Rogue cyclists set to face on-the-spot fines MOD WARNING in first post

seamus

The 11,000 figure was last year's canal cordon count. That's just the number of cyclists crossing the canal into the city centre.

If all of those cyclists were for one day to ditch the bike and drive or take the bus, it would result in a 15% increase in vehicular traffic and/or bus users crossing the canal.

Which I think most people would agree would be an absolute disaster traffic wise. The busses and city inbound roads are already oversubcribed in the mornings.

droidus

Ah yes, I just saw that. You have to question the reliability of the figures though:

The Canal Cordon Count includes traffic counts on two days in November each year at 33 locations around the cordon formed by the Royal and Grand Canals. The count only record inbound movements between 07:00 and 10:00. Rail, bus and tram passenger survey figures are added to this to find modal share of the amount of people crossing the canal.

As mentioned above, November isn't a great month for cycling and last winter was one of the wettest on record. That must be an underestimate.

HivemindXX

seamus wrote: »

The 11,000 figure was last year's canal cordon count. That's just the number of cyclists crossing the canal into the city centre.

If all of those cyclists were for one day to ditch the bike and drive or take the bus, it would result in a 15% increase in vehicular traffic and/or bus users crossing the canal.

Which I think most people would agree would be an absolute disaster traffic wise. The busses and city inbound roads are already oversubcribed in the mornings.

Any reasonable person would admit this. The roads are already extremely busy during rush hour. The north quays are practically gridlocked as it is when I am going to work every morning. Adding any number of cars to this would be a bad thing. The Luas is frequently packed and it's been a long time since I've used it but I assume the Dart is too. In the city centre busses are severly affected by traffic despite the theoretical free path given by bus lanes. I very much doubt any normal person would be enthusiastic to squeeze even more people on to public transport.

You'd have to be incredibly stupid to think a day without bicycles would be great. The sort of person who routinely posts half baked nonsense. The only other explanation than idiocy is a need to troll brought about by emotional problems.

tomasrojo

seamus wrote: »

The 11,000 figure was last year's canal cordon count. That's just the number of cyclists crossing the canal into the city centre.

It should be possible to add the Dublin Bike figures to those (no journeys originating outside the canals, but a very large number of journeys inside). Do DublinBikes host raw data for use by researchers?

tomasrojo

The attribution of negative characteristics (e.g. smugness) to people whose only shared trait is their choice of transport mode is deeply silly.

It's also just empty rhetoric, and deflection, trying to turn positives into negatives.

Cycling is good for you! => Cyclists are narcissicists
Cycling pollutes less! => Cyclists are smug do-gooders
Cycling saves you a lot of money! => Cyclists are poor

And, of course, the switcheroo is done the other way in the media too:
Driving is very expensive! => Motorists are financially underwriting the entire road system

schemingbohemia

tomasrojo wrote: »

It should be possible to add the Dublin Bike figures to those (no journeys originating outside the canals, but a very large number of journeys inside). Do DublinBikes host raw data for use by researchers?

Not sure that they do. It would also have to be time limited (cordon count is 7-10am) and you'd be getting into apples and oranges, as why count them when not counting cars within the cordon.

Anything useful here?

https://data.dublinked.ie/dataset/dublinbikes

tomasrojo

schemingbohemia wrote: »

Not sure that they do. It would also have to be time limited (cordon count is 7-10am) and you'd be getting into apples and oranges, as why count them when not counting cars within the cordon.

I'm assuming that DublinBikes have data about how many bikes are in use at any time. So you can come to a rough count of how many bikes were in circulation in the city centre at some point between 0700 and 1000.

I'm not really that bothered about comparing with cars. The real point is that the number of cyclists in the city centre is being tacitly established as about 11,000, but there are quite a few bicycle journeys being undertaken in the city centre on shared bikes that should be added to that. It's still pretty approximate, but better.

tomasrojo

tomasrojo wrote: »

I'm assuming that DublinBikes have data about how many bikes are in use at any time. So you can come to a rough count of how many bikes were in circulation in the city centre at some point between 0700 and 1000.

I'm not really that bothered about comparing with cars. The real point is that the number of cyclists in the city centre is being tacitly established as about 11,000, but there are quite a few bicycle journeys being undertaken in the city centre on shared bikes that should be added to that. It's still pretty approximate, but better.

It's off-topic, but I'm also assuming you can see from their data lots of other interesting things: average length of trip, average distance covered ... I'd say there's a lot of interesting stuff in there.

2RockMountain

tomasrojo wrote: »

It's off-topic, but I'm also assuming you can see from their data lots of other interesting things: average length of trip, average distance covered ... I'd say there's a lot of interesting stuff in there.

Would be very interesting to measure demand - times when station is empty, or full.

HivemindXX

tomasrojo wrote: »

I'm assuming that DublinBikes have data about how many bikes are in use at any time. So you can come to a rough count of how many bikes were in circulation in the city centre at some point between 0700 and 1000.

Anecdotally I would guess a lot. A while back I had to walk from Kilmainham to Smithfield, passing at least 6 stations before I found one that had a bike. If you use the app you can see how many bikes are at stations and it seems that a lot of the 1,500 bikes might be in use at the same time during the rush hours. From their stats page the busiest day ever had 17k trips. Even if a lot of those people would have walked if the DBs didn't exist that is still a lot of cars off the road in the most congested areas.

I would love to see hard numbers from DB on what percentage of their fleet are in use during the day. Often people say there is a problem with reallocating bikes from full stations to empty ones, but I'm not sure that's the main problem, the capacity may be close to maxed out between 8 and 9 in the morning.

HivemindXX

HivemindXX wrote: »

You'd have to be incredibly stupid to think a day without bicycles would be great. The sort of person who routinely posts half baked nonsense. The only other explanation than idiocy is a need to troll brought about by emotional problems.

It was my suggestion. Clearly I don't think it would actually work BUT the purpose of the activity would be to demonstrate - for one day - what happens when 'f**king cyclists' get off their bikes and into acceptable methods of transport like the car.

Obviously it's inconvenient for commuting cyclists on that day (I am one, and god knows I wouldn't want to drive to work) but theoretically it would be a well-publicised day of action that would, also theoretically, have commuters in cars begging cyclists to get back on their bikes and promising not to complain about them in future.

i know - cloud cuckoo land stuff!

CramCycle

Deleted User wrote: »

It was my suggestion. Clearly I don't think it would actually work BUT the purpose of the activity would be to demonstrate - for one day - what happens when 'f**king cyclists' get off their bikes and into acceptable methods of transport like the car.

I appreciate the sentiment and understand it, but you have to understand it is a mindset that will transfer the blame elsewhere. Some people don't care that it id or isn't another human beings fault that they are annoyed. That day they will blame the people who don't amber gamble, or they will blame the people who do amber gamble in a way that delays them. They will blame the people sitting in yellow boxes crossing in front of them and they will blame the people who do not sit in yellow boxes travelling in the same direction as them.

Obviously it's inconvenient for commuting cyclists on that day (I am one, and god knows I wouldn't want to drive to work) but theoretically it would be a well-publicised day of action that would, also theoretically, have commuters in cars begging cyclists to get back on their bikes and promising not to complain about them in future.

i know - cloud cuckoo land stuff!

You are missing the small subsection of cyclists who have no other option be it financial (cost of PT), or impossible to get where they need to go (lack of parking) or those of us who just gave up on cars.

Then there are the selfish ones, I just wouldn't do it and I would consider my self very pro cycling, and I think you will find, alot of people won't.

NeedMoreGears

I seem to recall a cycle free day was tried in one of the US cities in an attempt to show how much worse everyone's commute would be if no one cycled.


My google skills were not up to the task of finding it so maybe I'm wrong. Anyone else remember it?

droidus

CramCycle wrote: »

Then there are the selfish ones, I just wouldn't do it and I would consider my self very pro cycling, and I think you will find, alot of people won't.

A bike strike isn't the worst idea in the world actually. Scabs are fair game for every driver.

mcgratheoin

NeedMoreGears wrote: »

I seem to recall a cycle free day was tried in one of the US cities in an attempt to show how much worse everyone's commute would be if no one cycled.


My google skills were not up to the task of finding it so maybe I'm wrong. Anyone else remember it?

Was it this?

Also referenced here

tomasrojo

Someone did try to work out what effect cyclists in Portland all switching to cars would have at rush hour. It was theoretical; there wasn't a day when a load of cyclists actually did this. The conclusion was that it wouldn't make much difference.

A quick search reveals that it was referenced in this very thread! By a distinguished poster, no less.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=96124018&postcount=1113

tomasrojo

schemingbohemia wrote: »

Anything useful here?

https://data.dublinked.ie/dataset/dublinbikes

Thinks that's for bike availability apps to use. Don't think it does historic or time-series data.

Might be a postgrad in it for someone.

cdaly_

Deleted User wrote: »

It was my suggestion. Clearly I don't think it would actually work BUT the purpose of the activity would be to demonstrate - for one day - what happens when 'f**king cyclists' get off their bikes and into acceptable methods of transport like the car.

CramCycle wrote: »

I appreciate the sentiment and understand it, but you have to understand it is a mindset that will transfer the blame elsewhere. Some people don't care that it id or isn't another human beings fault that they are annoyed. That day they will blame the people who don't amber gamble, or they will blame the people who do amber gamble in a way that delays them. They will blame the people sitting in yellow boxes crossing in front of them and they will blame the people who do not sit in yellow boxes travelling in the same direction as them.

The important thing is to have a bumper sticker saying

"I left the bicycle at home today. That's why you're behind me..."

magicbastarder

anyone any knowledge on the issues from post #164 onwards?
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=99951451#post99951451
it's in relation to the modification to the law in 2012 about cycle lanes not being mandatory.

cython

magicbastarder wrote: »

anyone any knowledge on the issues from post #164 onwards?
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=99951451#post99951451
it's in relation to the modification to the law in 2012 about cycle lanes not being mandatory.

Only what I've been posting on that thread!

tomasrojo

It's as said there: people cycling no longer have to use cycle tracks where provided, unless it's a cycle track in a pedestrianised zone, or a cycle track in a contraflow bus lane.

magicbastarder

cython wrote: »

Only what I've been posting on that thread!

indeed - but unfortunately the claim made on that thread is one of those things it's easy to make without legal knowledge, but requires legal knowledge to refute.

tomasrojo

I don't think you require specific legal knowledge. The Minister for Transport at the time explained what the change was, there is an explanatory note accompanying the new SI, just in case it's not clear, and the language is reasonably clear in the SI itself. It also was presented as the fulfilment of a pledge in the National Cycling Strategy in 2009, which in itself stated clearly that the government was going to rescind the obligation to use cycle tracks.

Even if the new SI were ambiguous, all these clarifications and statements of intent would be enough for anyone trying to apply the law to decide that the intent was for cycle tracks not to obligatory, for the most part.

magicbastarder

yep, that was the amateur conclusion i drew - that even if there is a technical issue with the law, it has rendered the 'official' law essentially unenforceable.