Reinstatement of mandatory use?

Beasty

godtabh wrote: »

And with an attitude like that I put you on ignore.

If you want to do that, do it - but do not broadcast the fact here. Any questions drop me a PM - do not respond to this warning in-thread.

Thanks

brocbrocach

godtabh wrote: »

And you're an expert now who knows more than the entire engineering profession? Fair play a needed a laugh to distract me from my the design of my dead end cycle lane.

Urban design isnt determined by one profession. Its determined by a collective of different professionals.





Clearly the above statments are wrong when keyboard engineers know it alls know best

It would seem evident from the examples shown above that "the entire engineering profession" is either indifferent, incompetent, or willing to turn a blind eye as regards a good number of their consumers i.e. cyclists. That or their expertise is flawed and needs to be reevaluated from core principles.
Much like local authority planners, they've lost the right to be regarded as experts in their field. No amount of bluster can hide the fact that a staggering number of their projects aren't fit for purpose.

Wishbone Ash

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Revoked or not I will not use the cycle lanes in letterkenny which were a afterthought and simply white lines in footpaths which are littler with humps and kerbs at exits/entrances and sinokt downright dangerous to use...

The ones near the LYIT? Utter joke of engineering. Probably the worst I've ever seen. They would be dangerous for a child on a tricycle never mind a fast moving cycling commuter!

Kaisr Sose

Are we witnessing the emergence of a mega-thread to rival the high vis or helmet megas?

..que Talking Heads ' Are we on the "cycle track" to nowhere ' and there are many cycle lanes that lead cyclists to nowhere....or to pavements they are not permitted to cycle on!

NUTS!

2RockMountain

galwaycyclist wrote: »

Ultimately it is for the courts to interpret the law and to weigh up competing interpretations of the law from different parties.

It has always been the case that civil servants and the "civil service" have their own personal or institutional political agendas.

It is disappointing and it is not supposed to happen but it is not unknown for civil servants to act according to their own political agenda even when this is in conflict with the programs they are charged with delivering by our lawfully elected representatives.

It would appear that this is what is happening here - that there are individuals within the department who disagree with smarter travel etc and were opposed to the policies of the last minister. Now that the minister has moved on they see a chance to try and undermine those policies.

You're probably right. It might be worth while calling the bluff of the officials, and putting in a PQ to ask the Minister if he agrees with the new 'clarification'. This could possibly backfire, as if he is a docile Minister who has been captured by his officials, he'll say whatever he is told to say. Is it worth the risk?

Deleted User wrote: »

Figure was quoted in local press. Seems cheap to me for near 2 years work

A cycle lane doesn't cost €2m or take 2 years. I call BS on this. Those figures must have related to a much bigger project, of which the cycle lane was one part. Please show a source.

galwaycyclist wrote: »

At the time a fitness to practice complaint was submitted against the road safety auditors.

Interesting approach, did it get anywhere?

magicbastarder

unless they actually change the wording, i cannot see any prosecution succeeding based on it. that's based on common sense, mind.
a clear statement from the minister at the time, and a clear attempt to de-mandatorise (is that a word?) the lanes in the explanatory note; would any judge stand over a prosecution based on that?
people are generally let off as result of ambiguities in the law, not prosecuted on them.

monument

2RockMountain wrote: »

A cycle lane doesn't cost €2m or take 2 years. I call BS on this. Those figures must have related to a much bigger project, of which the cycle lane was one part. Please show a source.

The project is much wider than cycle tracks and includes total road surfacing renewals. Boundary to boundary redesign, digging up and repaving.

galwaycyclist

2RockMountain wrote: »

Interesting approach, did it get anywhere?

Sadly no. Although I suspect that one of the individuals who was based in the UK may have got pause for thought - the complaint went to the UK governing entity. Another was from New Zealand and their body refused to consider the complaint.

However it adds to the weight of evidence that we have a civil engineering profession that is not fit for purpose (and not just in Ireland) so it was still worth doing.

Eventually we may find a legal way to bring one of those involved to "justice" - if we do it could be a game changer for the country generally.

Chivito550

I was in Amsterdam last week. I'm not usually a cyclist, but I rented a bike and cycled around the city. The place is heaven for cyclists. The city is designed for cyclists first and foremost. On some cycleroads cars are "guests". They don't just have cycle lanes, they have cycleways, with 2 lanes in each direction on some roads, segregated away from the road. The on-road cycle lanes are very wide and cars never drive into them. And they have a ridiculous amount of places to park your bike. I've never felt safer cycling around. More chance of getting knocked down by another cyclist than by a car. Literally everyone cycles over there. A granny heading down to the local shop to pick up milk and bread, a mother dropping off her kids to school (they have bikes where you can attach a trailer like thing which kids sit into). People cycle to the pub. People cycle everywhere. There is absolutely no reason why you would need to waste money on a car if you lived there. There's 820,000 people in Amsterdam, and 880,000 bikes. Also worth mentioning, to compliment the cycle culture they have a public transport system which is 60 years ahead of Dublin's. People seem to be healthier over there, and the city isn't chocker-blocked with disgusting noisy polluting automobiles crawling at 4 hour marathon pace!

Dublin, on the otherhand, is an absolute joke. The city centre is car-centric, and the roads are not set up for cyclists at all. The cycle lanes you do see are often in poor condition, and sometimes not even wide enough, so cars have to drive into them, which defeats the purpose of them. You also have incredible animosity from drivers here towards cyclists, as if they are above them. It's about time somebody sorted this city out. Cars need to be booted out.

V-man

Chivito550 wrote: »

I was in Amsterdam last week. I'm not usually a cyclist, but I rented a bike and cycled around the city. The place is heaven for cyclists. The city is designed for cyclists first and foremost. On some cycleroads cars are "guests". They don't just have cycle lanes, they have cycleways, with 2 lanes in each direction on some roads, segregated away from the road. The on-road cycle lanes are very wide and cars never drive into them. And they have a ridiculous amount of places to park your bike. I've never felt safer cycling around. More chance of getting knocked down by another cyclist than by a car. Literally everyone cycles over there. A granny heading down to the local shop to pick up milk and bread, a mother dropping off her kids to school (they have bikes where you can attach a trailer like thing which kids sit into). People cycle to the pub. People cycle everywhere. There is absolutely no reason why you would need to waste money on a car if you lived there. There's 820,000 people in Amsterdam, and 880,000 bikes. Also worth mentioning, to compliment the cycle culture they have a public transport system which is 60 years ahead of Dublin's. People seem to be healthier over there, and the city isn't chocker-blocked with disgusting noisy polluting automobiles crawling at 4 hour marathon pace!

Dublin, on the otherhand, is an absolute joke. The city centre is car-centric, and the roads are not set up for cyclists at all. The cycle lanes you do see are often in poor condition, and sometimes not even wide enough, so cars have to drive into them, which defeats the purpose of them. You also have incredible animosity from drivers here towards cyclists, as if they are above them. It's about time somebody sorted this city out. Cars need to be booted out.

Amen!

tomasrojo

I don't think Dublin is an absolute joke, to be fair. It's more by accident than design, but it has a climate and topography that's quite conducive to cycling, and the older parts (i.e. pre-1990s) have a road structure that's conducive to a mild form of vehicular cycling.

The attempts to facilitate cycling are botched, because whenever there's a conflict the designers have nearly always (and I mean 95+% at least of the time) given priority to pedestrians or motorists over cyclists, especially motorists. Most facilities are also designed in at the last minute over a road that's primarily designed for keeping cars moving. So they're just lip service, or attempts to build up a tally of kilometres of cycle track built. They're not really to facilitate cycling. They're something that has to be done, officially, and there's no metric or standard to hold people to account when they're awful. If motorists are inconvenienced, you will be held to account.

tomasrojo

And Dublin has an ok-ish level of cycling too (over 10% of trips in the city centre now, I think). It's pretty poor compared to cities in the Netherlands, but it's not bad either. There are much worse places in Ireland alone.

Chivito550

tomasrojo wrote: »

And Dublin has an ok-ish level of cycling too (over 10% of trips in the city centre now, I think). It's pretty poor compared to cities in the Netherlands, but it's not bad either. There are much worse places in Ireland alone.

Setting the bar high there eh! :eek:

The only way to improve is to accept that things are not good enough, and benchmark off the best. The best are the Netherlands and Denmark. If we accept mediocrity that is all we will ever get.

tomasrojo

I don't think I said that I accepted mediocrity. I'm not going to pretend that cycling every day is awful though. It's not. I enjoy it a lot, and I don't find motorists incessantly hostile.

The Netherlands is a much better place. We need Ireland to be a much better place. Things did seem to be going in the right direction, but a lot of good projects are just being watered down now (like the quayside cycleway in Dublin, and greenways in Dublin now seem to have kissing gates as standard). So I'm not as confident that things are going to keep getting better as I was.

V-man

tomasrojo wrote: »

And Dublin has an ok-ish level of cycling too (over 10% of trips in the city centre now, I think). It's pretty poor compared to cities in the Netherlands, but it's not bad either. There are much worse places in Ireland alone.

And that is exactly where the frustration starts.
The numbers of active cyclists are growing however the investment in proper infrastructure clearly not and in favor of the motorist. And I dare to say it is bad in many, many places.

Had my fair share of accidents over the years but only when I followed the law.
Hit from behind by a car, hit by the fist of a pedestrian on a cycling track, hit a sign post in the middle of a cycling track. Hit by a car that decides to break the red light.

Now I bend the rules to keep myself safe.
I do drive on the pavement (with my toddler in the back seat)
I do break Red Lights (If I have a car standing next to my that wants to make a left turn)

And sad to admit that there are indeed much worse places in Ireland
(FYI I am a Dutch expat)

TheExile1878

V-man wrote: »

And that is exactly where the frustration starts.
The numbers of active cyclists are growing however the investment in proper infrastructure clearly not and in favor of the motorist. And I dare to say it is bad in many, many places.

Had my fair share of accidents over the years but only when I followed the law.
Hit from behind by a car, hit by the fist of a pedestrian on a cycling track, hit a sign post in the middle of a cycling track. Hit by a car that decides to break the red light.

Now I bend the rules to keep myself safe.
I do drive on the pavement (with my toddler in the back seat)
I do break Red Lights (If I have a car standing next to my that wants to make a left turn)

And sad to admit that there are indeed much worse places in Ireland
(FYI I am a Dutch expat)

BEND ???

No, you BREAK the rules.

Selfish. Typical.

TheExile1878

I do drive on the pavement (with my toddler in the back seat)
======

And there's the next generation ruined by being brought up that you can do what's wrong if it suits you.

tomasrojo

V-man wrote: »

(FYI I am a Dutch expat)

What difference does that make? What, I was masquerading as an expert on the Netherlands or something?

EDIT: Actually, it is good to have Dutch people contributing on threads like this. I'm not sure what the "FYI" is for though.

Fian

tomasrojo wrote: »

The cycle track that goes past the fire station and the Harry Corry's and all that? Yeah, not a good one. I do use it for a small stretch of about fifteen meters, but only to get into an estate to get away from it.

Which estate and where does it bring you out? I hate that stretch of road, especially on the way home form along ride when my blood sugar is probably low and i am more likely to get irritated at cars who are irritated with me for not being on the (ridiculously bad) cycle track. The road is very narrow and a cyclist does cause a real impediment to traffic, albeit that you slow them down only in their rush to the back of the queue at the next set of traffic lights.

I generally now cycle to the terenure junction and turn left there to avoid this road but if you have a route through a housing estate that brings you towards the sally gap I would be grateful for directions to it.

V-man

tomasrojo wrote: »

What difference does that make? What, I was masquerading as an expert on the Netherlands or something?

No, I almost completely agree with your post(s) aside of " but it's not bad either"
I do believe it is bad in many places.

tomasrojo

V-man wrote: »

The numbers of active cyclists are growing however the investment in proper infrastructure clearly not and in favor of the motorist. And I dare to say it is bad in many, many places.

I agree totally.

It may depend on where you live -- in fact, I'm very sure it does -- but fraught interactions with pedestrians and motorists are not a commonplace for me. At the height of the property boom: that was another story. The place really did go very peculiar.

(I do cycle on the footpath too. As I said before, when there are no pedestrians on a footpath with good sight lines, I don't see any harm in ambling along to get past a difficult junction, or make your journey five minutes shorter.)

Fian

seamus wrote: »

Technically Gardai can always tell you to get into the cycle lane. All traffic is required to obey a lawful direction given by a Garda.

Key word there is "lawful". A Garda has no statutory authority to direct you into a cycle lane, barring exceptional circumstances where this is required for public safety or some other good reason. But not just because you are cycling ona road that should be reserved for "real" traffic.

Having said that only a fool would argue the point with an irritated Garda, just not worth the hassle.

Fian

magicbastarder wrote: »

unless they actually change the wording, i cannot see any prosecution succeeding based on it. that's based on common sense, mind.
a clear statement from the minister at the time, and a clear attempt to de-mandatorise (is that a word?) the lanes in the explanatory note; would any judge stand over a prosecution based on that?
people are generally let off as result of ambiguities in the law, not prosecuted on them.

It is a standard rule of statutory interpretation that, in the case of "penal statutes" (which includes all provisions creating a criminal offence) where there is ambiguity it must be resolved against the State. In this instance an ambiguity in a criminal offence would be required to be resolved in favour of the accused.

All of which would do you precious little good if you lost a morning waiting for a prosecution to be called in a busy district court list.

tomasrojo

Fian wrote: »

Which estate and where does it bring you out?

Don't think it's any use to you, but I sometimes head to Kilmainham or the Phoenix Park from Dublin 16. So I go along a bit of the Slang riverside cycle track (no kissing gates on this first stretch; very nice), cut through Meadow Grove, take a small bit of Barton Road East, cut through Mountain View down to Nutgrove Avenue, where the crappy cycle track is. I go east one block and cut down White Barn Road, and over to Braemor Road, Mount Carmel hospital and onto Orwell Road.

So it's just a way of having a quiet cycle heading northwest away from Dublin 16. Not sure it would help you get to Sally Gap. Some use as a quiet route to Sandyford Road, if you were coming from the northwest or north.

mrcheez

Fian wrote: »

Having said that only a fool would argue the point with an irritated Garda, just not worth the hassle.

Makes for great YouTube fodder though

seamus

Fian wrote: »

Key word there is "lawful". A Garda has no statutory authority to direct you into a cycle lane, barring exceptional circumstances where this is required for public safety or some other good reason. But not just because you are cycling ona road that should be reserved for "real" traffic.

My understanding is that a "lawful" direction is one which does not require you to break the law to follow.

So directing you to cycle in a cycle lane is a lawful direction. Directing you to cycle on the footpath or down a motorway, would not be.

magicbastarder

so would it be a lawful direction for a garda to order you to pat your head, rub your stomach, and hop on one leg, all at the same time?

tomasrojo

magicbastarder wrote: »

so would it be a lawful direction for a garda to order you to pat your head, rub your stomach, and hop on one leg, all at the same time?

If they suspected you were driving under the influence, yes.

LeinsterDub

seamus wrote: »

My understanding is that a "lawful" direction is one which does not require you to break the law to follow.

So directing you to cycle in a cycle lane is a lawful direction. Directing you to cycle on the footpath or down a motorway, would not be.

By that logic a Guard could direct you to drive to Kerry and you'd have no choice but to follow it

tomasrojo

Has to be lawful and reasonable, maybe?