Simple solution to Dublin traffic problem

popolive

Qualitymark wrote: »

One of the problems with public transport is cars, especially in winter. A trip to the GPO from the ring of suburbs just outside the canals, for instance, takes

• 15 minutes by bicycle
• half an hour by bus
• three-quarters of an hour by car (including parking and walking back to the GPO).

Even if those figures are true , which they are not, do you not see what you did there ? Do you not see the bias in how you describe the various options ?
You include ''parking and walking'' to do a nice hatchet job on private cars yet do not include waiting and walking to and from the bus. Car journeys also depend on which time you leave. If you leave early you can dodge traffic and turn a 45 minute traffic jam into 10 minutes of driving pleasure, free to use the bus lanes before 7 am and with your choice of parking spaces when you arrive.
As for the bicycle; figures claiming that bicycle journeys are somehow that fast are wrong because it is biased against taking all data into account and presents it the same way you did. Even skinny people arrive at work covered in sweat after a half hour cycle on a cold wet morning. So dress up nice for work, put on a nice suit then arrive sweaty and splashed with mud. Fail. So lets assume you can carry a suit of clothes with you to change into at work so how long will it take to lock up the bicycle, take your documents and clothes to the changing rooms, safeguard your confidential documents, face fellow workers not looking your best... have your shower and dry off etc. Then of course arrive home sweaty at the end of the day too especially from carrying kilograms of crap on your back there and back (extra changes of clothes one way and laundry the other way). So how many showers are you going to have and how many changes of clothes? What if you want to go to the gym or shopping on the way home ? So you then need to carry another bag, the gymbag on your bicycle too... great ! I often use one journey as an excuse to avoid having to make several journeys. With a car I can actually minimize my amount of travel, stopping in the gym and stopping at the shopping on the way home and minimize the nonrenewable energy used by using one journey to achieve several tasks at once. I wonder how those extra daily power showers and extra daily laundry of sweaty clothes compare to the cost of gas in the tank too ?
If you have to carry a lot of crap around with you then a car or some sort of mechanically propelled vehicle wins. Arriving for a business meeting in a sweaty suit covered in rain and mud and with your confidential documents covered in mud and rain is completely unacceptable.

And why no mention of motorbikes/mopeds anywhere from a cost and travel time perspective ? A moped can cut in and out of most traffic jams. People love them in a lot of third world countries because they are cheap. Or have we regulated and taxed those out of existence also ?
I think Mopeds should be encouraged. There should be more motorbikes and mopeds than cars for single journeys. They are very cheap to run. The only reason not to is because of some irrational anti carbon hipster guilt complex which would have a loose alliance with the nanny state which tells us that motorbikes and mopeds are ''dangerous'' and tries to regulate and tax them out of existence. I have a feeling that the strategy is not to improve public transport so much as to tax private transport into the ground.

Qualitymark

Of course, that's an excellent point, waiting for buses is unpleasant, and driving is nice.
I'd argue a bit about the sweatiness after half an hour's cycle, though; I'm not exactly super-fit, but half an hour of cycling brings a glow to my cheeks but doesn't make me pour with sweat!
I've just given up the car for the moment; the old darling was costing me around €2,000 a year between tax, insurance, maintenance and petrol, and wasn't worth it. When the weather gets a bit nasty I'll sign up for GoCar and use that for anything the bicycle doesn't cover. I also use buses, but find them inefficient.
I'll certainly miss being able to drive to Glenasmole or Seefinn or Djouce and go for a walk on crisp winter weekends, but perhaps I may get a car again at some stage.
Edit: no, that 15 minute cycle journey from Harold's Cross is correct, I promise you! Try it and you'll see. Google Maps puts it at 17 minutes, but it always took me 15: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/An+Post+Museum+-+General+Post+Office+(GPO),+GPO,+O'Connell+Street+Lower,+Dublin+1,+Ireland/Harold's+Cross+Greyhound+Stadium,+151+Harold's+Cross+Road,+Dublin+6W,+Co.+Dublin,+Ireland/@53.337557,-6.2849856,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x48670e8441acbc79:0x377a23c877cf03a6!2m2!1d-6.260823!2d53.349305!1m5!1m1!1s0x48670c1aaf508a69:0x2cdd5421b05296a6!2m2!1d-6.276694!2d53.323877!3e1

dowlingm

Re the issue of empty p+r - one approach could be to use sensors to indicate how full the car park is, and use differential pricing as the park fills up. This incentives use of public transport off peak or at least the shoulders of the peak. This could then be extended to street parking as in San Francisco, which admittedly has crazy joinedy-up ideas like making the parking revenue go to the city transportation authority rather than the "send city councillors on junkets fund".

Qualitymark

One really disgusting thing is how the Luas was hailed with promises that people would be able to 'park & ride' for free; now Luas parking is shockingly dear, and there's no incentive for people to leave their cars and take the public transport.

A few cheap or free multi-storey car parks in a ring around the city would make a big difference to the choice of parking and using public transport to the centre. Would leave a clearer run for buses, too.

Muahahaha

Qualitymark wrote: »

Of course, that's an excellent point, waiting for buses is unpleasant, and driving is nice.
I'd argue a bit about the sweatiness after half an hour's cycle, though; I'm not exactly super-fit, but half an hour of cycling brings a glow to my cheeks but doesn't make me pour with sweat!
I've just given up the car for the moment; the old darling was costing me around €2,000 a year between tax, insurance, maintenance and petrol, and wasn't worth it. When the weather gets a bit nasty I'll sign up for GoCar and use that for anything the bicycle doesn't cover. I also use buses, but find them inefficient.
I'll certainly miss being able to drive to Glenasmole or Seefinn or Djouce and go for a walk on crisp winter weekends, but perhaps I may get a car again at some stage.
Edit: no, that 15 minute cycle journey from Harold's Cross is correct, I promise you! Try it and you'll see. Google Maps puts it at 17 minutes, but it always took me 15: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/An+Post+Museum+-+General+Post+Office+(GPO),+GPO,+O'Connell+Street+Lower,+Dublin+1,+Ireland/Harold's+Cross+Greyhound+Stadium,+151+Harold's+Cross+Road,+Dublin+6W,+Co.+Dublin,+Ireland/@53.337557,-6.2849856,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x48670e8441acbc79:0x377a23c877cf03a6!2m2!1d-6.260823!2d53.349305!1m5!1m1!1s0x48670c1aaf508a69:0x2cdd5421b05296a6!2m2!1d-6.276694!2d53.323877!3e1

Waiting for buses can be frustrating at the best of times but it becomes even more so when your stop has no bus shelter and it's a rainy day. It seems bizarre to me that Dublin Bus don't have shelters at all their stops, they know full well that when it rains in Ireland traffic gets heavier as everyone takes the car. Rain means Dublin Buses get delayed and commuters spend longer standing at stops than normal. The Dublin Bus management solution is to provide no shelter from the rain, the biggest discouragement you could possibly have from taking the bus on a rainy day. All people want is a little protection from the wind and rain, plenty of advertising companies would gladly provide shelters for free.

Anyway your story is similar to mine, I too gave up the car last year and now either cycle where I want to go or else take the motorbike. The car was costing me approx €1500 a year in tax, insurance, servicing, parts, etc and in it's final year I only did 2,500 miles all up. I figured out that at that cost/benefit ratio I actually would have been nearly been better finding a hackney driver to cut me a deal and getting him to chauffeur me around !

When I gave up the car I too looked into GoCar but was a bit turned off by their €50 Hello money sign up fee. I'd also figured out that that hiring a car from them is probably the most expensive way you can hire a car, 2-3 hours in a GoCar would set you back somewhere in the order of €40-45 which I find excessive for short hops or even going for a spin in the Wicklow mountains. Before you sign up to GoCar do so,e research on car hire places in your area that are easily accessible by walking or public transport because hiring a car for 24 hours will often work out a fair bit cheaper than hiring one off GoCar for 2-3 hours.

I'm lucky in that I live not too far away from the airport. So when I need a car I just ride the motorbike there in 10 minutes, park it (which is free for motorbikes at the airport,bonus!) and them pick up the keys to a hire car in the Terminal. I'm not sure about car hire prices in the city centre but the airport prices can be really competitive- for example the last time I hired I got a pretty new Ford Focus saloon for 48 hours and it cost me €28, absolute bargain. I have a 12 month excess insurance policy which cost me €49 for the year so I never need to take whatever overpriced insurance the car hire firm are trying to sell. It's been working out great for me so far, I probably have hired a car 8-9 times over the last year and all it has cost me is somewhere in the order of €400 plus whatever petrol I used. That's far cheaper than the previous situation where I owned a car that sat idle a lot of the time.

Qualitymark

Thanks, Muah, great tip about the airport! When I cancel my insurance, must look at the excess question.

seamus

popolive wrote: »

As for the bicycle; figures claiming that bicycle journeys are somehow that fast are wrong because it is biased against taking all data into account and presents it the same way you did. Even skinny people arrive at work covered in sweat after a half hour cycle on a cold wet morning. So dress up nice for work, put on a nice suit then arrive sweaty and splashed with mud. Fail. So lets assume you can carry a suit of clothes with you to change into at work so how long will it take to lock up the bicycle, take your documents and clothes to the changing rooms, safeguard your confidential documents, face fellow workers not looking your best... have your shower and dry off etc. Then of course arrive home sweaty at the end of the day too especially from carrying kilograms of crap on your back there and back (extra changes of clothes one way and laundry the other way). So how many showers are you going to have and how many changes of clothes? What if you want to go to the gym or shopping on the way home ? So you then need to carry another bag, the gymbag on your bicycle too... great ! I often use one journey as an excuse to avoid having to make several journeys. With a car I can actually minimize my amount of travel, stopping in the gym and stopping at the shopping on the way home and minimize the nonrenewable energy used by using one journey to achieve several tasks at once. I wonder how those extra daily power showers and extra daily laundry of sweaty clothes compare to the cost of gas in the tank too ?
If you have to carry a lot of crap around with you then a car or some sort of mechanically propelled vehicle wins. Arriving for a business meeting in a sweaty suit covered in rain and mud and with your confidential documents covered in mud and rain is completely unacceptable.

You see, this is a post-justification of the decision to not cycle rather than someone who's actually tried it.
Because plenty of people do have a tie-wearing job carrying documents and laptops and cycle in and out of work (and to business meetings) where all of these insurmountable problems you mention have somehow been overcome. Stand beside the canal cycle lanes on any given morning and you'll see plenty of suits making their way in by bike, rain or shine. Not that it actually rains that much in Dublin.

A car makes for an easy life. There's no denying that. You have very little prep work or forward planning to do because you're basically driving a small shed around, complete with central heating and electricity.
With a small amount of prep work and forward planning, anyone who doesn't need their vehicle for work, could easily swap the car commute out for a bike.

In most cases people have already decided they don't want to cycle, but want to come up with reasons for it other than, "You know what, I just couldn't be arsed".

Because a car makes for an easy life, on top of improving public transport options we also need to actively disincentivise car commuting. At the moment we've a parking levy in Dublin, but it's dismally small, only €200 IIRC. I've heard anecdotally of people who happily pay the port tunnel charge both ways to have an easier drive, so it's clear that a €200 charge isn't going to stop people from driving into the city.

In reality it should be pro-rated against its actual value. So if, for example, the average cost of a space in Dublin per hour is €3, then that's worth €120 a week to the employee, €5,640 per year. This should be treated as BIK and taxed as such.

monument

popolive wrote: »

Even if those figures are true , which they are not, do you not see what you did there ? Do you not see the bias in how you describe the various options ?

His figures are based on his own record of his personal commuting options.

I've already posted the average speeds as calculated by the 2006 Census.

popolive wrote: »

You include ''parking and walking'' to do a nice hatchet job on private cars yet do not include waiting and walking to and from the bus.

In the case he's talking about, it seems his bus stop was not far from the GPO.

In general, you point only masks cycling more attractive for those who take the bus for many reasons.

If people switch from bus to car them there'll just be more and more congestion -- making cycling more attractive!

popolive wrote: »

Car journeys also depend on which time you leave. If you leave early you can dodge traffic and turn a 45 minute traffic jam into 10 minutes of driving pleasure, free to use the bus lanes before 7 am and with your choice of parking spaces when you arrive.

Most people don't start work before 8am and can't switch to flexi time, so getting into work at 7 will leave them anywhere from a half hour to two hours or more early.

popolive wrote: »

As for the bicycle; figures claiming that bicycle journeys are somehow that fast are wrong because it is biased against taking all data into account and presents it the same way you did.

It's been shown time and time again that cycling is faster for many routes into and out of the city centre at busy times.

Note: not saying all routes or times.

popolive wrote: »

Even skinny people arrive at work covered in sweat after a half hour cycle on a cold wet morning. So dress up nice for work, put on a nice suit then arrive sweaty and splashed with mud. Fail.

Unless you have not cycled in some time or are traveling fast or are wearing too hot of jacket, sweat isn't that much of a problem for any sub half hour commute.

I'm going to have to show your post to my Dutch and Dainish friends -- I can only guess their reaction!

BTW: We're talking talking about Dublin streets and roads, while these have problems, mud isn't one of them.

popolive wrote: »

So lets assume you can carry a suit of clothes with you to change into at work so how long will it take to lock up the bicycle, take your documents and clothes to the changing rooms, safeguard your confidential documents, face fellow workers not looking your best... have your shower and dry off etc. Then of course arrive home sweaty at the end of the day too especially from carrying kilograms of crap on your back there and back (extra changes of clothes one way and laundry the other way). So how many showers are you going to have and how many changes of clothes?

The people who cycle long distances and need a shower generally won't have time advantages over cars anyway because of the distances traveled.

Those who cycle very fast over shorter to mid distances will offset the shower time over the shorter commit time and I'm guessing most people need a shower in the morning anyway.

What are you doing taking confidential documents home if they are so confidential that they are not safe in the locker room of a shower room in work?

Bicycle panniers, baskets and crates are all great for avoiding putting bags on your back.

popolive wrote: »

If you have to carry a lot of crap around with you then a car or some sort of mechanically propelled vehicle wins.

Most people don't have to carry a lot of "crap" around with them.

popolive wrote: »

Arriving for a business meeting in a sweaty suit covered in rain and mud and with your confidential documents covered in mud and rain is completely unacceptable.

Again: I'm going to have to show your post to my Dutch and Dainish friends -- I can only guess their reaction!

popolive wrote: »

I think Mopeds should be encouraged. There should be more motorbikes and mopeds than cars for single journeys. They are very cheap to run. The only reason not to is because of some irrational anti carbon hipster guilt complex which would have a loose alliance with the nanny state which tells us that motorbikes and mopeds are ''dangerous'' and tries to regulate and tax them out of existence. I have a feeling that the strategy is not to improve public transport so much as to tax private transport into the ground.

It's sadly hard cold facts which class motorbikes as a dangerous mode to use.

Amazingly you seem to think commuters and documents will get mud on them when cycling but not while on mopeds!!!

Compared to cycling, the downside of two-wheeled with motors include: tax cost, purchase cost, insurance cost, running cost, maintaince cost, noise, pollution, speed, more space needed for parking etc.

Qualitymark

I notice an awful lot of civil servants lately riding Brompton fold-up bikes with the little wheels fitted on the back carrier so you can fold it up and wheel it into the office and stash it. Shocking dear, but probably good value if you get it on the Bike to Work scheme and use it for getting to and from the train.
As for sweaty cycling, depends whether you actually enjoy cycling. If you hate it, don't do it. I like it!

seamus

Qualitymark wrote: »

I notice an awful lot of civil servants lately riding Brompton fold-up bikes with the little wheels fitted on the back carrier so you can fold it up and wheel it into the office and stash it. Shocking dear, but probably good value if you get it on the Bike to Work scheme and use it for getting to and from the train.

Fold ups are wonderful for apartment dwellers, people in smaller offices (with no bike parking facilities) and people who work in less than desirable areas. I think the convenience of being able to fold the bike up and bring it with you can't be underestimated. It's no bigger than having some wheeled luggage with you, so if you were going for a meal or a drink after work, you could bring it in with you and pop it beside your table.
Don't have to worry about security or whatever, and if you end up having one too many it'll easily go on the bus or in the taxi with you.

I can see the draw of them, especially for younger commuters who don't want their social life to be limited by their mode of transport but also don't want to take busses or trams.

Tenzor07

popolive wrote: »

take your documents and clothes to the changing rooms, safeguard your confidential documents.

from carrying kilograms of crap on your back there and back

carry another bag, the gymbag on your bicycle too...

stopping at the shopping on the way home

Arriving for a business meeting in a sweaty suit covered in rain and mud and with your confidential documents covered in mud and rain is completely unacceptable.

some irrational anti carbon hipster guilt complex which would have a loose alliance with the nanny state

Wow! Where to start with all this.. ok, so I took out all the other "stuff"..

Firstly, does anyone still go around with "confidential documents" printed out in a bag?
Maybe in the 90's... but today we have things called Tablet P.C's which weigh about the same as the Aran Islands phonebook!
We also have 3 and 4G mobile networks and use secure Vpn to connect to the company servers to access these "confidential documents, wow! :eek:

Dunno bout you but you can plan your weekly shop so no stop at Tesco on the way home is needed, besides a pack of Organic wholemeal pasta and a litre of organic fat free milk doesn't weigh much!

If you cycle in and out of work each day then you can save even more money and cancel the gym membership!

Sweaty and muddy wet suit... hmm.. how many people will cycle over the Wicklow mountains to get to a meeting?

Who are these subversives you speak of? "The Anti-Carbon hipster" and where is my Tin-Foil hat?

Qualitymark

Fold-ups are ideal for people on buses and (especially) trains, because in modern Ireland there's no luggage van on trains, so you often have to pay an extra fare if you take a full-size bike. Not so for the fold-ups afaik.

Aard

Cycling to work instead of driving or taking public transport means you save a ton of money. The odd time that such a person might need to get to an awkward meeting, or bring a lot of documents/electronics with them, taking a taxi seems relatively cheap.

Qualitymark

Mind you, just to take the car drivers' side for a mo… without a car, you won't be able to take the dog to a riverside park. Due to dog fascism, the millennial Dublin custom of being allowed to bring your dog on the bus as long as s/he was upstairs was changed in the days of wealth and made "by the driver's permission", which is never now given.
You won't be able to say "Hey, I haven't seen the Silvermines, Slieve Blooms, Mount Leinster, Carlingford… for ages, think I'll go for a drive" - well, maybe you will if you fix up that Dublin Airport car hire, but it won't be like walking out the front door and sticking the key in the ignition.
You won't be able to go and stay with friends in Clare and Connemara, unless they fancy picking you and dogs up.
You won't be able to give drunken friends a lift home, or visiting-from-England friends a trip out to Skerries and Rush or Dun Laoghaire and Killiney.
Not *major* problems, but a little loss of luxury. Balanced, of course, by that €1.5-€2k a year you'll save.

Tenzor07

Qualitymark wrote: »

Mind you, just to take the car drivers' side for a mo… without a car, you won't be able to take the dog to a riverside park. Due to dog fascism, the millennial Dublin custom of being allowed to bring your dog on the bus as long as s/he was upstairs was changed in the days of wealth and made "by the driver's permission", which is never now given.
You won't be able to say "Hey, I haven't seen the Silvermines, Slieve Blooms, Mount Leinster, Carlingford… for ages, think I'll go for a drive" - well, maybe you will if you fix up that Dublin Airport car hire, but it won't be like walking out the front door and sticking the key in the ignition.
You won't be able to go and stay with friends in Clare and Connemara, unless they fancy picking you and dogs up.
You won't be able to give drunken friends a lift home, or visiting-from-England friends a trip out to Skerries and Rush or Dun Laoghaire and Killiney.
Not *major* problems, but a little loss of luxury. Balanced, of course, by that €1.5-€2k a year you'll save.

Gawd, how did the human race survive up until now!

Aard

Qualitymark wrote: »

Not *major* problems, but a little loss of luxury. Balanced, of course, by that €1.5-€2k a year you'll save.

The average annual cost of owning a car in Ireland, all in, is around the €10,000 mark. Not everbody can afford that, even people with dogs. I think you nailed it with the word "luxury".

Muahahaha

seamus wrote: »

You see, this is a post-justification of the decision to not cycle rather than someone who's actually tried it.
Because plenty of people do have a tie-wearing job carrying documents and laptops and cycle in and out of work (and to business meetings) where all of these insurmountable problems you mention have somehow been overcome. Stand beside the canal cycle lanes on any given morning and you'll see plenty of suits making their way in by bike, rain or shine. Not that it actually rains that much in Dublin.

Funny you say that because only on Wednesday I was cycling through Mountjoy Square and saw Bobby Kerr, the CEO of the Insomnia Coffee Shop chain pedalling along in full suit on a bike. I'm not sure what age he is, probably just shy of his 70's but there wasn't a bother on him cycling in a suit to whatever business meeting he was going to next.

LXFlyer

Whether cycling fits for people really is down to personal choice, as indeed it is for using public transport.

All the state can do is make using either as attractive as possible.

However, personally speaking I would not feel comfortable working in the same clothes I cycled into work in, others may well do. That's down to them. I'd only do it if proper shower/changing facilities were available.

Hotblack Desiato

monument wrote: »

It's sadly hard cold facts which class motorbikes as a dangerous mode to use.

Amazingly you seem to think commuters and documents will get mud on them when cycling but not while on mopeds!!!

Compared to cycling, the downside of two-wheeled with motors include: tax cost, purchase cost, insurance cost, running cost, maintaince cost, noise, pollution, speed, more space needed for parking etc.

Motorcycling is no more dangerous per km travelled than cycling.

Documents, laptop or whatever can go in the top box or pannier, snug and dry.

It's definitely the best way to travel in Dublin.

JayRoc

lxflyer wrote: »

Whether cycling fits for people really is down to personal choice, as indeed it is for using public transport.

All the state can do is make using either as attractive as possible.

However, personally speaking I would not feel comfortable working in the same clothes I cycled into work in, others may well do. That's down to them. I'd only do it if proper shower/changing facilities were available.

I love cycling, it is my primary method of transport in and out of Dublin city on a daily basis. But I'm not blind to the drawbacks at the same time. It's better than public transport but it's less convenient than driving. Those are the facts.

I quite simply cannot believe a man who tells me he can cycle half an hour + into the city, wearing a suit, and not arrive to work a puddle of grumpy sweat. It's twaddle.

Muahahaha

ninja900 wrote: »

Motorcycling is no more dangerous per km travelled than cycling.

Documents, laptop or whatever can go in the top box or pannier, snug and dry.

It's definitely the best way to travel in Dublin.

Motorbiking is without doubt the fastest way of commuting in and around the city. It also offers the advantage of being able to park pretty much anywhere you can find a footpath wide enough to accommodate your bike while leavi g enough space for prams, wheelchairs, etc. if I have four or five different things I need to do around town the task is a breeze on a motorbike, I go to the bank, park my bike right outside their front door, then Stephens Green shopping centre same again and so on. The convenience of not having to find (don't mind pay for) a parking spot cannot be underestimated.

As someone previously said mopeds should be a part of any strategy to help alleviate Dublins traffic problems. A car takes up 12sqm on a road whereas a bike takes up around 2sqm. Encouraging moped commuters is a no brainer but there isn't a chance it will happen, if anything since the new rules relating to motorbike training came in it is a lot less accessibly to get into bikes now than it used to be. The full Initial Basic Training for bikes costs somewhere around €800 to complete, that's before you've bought a bike, helmet, safety gear, tax, insurance, etc.

Tenzor07

Muahahaha wrote: »

As someone previously said mopeds should be a part of any strategy to help alleviate Dublins traffic problems. A car takes up 12sqm on a road whereas a bike takes up around 2sqm. Encouraging moped commuters is a no brainer but there isn't a chance it will happen, if anything since the new rules relating to motorbike training came in it is a lot less accessibly to get into bikes now than it used to be. The full Initial Basic Training for bikes costs somewhere around €800 to complete, that's before you've bought a bike, helmet, safety gear, tax, insurance, etc.

Certainly would prefer mopeds over cars for city commuting..

Though as you have pointed out, all the costs involved, tax, insurance, training, licensing etc, make bicycling much more cost effective, and therefore the best solution for city center traffic issues..

Hotblack Desiato

Good point Muahahaha but if car drivers were forced to do proper initial training, as they should be, it would cost as much if not more.

The powers that be have rarely been reticent to put more legal restrictions on motorbikes but they refuse to for cars (or just never enforce them) because too many votes are at stake. 'People need to drive to get to work' :rolleyes:

Just count the L-plates on the M50, and unaccompanied L-plate drivers anywhere.

popolive

Not going to bother quoting one disingenuous hipster shill after another on here but on the one hand you have someone earlier saying cars are too cheap because he wants to tax them out of existence so he can achieve his green hipster dystopia then you have someone else laugh at my notion that any such agenda exists. Improving public transport or cycle lanes is apparently too intelligent for some people. Instead they want to force people to use crap services by taxing and regulating the one thing that works properly out of existence. Read the thread please. Then motorcycles and mopeds are subject to another hatchet job as though all those taxes and charges are something we are supposed to meekly accept. Oh look , mopeds and cars are too expensive so you should use a bicycle, while expecting us to play along like we don't know it was a set up right from the start due to the agenda which makes them more and more expensive and regulated. You don't have to accept this you know. Cars and mopeds are ridiculously cheap if you strip out all the punitive taxes. Cycling is great but don't skew the data with falsehoods or try to take the joys out of life. Mechanically propelled vehicles are one of lifes joys. They also save a lot of time in a short life lived at a fast pace which can wear people down if they have very long days. It's progress which some people are against. I used to cycle to work and back every day and before that to college and I would get splashed with mud. Irish roads even in city centres are absolute shiite. I am also in great physical condition and I would be covered in sweat all the same with a hot core and a frozen exterior. And my shoes and trouser legs would often be splashed with mud. Throw in a mechanical problem and you can add oil stains on hands and legs to that too in driving rain. People are entitled to their opinions as I am to mine . I support their free speech but I pretty much don't care what they think about my opinions. However I am not making up stuff or ignoring anything to further an agenda which is the impression given when people ignore some particularly salient facts in order to swoop onto an opinion they find threatening to their world view.

Qualitymark

ninja900 wrote: »

Motorcycling is no more dangerous per km travelled than cycling.

Unfortunately, this is far from true. Both motorcyclists and cyclists are vulnerable as they share the road with cars weighing from a tonne up and buses from three tonnes. But motorcyclists, with their added speed, are far more vulnerable. In the last year of Road Safety Authority statistics, 2013, 27 motorcyclists were killed on Irish roads, and 5 cyclists. http://www.rsa.ie/Documents/Road%20Safety/Crash%20Stats/Provisional%20Review%20of%20Road%20Crash%202013.pdf

JayRoc wrote: »

I quite simply cannot believe a man who tells me he can cycle half an hour + into the city, wearing a suit, and not arrive to work a puddle of grumpy sweat. It's twaddle.

Perhaps we're talking about different things. It depends on your style of cycling, and of course on whether you have to climb a lot of hills. If you cycle gently and keep the pedals turning, so you're at a regular speed, you shouldn't build up a sweat in 30 minutes.

Popolive's tragic description of mud and lashing rain is not the norm in Ireland, though people who take a few steps from home to car and car to office often think it is. Lashing rain is unusual in Ireland (I except the western coast). On those days when it happens, you can always take the bus or a taxi.

Hotblack Desiato

Qualitymark wrote: »

Unfortunately, this is far from true. Both motorcyclists and cyclists are vulnerable as they share the road with cars weighing from a tonne up and buses from three tonnes. But motorcyclists, with their added speed, are far more vulnerable. In the last year of Road Safety Authority statistics, 2013, 27 motorcyclists were killed on Irish roads, and 5 cyclists. http://www.rsa.ie/Documents/Road%20Safety/Crash%20Stats/Provisional%20Review%20of%20Road%20Crash%202013.pdf

You are using apples to contradict a point made about oranges, just looking at fatality numbers in itself tells us very little.
Most motorcycle fatalities occur at the weekends on rural roads. It is rare enough to hear of one on a commute.

Qualitymark

ninja900 wrote: »

You are using apples to contradict a point made about oranges, just looking at fatality numbers in itself tells us very little.
Most motorcycle fatalities occur at the weekends on rural roads. It is rare enough to hear of one on a commute.

I didn't know that.

Are there specific figures on fatalities of commuters using different vehicles?

monument

ninja900 wrote: »

You are using apples to contradict a point made about oranges, just looking at fatality numbers in itself tells us very little.
Most motorcycle fatalities occur at the weekends on rural roads. It is rare enough to hear of one on a commute.

And how many cycling commuting deaths do you think there are in Dublin City?

ninja900 wrote: »

Motorcycling is no more dangerous per km travelled than cycling.

Would love to have hard figures on that but commuter and sporting cyclists seem to massively outnumber motorcyclists, and when you include the amount of training/racing cycling done on public roads, cycling is very safe.

ninja900 wrote: »

Documents, laptop or whatever can go in the top box or pannier, snug and dry

Err... I did not say otherwise, I was contrasting popolive's views, and his implied idea that there's no posable way to safely transport top secret documents on bicycle. Yet, very sensitive and time-sensitive documents are transported mainly around Dublin city centre by bicycles

popolive wrote: »

but on the one hand you have someone earlier saying cars are too cheap because he wants to tax them out of existence so he can achieve his green hipster dystopia then you have someone else laugh at my notion that any such agenda exists.

The last person above who says anything about making it harder for cars talks about doing so to make mopeds or motorcycles more attractive!!!

popolive wrote: »

Improving public transport or cycle lanes is apparently too intelligent for some people. Instead they want to force people to use crap services by taxing and regulating the one thing that works properly out of existence. Read the thread please.

If you took your own advice and read the thread, you'd see that it's largely about improving public transport and cycle provision.

popolive wrote: »

Cars and mopeds are ridiculously cheap if you strip out all the punitive taxes. Cycling is great but don't skew the data with falsehoods or try to take the joys out of life.

If you strip out all of your so-called "punitive taxes" for cars, non-car users would be subsidising motoring even more than now. Those taxes are supposed to pay for the massive costs of motoring to the tax payer.

It's not skewing data, it's dealing with things how they are. If you want to change things and if you are successful, than that will be the new current position. But for now we have to deal with the current position.

popolive wrote: »

Mechanically propelled vehicles are one of lifes joys. They also save a lot of time in a short life lived at a fast pace which can wear people down if they have very long days. It's progress which some people are against.

The top cycling cities nearly always come on top in happiness indexes.

You talk about progress but cars are one of the most misused bits of tech out there.

Overall, cars don't save time in cities such as Dublin. From one end of the scale to another.

On city streets, cars clog up valuable space which could be used for movement or city life -- Dublin is hardly out of the down turn yet daily there's examples of long sections of streets and roads where cycling is faster than driving to work.

Cars have allowed for desperate planning which means some people are not only commuting for hours a day into cities but it can often take them a half hour to drive to the nearest shop and a lot longer to the nearest school etc. You can say that they are living the Irish dream of a house in the country (in a countryside filled with houses) but this is far from an example of cars saving time.

Even within and close to cities car-led planning means houses, shops and services are further apart.

popolive wrote: »

I used to cycle to work and back every day and before that to college and I would get splashed with mud. Irish roads even in city centres are absolute shiite.

What streets or roads in Dublin do you regularly see mud on?

popolive wrote: »

I am also in great physical condition and I would be covered in sweat all the same with a hot core and a frozen exterior. And my shoes and trouser legs would often be splashed with mud. Throw in a mechanical problem and you can add oil stains on hands and legs to that too in driving rain.

How did you ever get oil on your legs?

You might just have a different cycling style and dress to some in Dublin, and most cyclists in Amsterdam etc etc who manage just fine in suits.

popolive wrote: »

People are entitled to their opinions as I am to mine . I support their free speech but I pretty much don't care what they think about my opinions.
However I am not making up stuff or ignoring anything to further an agenda which is the impression given when people ignore some particularly salient facts in order to swoop onto an opinion they find threatening to their world view.

If you actually replied to people's points directly we'd know you ignoring anything, but right now you're mainly ranting and confusing the limits of your personal experience with what others manage to do daily.

paddyland

monument wrote: »

And how many cycling commuting deaths do you think there are in Dublin City?

Would love to have hard figures on that but commuter and sporting cyclists seem to massively outnumber motorcyclists, and when you include the amount of training/racing cycling done on public roads, cycling is very safe.

Funny that, because reading and believing many other threads concerning cycling, one could be forgiven for thinking that motorists, and particularly drivers of buses and lorries, are out there killing cyclists all the time, or at least trying their best to do so.

I am sure this quote will come in handy on some future cyclists are good, motorists are bad thread. Nasty motorists, out there killing cyclists all the time. Apparently, according to this thread at least, cycling is very safe. So they aren't getting killed all the time. Well now, who'd have believed it?

monument

There's been reported posts about attacking / focusing on posters rather than points -- please be aware that all posters must follow the Commuting and Transport charter.

paddyland wrote: »

Funny that, because reading and believing many other threads concerning cycling, one could be forgiven for thinking that motorists, and particularly drivers of buses and lorries, are out there killing cyclists all the time, or at least trying their best to do so.

I am sure this quote will come in handy on some future cyclists are good, motorists are bad thread. Nasty motorists, out there killing cyclists all the time. Apparently, according to this thread at least, cycling is very safe. So they aren't getting killed all the time. Well now, who'd have believed it?

Great, but, for now, we'll stay on topic. Thanks.

That applies to anybody wanting to counter his view just as much.