Cycleway kissing gates (split from other thread)

Tenzor07

Dublin council puts up more barriers to cycling: http://irishcycle.com/2014/09/11/intolerable-barrier-to-cycling-blocking-new-section-of-dublin-galway-greenway/

Just like putting speed ramps on the M50! :mad:

cgcsb

those barriers drive me absolutely barmey, trying to get through them with a big heavy dublin bike is a needless delay.

desertcircus

Yet another sign that cycle infrastructure in Ireland is designed and maintained by people who not only don't cycle, but don't even answer at any point to people who cycle.

corktina

so they are leaving the gates in the short term in the most restrictive position to deter motorcycle users. In the long term they will be less restricted and will have also deterred cyclists! Madness

Markcheese

On the link above some one mentioned that CCTV has already been installed along the route, would it be possible for the council to install a locking gate and buzzer system ? Basically leave the gate open most of the time- if there's a complaint about dirt bikes or they're seen on CCTV,close the gate and anyone who can't get their bike through the kissing gate thing can buzz to get out... It'll slow down lads on dirt bikes from leaving giving the gardai at least a chance to come along... Also bring in a bylaw alowing dirt bikes/quads being driven illegally or antisocially to be impounded-

Tenzor07

Or rather have CCTV to direct Gardai to anti-social motorbike use along the cycle/pathways..
Once apprehended then crush the motorcycle, and charge the rider with dangerous driving as well as having no tax/insurance...

Pete_Cavan

It would make sense to have some sort of gate at entrance points onto the cycle path (the adjoining facilities off the towpath are probably crap anyway so makes sense to slow down cyclists, or make them dismount altogether, to have separation between the different standards) but having them on the main line totally defeats the purpose of having such a facility in the first place.

The rest of us cant have good facilities because a few scumbags will abuse it, here’s an idea; how about enforcing the law and punishing the scumbags instead of downgrading everything and forcing the rest of us down to the level of the scumbag?

Markcheese

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Or rather have CCTV to direct Gardai to anti-social motorbike use along the cycle/pathways..
Once apprehended then crush the motorcycle, and charge the rider with dangerous driving as well as having no tax/insurance...

Sure the gardai don't really get chance to watch the current CCTV in towns ect..
Sure they'll dedicate a Garda to watch a cyclepath 24 / 7

stop

What a typically Irish solution!

We can't be bothered to police it properly and apply existing rules so let's inconvenience everyone!

L1011

I don't see what antisocial behaviour could possibly be facilitated by a gate wide enough to allow a cyclist but nothing wider - are there that many teens with motorbikes that don't have registration plates, or indeed the odd Garda patrol to seize and prosecute them?

The really old gates along the canal at Maynooth allow passing without dismounting, as I've done many times on a loop to Maynooth or Kilcock - I'd be quite annoyed (if I'd actually used my bike at all this year...) if they replaced them with dismount-required ones.

Tenzor07

Markcheese wrote: »

Sure the gardai don't really get chance to watch the current CCTV in towns ect..
Sure they'll dedicate a Garda to watch a cyclepath 24 / 7

The council own and monitor CCTV, and direct the gards

Iwannahurl

It's about time Local Authorities were formally challenged, eg by making a complaint to the Ombudsman, regarding their absurd and counterproductive use of kissing gates.

The principle ought to be Universal Access, not minimal access for disabled people and no access for certain categories of cyclist.

Please PM me if you would like to participate in a "class action" (ie joint or coordinated complaint/s to the Ombudsman) about this issue. Otherwise, if local authorities are not challenged, kissing gates will proliferate and new greenways will not be universally accessible.

Pete_Cavan

MYOB wrote: »

I don't see what antisocial behaviour could possibly be facilitated by a gate wide enough to allow a cyclist but nothing wider

That is not good enough either, it would still require cyclists to slow right down to get through and at busy times you would have people queuing to get through. Also, parents with children in a trailer behind would not be able to get through.

The point of this should be to provide a long interrupted cycling route for everyone, making cyclists slow down to pass through a gate defeats the purpose and undermines the investment in the facility.

Rock of Gibraltar

I am astonished that the council would install those gates, it only requires a modicum of sense to see how dumb they are.

Are motorbikes really such a problem that we've got the make the track effectively unusable for bicycles?

how about some anonymous ground sensor to detect anyone doing over 40kph which automatically alert the gardai?
coupled with a few dutch anti moped/motorbike speed bumps.

Aard

Those moped-ramps are only fairly new in the Netherlands so I'd be Irish local authorities adopted them any time soon. They're also not meant to prevent mopeds using the route, just to slow them down to bike speed. Having cycled on them in NL, I found them quite ingenious, though I'm not sure if they'd work at keeping the mopeds at slow speed over longer distances. Still though, having such ramps at the entrances to the greenway might help inform moped users not to go too fast.

Atlantic Dawn

CCTV with ANPR to track down the motorcyclists would be a cheap fix, assuming it's road legal motorcycles on it and not the likes of scramblers.

Carawaystick

FCC don't have signs up warning pedestrians not to enter motorways (at motorway exits and service areas) and a pedestrian was killed recently on the M1. So their whole safety aspect seems to be poorly prioritised...

They also have shared pedestrian and cycle lanes such as in the r132, where pedestrians are a nuisance to cyclists and cyclists a nuisance to pedestrians... knocking the nuisance idea on it's head.

LXFlyer

Carawaystick wrote: »

FCC don't have signs up warning pedestrians not to enter motorways (at motorway exits and service areas) and a pedestrian was killed recently on the M1. So their whole safety aspect seems to be poorly prioritised...

They also have shared pedestrian and cycle lanes such as in the r132, where pedestrians are a nuisance to cyclists and cyclists a nuisance to pedestrians... knocking the nuisance idea on it's head.

Without sounding smart, surely common sense would tell any pedestrian not to enter a motorway.


Does it really need a sign?

Aard

lxflyer wrote: »

Does it really need a sign?

This is a question I would ask of many many signs in Ireland. Design should indicate what the expected behaviour should be in a lot of instances.

stop

Carawaystick wrote: »

FCC don't have signs up warning pedestrians not to enter motorways (at motorway exits and service areas) and a pedestrian was killed recently on the M1. So their whole safety aspect seems to be poorly prioritised...

What about these?

Chris_5339762

All of those signs that are there are legacy ones. None of the new sections of motorway have them, and they're not putting them up anymore.

Carawaystick

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

All of those signs that are there are legacy ones. None of the new sections of motorway have them, and they're not putting them up anymore.

There's no signs on the exit slips facing the non motorway road

Cian Ginty quotes FCC as

as a public authority we must and do take our responsibility for public safety very seriously and therefore we have to take the steps we can to minimise what we believe is a potential risk to public safety caused by motorbikes or scramblers that have caused a nuisance on this route in the past.

But FCC don't take steps to minimise other definite risks
I am unsure of any deaths from motorcycles on greenways

Bucklesman

The one that replaces the gate in this google streetview...

https://www.google.ie/maps/@53.3823078,-6.3656663,3a,75y,70.53h,72.31t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1slwMxACPGPBRPcmJDn0QQJw!2e0?hl=en

... is connected to nothing at all on the left hand side. There were young lads down there the last time I passed, and one of them was bombing a dirt bike up and down the North bank the whole time. I had to dismount to pass two of them later.

This is what's called disciplinary architecture, intended to reduce the requirement to police these areas with human authority figures. Although a steel fence costs much less than a Garda, it can't tell the difference between a recumbent bike and a scrambler.

Guards are also harder to drive around.