and the left turning car traffic had overflowed on the cycle lane so I had to swerve around to get by, the straight car lane was also blocked by queuing left turning cars so this wasn't a major problem. The left lane looks a little wider than on white's cross example so only larger vehicles (a jag and a van) were encroaching on the cycle lane as they waited 'in' their lane.
I reckon if I was a 12 year old cycling to school through here I'd pedestrianise myself

monument

Here's my take on the upgrade:

http://cyclingindublin.com/2013/07/02/full-segregation-claim-not-matched-by-plans-for-stillorgan-park-road-upgrade/

nomdeboardie

monument wrote: »

Here's my take on the upgrade:

http://cyclingindublin.com/2013/07/02/full-segregation-claim-not-matched-by-plans-for-stillorgan-park-road-upgrade/

Nice.

+ Good catch on the ramps opposite t-junctions! In fact, the road-level section should be extended far enough 'upstream' (west) of the upcoming right turn to allow cyclists more time to get into the turning lane; taking this to it's logical conclusion, though, brings me back to my opinion that the cycle tracks should simply be at road-level, or, perhaps better, simply replaced by an extra-wide left lane.

nomdeboardie

DLRCOCO have now revised aspects of plan, mostly in response to some tree-hugging, apparently :rolleyes:
Updates listed at same link as above
(I haven't the mental energy to compare original to revised in detail, so I'm not sure how much the revisions impact the cycle track)

monument

nomdeboardie wrote: »

DLRCOCO have now revised aspects of plan, mostly in response to some tree-hugging, apparently :rolleyes:
Updates listed at same link as above
(I haven't the mental energy to compare original to revised in detail, so I'm not sure how much the revisions impact the cycle track)

And overview of the changes and my view of such:

http://cyclingindublin.com/2013/08/02/update-to-proposed-upgrade-of-stilorgan-park-road/