Cyclists in bus lanes (cut from 'giving way to buses' thread)

monument

Posts moved -- This is a new thread about cycling in bus lanes when there's a cycle track / lane / shared use footpath etc.

No Pants

bmaxi wrote: »

Of course it has to do with the roads, it is an offence to be on the road in a motor vehicle if you have not paid it.

Not used to fund roads, so it doesn't matter.

monument

bmaxi wrote: »

Yet your views on providing superhighways for bikes are perfectly reasonable?

Yes, because it's based on solid arguments, not on rants which are proved to be rants because when somebody explains one thing to you then you move the goal posts with another rant...

Maybe the two most important things you're not getting in your "cyclists should pay" argument is that:

• An increase in cycling is wanted by our national and local government -- and tax breaks are provided for when purchasing bicycles -- taxing bike use would be lunacy in that context.
• Most cyclists are also motorists* (and daily cyclists-motorist are paying the same level of motor tax as those who use their cars ever day)

bmaxi wrote: »

It's irrelevant what the taxes are called or where they eventually end up, the fact remains they have to be paid just for the privilege of being on the road. What do cyclists pay for the same privilege?

There's a lot of relevance in the name because the name points out that the tax is not for the privilege of being on the road (that would be a "road tax"), but for the privilege of using a motor vehicle on the road. An important difference.

It's based on emissions or engine size, not on use.

bmaxi wrote: »

...they should be prepared to pay for them, the normal way for other road users is through taxes.

Let's see:

• General motorists -- it's highly debated if motor tax or other motoring tax pays for all the costs including the external costs of motoring (and there's loads of threads on that topic already if you want to get into detail).
• Pedestrians -- no tax, no registration.
• Public transport users -- highly subsidised.
• Freight transport -- subsidised to highly subsidised (in fairness, likely mostly by other motorists).
• Electric car users -- highly subsidised to an unreal extent.

steve-o

bmaxi wrote: »

... which are not relevant to this thread but the cycle lane I referred to is in essence, IMO, an excellent amenity...

It's far from excellent. As a cyclist, when I start off from the previous lights with a bus behind me, people waiting to get on the bus are blocking the bike lane. So I stay on the road past the bus stop. There are no ramps up onto the bike lane, so I stay on the road and rejoin the bike lane when I can. Maybe you expect bikes to wait at bus stops while people get on and off or come to a stop after and lift their bike up the kerb. But it's not going to happen.

Cookie_Monster

bmaxi wrote: »

As I said earlier, if cyclists want pristine conditions, let them pay for them.

Cyclist don't want pristine conditions. They just want the same access and respect on the roads that any other vehicle has. They are fully entitled to use the roads and most don't want to be needlessly segregated onto **** cycle track and lanes that have a wide variety or problems (no right of way, bad access to junctions, poor surfaces, rubbish, gravel and glass swept into them etc etc)

And just to make the point (yet again) motor tax is paid for using an engine and belching out pollution, not for use of the roads. Cyclists pay taxes like everyone else, PAYE, VAT, (probably most motor taxes too) so the argument is entirely irrelevant.

Cookie_Monster

Jack Kyle wrote: »

I for one blast cyclists out of it with the horn if I see them on the road when they're a cycling lane off road.

I also blast cyclists out of it when they cycle two abreast.

both are perfectly legal. Why on earth would you do that?
It serves no purpose at all other than to make those cyclists think you're an inconsiderate idiot with no concept of the rules of the road.

SeanW

There's a lot of relevance in the name because the name points out that the tax is not for the privilege of being on the road (that would be a "road tax"), but for the privilege of using a motor vehicle on the road. An important difference.

For many if not most, this distinction is academic, since the car is a necessity for using the roads. Ergo it may as well be a road tax.

It's based on emissions or engine size, not on use.

Wrong. It is based on use - if your car is off the road, you don't have to pay the tax. Ergo, from the perspective of a motorist, it is a road tax, since if you don't pay it you - as a motorist - cannot use the road. If motorists did not have to pay the tax for using the roads, it wouldn't be called a road tax.

it's highly debated if motor tax or other motoring tax pays for all the costs

I'm fairly sure the taxes extracted from motorists more than pay for road maintenance and construction and a lot more besides. If you're going to consider "external costs" then you also have to balance that with the external benefits not measured in tax vs. expenditure figures, and that would also be very high.

Cookie_Monster

SeanW wrote: »

For many if not most, this distinction is academic, since the car is a necessity for using the roads.

no it's not. There are many ways of using the roads that are not car based. I would have thought that's a very obvious thing.

If motorists did not have to pay the tax for using the roads, it wouldn't be called a road tax.

But it's not called (a) road tax, only by the short-sighted idiots who are too stupid to learn the proper term and the reason for it. Revenue call it motor tax, any govt website you care to mention call it motor tax. the website is called motortax.ie for god's sake.

monument

SeanW wrote: »

And that's just the stuff that's technically legal, before we get to cyclists making turns without looking, menacing pedestrians on the footpath, ignoring one-way laws and red traffic lights (and as happened to me in Dublin City last week, two of those at a time), all of which there is no sanction for because cyclists are not required to have a license and the bikes are unregistered.

Err...

• Licences and registration does not seem to stop motorists breaking he law on mass
• There are sanctions for cyclists
• Cyclists do end up in court -- in increasing numbers in the last few years
• On-the-spot fines for cyclists are already on the way
• Number plates or registration does not affect this

paddyland wrote: »

It says something when cyclists hop on nearly every single thread and try to turn it into a cycling victimisation thread.

It says something when you're blaming cyclists for dragging the thread off-topic when bmaxi mentioned cyclists first!

steve-o wrote: »

It's far from excellent. As a cyclist, when I start off from the previous lights with a bus behind me, people waiting to get on the bus are blocking the bike lane. So I stay on the road past the bus stop. There are no ramps up onto the bike lane, so I stay on the road and rejoin the bike lane when I can. Maybe you expect bikes to wait at bus stops while people get on and off or come to a stop after and lift their bike up the kerb. But it's not going to happen.

Here's that in images:

Crazy shared use space at bus stops:


Yield to a side road and ramps making the route like a roller-coaster -- segregation can be done seamlessly!


Unsuitable concrete surface, covers, and the rumble tiles which are like road rumble strips but 20 times worse and hazardous for many bike tires:


DLR Co Co have done some great work on the N11 but there's a lot to do and the design of shared use space at bus stops on a dual carriageway with frequent buses isn't on anymore and never really was.

worded

Jack Kyle wrote: »

It's pretty obvious that when motorists pay motor tax while cyclists pay sweet FA, motorists are rightly going to feel like they've more rights on the road.

Cyclists generally seem to be over precious, over sensitive and possessing a misplaced sense of righteousness. In my view, their right to be on the road at all is questionable.

Is there a link between Agressive car drivers and obesity ?
If often find these people to be over weight and in need of a ride.

Are you a salad dodger ?

monument

SeanW wrote: »

For many if not most, this distinction is academic, since the car is a necessity for using the roads. Ergo it may as well be a road tax.

A car is not needed to use a road!

SeanW wrote: »

Wrong. It is based on use - if your car is off the road, you don't have to pay the tax. Ergo, from the perspective of a motorist, it is a road tax, since if you don't pay it you - as a motorist - cannot use the road. If motorists did not have to pay the tax for using the roads, it wouldn't be called a road tax.

It's not wrong. It is based on emissions or engine size, not on use.

There's no mass of people declaring their cars off the road and only using such cars off-road or on roads not covered by traffic law.

SeanW wrote: »

I'm fairly sure the taxes extracted from motorists more than pay for road maintenance and construction and a lot more besides. If you're going to consider "external costs" then you also have to balance that with the external benefits not measured in tax vs. expenditure figures, and that would also be very high.

Again -- there's loads of threads on this already.

External benefits of say commuters and shoppers is much lower than external benefits of cycling.

SeanW

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

no it's not. There are many ways of using the roads that are not car based. I would have thought that's a very obvious thing.

Your ability to make use of the roads is severely limited if you do not pay the tax.

For example, suppose you live in, oh, say rural Co. Longford and you realise at 9PM that you need to be in (for example) Argina, Co. Roscommon by midnight. The only realistic way to accomplish this is with the assitance of private motorised transport, and to do that you must have paid the tax to use that on the road.

Unless you live very close to a frequent, all day public transport system or a good quality cycle network and you only ever need to go to places covered by such systems, your ability to use the roads will be limited to a significat - if not severe - degree by your failure have a car that is covered by the appropriate road usage tax on that car.

But it's not called (a) road tax, only by the short-sighted idiots who are too stupid to learn the proper term.

Only because "road tax" is a colloquial term (one that is entirely valid from the POV of a motorist).

To expand on that point, suppose your friend showed you this picture:


of a meal that he was about to consume and said "this is a delicious looking fry-up."

Would you respond by saying "that is a breakfast meal consisting of mashed potatoes, sausages, hash browns, beans and bacon, and you are only calling it a "fry up" because you are a short sighted stupid idiot who refuses to learn the "proper" term?"

beauf

bmaxi wrote: »

.... I can never understand why bicycles are allowed to share bus lanes, they should have a dedicated lane to themselves although, having said that, they probably wouldn't use them.

Thats a bit like saying why have an overtaking lane if people won't move out of it to let faster traffic past.

bmaxi wrote: »

... Just the other day I came across three buses stuck behind a bicycle in the bus lane on Stillorgan Road, even though there is a perfectly good cycle lane on the footpath. Proper penalties and a modicum of enforcement would solve a lot of our traffic congestion problems .....

I think that's a bit of an over reaction. A bus isn't going to be held up for long by a cyclist. What you need to solve congestion is to reduce the amount of motor vehicles. One of the best ways to achieve that is to get people on a bicycle.

So you've kinda got it backwards. Sure there's always people who won't follow the rules. But the bigger picture is getting people out of their cars. My commute by bus or train is an hour minimum. By cycle its 35~60 mins, and I can leave anytime, I don't have to hang around waiting, and its the same time regardless of traffic.

SeanW

monument wrote: »

There's no mass of people declaring their cars off the road and only using such cars off-road or on roads not covered by traffic law.

Doesn't matter. It's perfectly legal to own a car and not pay tax on it by not using it on public roads.

It is ONLY because a motorist uses their car on taxable roads that they have to pay tax for using the road. Again, if motorists did not have to pay tax on their cars - a tax that is specifically and unavoidably linked to using the roads as a motorist - then it would make no sense for a motorist to use the term road tax.

External benefits of say commuters and shoppers is much lower than external benefits of cycling.

Really? That's why - in the Galway bypass thread - it was claimed that the Galway commercial sector wanted the bypass to free up road space for shoppers - because the benefits of motorists driving to shops is negligable.

Also the external benefits in terms of personal mobility - unachievable by any other means - were alluded to in my last post.

beauf

SeanW wrote: »

Your ability to make use of the roads is severely limited if you do not pay the tax.

For example, suppose you live in, oh, say rural Co. Longford and you realise at 9PM that you need to be in (for example) Argina, Co. Roscommon by midnight. The only realistic way to accomplish this is with the assitance of private motorised transport, and to do that you must have paid the tax to use that on the road.....

You could just get a taxi.

Or a bus,

...either case you'd have paid no road tax.

SeanW

beauf wrote: »

You could just get a taxi.

1. The taxi has to pay road tax too, as would the nonexistant bus.
2. You would have to get a taxi out to your current location.
3. The cost of the taxi would be far, far above the cost of a daily share of an annual road tax bill - even the extortionate €800 that I must pay on a 15 year old saloon.
4. You would have the same problems coming back.

SeanW

beauf wrote: »

Or a bus,

I would sure love to see the Arigna to Co. Longford villages 24-hour bus timetable

TheChizler

Well fortunately the law is not made specifically for people who are late driving from longford to roscommon because they were too busy cooking fry ups...

Genuine question for those demanding a licensing/registration system for cyclists. Is there any country in the world that actually does this?

beauf

SeanW wrote: »

For many if not most, this distinction is academic, since the car is a necessity for using the roads. Ergo it may as well be a road tax.......

Except a car isn't a necessity for using the road. If I get a bus I'm using the road. If I cycle I'm using the road. If I walk or run on the road I'm using the road.

So motor tax is simply a tax to have a motor on the road.

HurtLocker

Karsini wrote: »

Genuine question for those demanding a licensing/registration system for cyclists. Is there any country in the world that actually does this?

Honolulu in Hawaii is the only one I could find.Not a bike licence but a bike registration tax and owner registration. It actually makes a bit of sense.

http://www1.honolulu.gov/dts/bikereg.htm

All bicycles with 20" or larger wheels are required to be registered in the City and County of Honolulu. There is a one-time fee of $15 and a fee of $5 when transferring ownership of a bicycle. After payment of the fee, the owner will be provided with a decal to be attached to the bicycle frame's seat tube facing the forward direction. All taxes collected from the registration fees are deposited in a special bikeway fund which can only be used for bicycle-related City projects and programs.

SeanW

beauf wrote: »

Thats a bit like saying why have an overtaking lane if people won't move out of it to let faster traffic past.

Vehicles are not supposed to use the overtaking lane unless they are overtaking slower traffic.

I think that's a bit of an over reaction. A bus isn't going to be held up for long by a cyclist.

Re-read the post. THREE buses. not something to sneeze at.

What you need to solve congestion is to reduce the amount of motor vehicles. One of the best ways to achieve that is to get people on a bicycle.

Great, get lots of people onto bikes, and let them block buses, cycle four abreast and have no means of enforcing road laws against a now dramatically increased unruly horde of clowns menacing pedestrians and disregarding red lights and every other inconvenient road law. Sounds like a plan

SeanW

beauf wrote: »

Except a car isn't a necessity for using the road. If I get a bus I'm using the road. If I cycle I'm using the road. If I walk or run on the road I'm using the road.

But your ability to make use of said road will be severely limited by your failure to road-tax a car.

So motor tax is simply a tax to have a motor on the road.

If you are a motorist, then it's a tax to use the roads. That makes it a road tax payable only by motorists. If you're not a motorist, you get to use the roads without paying a tax on that usage free, subsidised by motorists. Though as I suggested previously, your ability to do so is limited.

ezra_pound

SeanW wrote: »

Vehicles are no...
Great, get lots of people onto bikes, and let them block buses, cycle four abreast and have no means of enforcing road laws against a now dramatically increased unruly horde of clowns menacing pedestrians and disregarding red lights and every other inconvenient road law. Sounds like a plan

But it is the plan! Are you in denial or something?

beauf

SeanW wrote: »

Vehicles are not supposed to use the overtaking lane unless they are overtaking slower traffic.

...and?

SeanW wrote: »

Re-read the post. THREE buses. not something to sneeze at.

For how long. A minute, maybe two? What happens if a bus making lots of stops is in front, how long does that hold up all the other buses?

SeanW wrote: »

Great, get lots of people onto bikes, and let them block buses, cycle four abreast and have no means of enforcing road laws against a now dramatically increased unruly horde of clowns menacing pedestrians and disregarding red lights and every other inconvenient road law. Sounds like a plan

Lets move them all into cars, see how that helps.

bicycles now account for almost 9 per cent of vehicles coming into the city centre during the morning peak.

SeanW

ezra_pound wrote: »

But it is the plan! Are you in denial or something?

Getting more people onto bikes that obey the laws of the road and have respect for other road users would indeed be a good plan. However I don't think that is what is being pursued.

beauf

SeanW wrote: »

...If you're not a motorist, you get to use the roads without paying a tax on that usage free, subsidised by motorists. ....

Not true roads are funded by the general tax pool. So your paying for them even if you're not a motorist.

SeanW

beauf wrote: »

For how long. A minute, maybe two? What happens if a bus making lots of stops is in front, how long does that hold up all the other buses?

But according to the original thread, it was horrible and nasty for those evil motorists to delay a bus for a few seconds by not letting it into the main traffic stream, out of a bus lane or whatever, for the reason that there is one person in the car versus perhaps 40+ on the bus.

In this case there is one cyclist holding up three buses carrying - random guess - 120 people. So if the cyclist holds them up for one minute, that is 120 person/minutes of lost time. Again, maybe this seems like a good idea to you?

I had a situation in O'Connell Street a few months ago where a Dublin Bus driver beeped me out of the cycle lane so he could pull in front of me and load up. So I ended up having to sit behind him until he was done. I rarely use my bike now because I got tired of being treated like crap on the roads, I wasn't mentally able to cope with it.

beauf

SeanW wrote: »

Getting more people onto bikes that obey the laws of the road and have respect for other road users would indeed be a good plan. However I don't think that is what is being pursued.

Ditto the speed limits and drivers on mobiles.

Garda do regular publicity blitz of such things, including cyclists. But its not enforced for the most part. Stand on any street corner and you'll see the usual law breaking by motorists and cyclists alike.