Near misses - mod warning 22/04 - see OP/post 822

Chuchote

buffalo wrote: »

I believe Japan has something similar - you need to show you own a parking space before you can buy a car.

If you believe a random site on the Internet...



http://www.deepjapan.org/a/976

You can believe Google Maps - use Satellite View and Street View to check any city in Japan and you normally won't see parking on the streets. It really is a silly way to use road space, for storage.

Pinch Flat

Tenzor07 wrote: »

I know there's some sort of Irony in there about someone driving a car around complaining that too many cars are being parked up...! :pac:

Ah now that's below the belt,:p 7 day a week cyclist here. The game was 29.1km from our house (according to Google maps) - no problem for me, but my 10 year old son might grumble with playing a game and doing a 60km round trip on his bike......

CramCycle

Pinch Flat wrote: »

I was driving up around Mount Merrion on Saturday, dropping junior to a GAA match. My god the streets were tight with cars parked opposite each other - a lot of drives empty as well, so presumably 2 car families that couldn't be ar$ed to park the car on the street in the drive way when it's free.

I always understood it was not allowed (not sure if illegal or in the rules of the road) to park opposite another car, as it restricts the road way.

I am not sure of the legalities but my understanding would have been obstructing a roadway would be illegal but don't know the statute. Presumably obvious as roadways should be kept clear for emergency vehicles.

The problem is, who parked first and who caused the obstruction. A double yellow on one side of the road (or both) would solve that issue.

mr spuckler

indeed - my estate has narrow enough roads and sometimes you end up almost slaloming your way up it as every 2nd parked car can be on opposite sides of the road!

Tombo2001

07Lapierre wrote: »

In Switzerland it's illegal to park on the street. If you have a car, it's your responsibility to park it off the road. If you don't have a driveway or private property to park on...thats your problem.

The counterpoint presumably is that there is decent public transport.

Ireland would just cease to function if this was to be implemented.

AndrewJRenko

07Lapierre wrote: »

In Switzerland it's illegal to park on the street. If you have a car, it's your responsibility to park it off the road. If you don't have a driveway or private property to park on...thats your problem.

We do dedicate a huge amount of public space to storage of private property.

07Lapierre

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

We do dedicate a huge amount of public space to storage of private property.

And we've been doing it for years!

http://www.dublincity.ie/sites/default/files/galleries/stafford047.jpg

tomasrojo

Any evidence that quietways or similar schemes push up property prices? It's the only language NIMBYs understand.

Roadhawk

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

We do dedicate a huge amount of public space to storage of private property.

I wonder how much on-street parking is worth, in Dublin alone, on a daily basis.

Roadhawk

07Lapierre wrote: »

And we've been doing it for years!

http://www.dublincity.ie/sites/default/files/galleries/stafford047.jpg

Wow what a picture. I would have loved to have been alive in this era.

tomasrojo

My mother-in-law's estate is impossible with all the parked cars. It's a council estate, and the average income there wouldn't be all that high, but every house has one or two cars now, with driveways only large enough to store one car per house.

Until the Luas cross-city works finish, it's easiest for me to hire a car to visit her with the wife and kids. I end up dropping everyone off, parking on the main street about a kilometre away (GoCars get free DCC parking) and cycling back (folding bike). If I park outside her house, I'm liable to be blocked in by three or four cars in a grid, and have to go house to house finding the owners when I want to leave.

07Lapierre

Roadhawk wrote: »

Wow what a picture. I would have loved to have been alive in this era.

I was alive then! (just)

Tombo2001

tomasrojo wrote: »

My mother-in-law's estate is impossible with all the parked cars. It's a council estate, and the average income there wouldn't be all that high, but every house has one or two cars now, with driveways only large enough to store one car per house.

Until the Luas cross-city works finish, it's easiest for me to hire a car to visit her with the wife and kids. I end up dropping everyone off, parking on the main street about a kilometre away (GoCars get free DCC parking) and cycling back (folding bike). If I park outside her house, I'm liable to be blocked in by three or four cars in a grid, and have to go house to house finding the owners when I want to leave.

There are probably 50,000 cars parked illegally in Dublin every night; given that you cant partially park on the pavement and that's my guesstimate of the amount of cars that would do so.

And in circa 100% of those cases (rounded to the nearest big number) - the gardai show 'discretion'.

(But hang on now Joe - I just seen a cyclist go through a red light).

BoardsMember

07Lapierre wrote: »

In Switzerland it's illegal to park on the street. If you have a car, it's your responsibility to park it off the road. If you don't have a driveway or private property to park on...thats your problem.

That's all very well, but not relevant to the state of affairs here, or helpful in considering a solution that works for everyone, or something that is realistically achievable within the context of how things are here. Their starting point for introducing things like this is far from where we are ever likely to be, let alone where we are now.

BoardsMember

Chuchote wrote: »

The city should be building high-rise car parks, or else charging a realistic price for onstreet parking.

And of course there's the question of whether you really need a car if you're living in a city apartment…

I agree we should be going high rise. Not just for car parks, for apartments. And we should be putting in the required infrastructure so that not having a car is an option for more people. At the moment it really isn't, and not just for people with mobility issues, public transport is a joke and not everyone can cycle.

What we really need is people in power with vision. Instead we have teachers and publicans trying to keep their constituents happy, with no forward thinking or mater plan. It really is pathetic.

07Lapierre

BoardsMember wrote: »

That's all very well, but not relevant to the state of affairs here, or helpful in considering a solution that works for everyone, or something that is realistically achievable within the context of how things are here. Their starting point for introducing things like this is far from where we are ever likely to be, let alone where we are now.

Fair enough...we'll leave everything as it is so. No point even discussing it. Sure it'll cost millions and lets face it, there's always something much more urgent to spend that kinda money on! you know, Hospitals, education etc.

IMO It is relevant in that it shows what's possible if there is a will to do it.

BoardsMember

07Lapierre wrote: »

Fair enough...we'll leave everything as it is so. No point even discussing it. Sure it'll cost millions and lets face it, there's always something much more urgent to spend that kinda money on! you know, Hospitals, education etc.

IMO It is relevant in that it shows what's possible if there is a will to do it.

Agreed, hence my other post straight after that (below). What I mean is that we get nowhere saying "look how good it is over there" - there will always be a better health service elsewhere, a better social welfare system elsewhere, a better cycle infrastructure elsewhere. We need to develop strategies with vision for getting there, or somewhere close. There's no point in just saying that we should not allow people to park their cars on public property. You have to have a realistic vision of how to get there, something that works for the greater good. It can't just be a light switch where on some date you have no longer allow parking on public property.

BoardsMember wrote: »

I agree we should be going high rise. Not just for car parks, for apartments. And we should be putting in the required infrastructure so that not having a car is an option for more people. At the moment it really isn't, and not just for people with mobility issues, public transport is a joke and not everyone can cycle.

What we really need is people in power with vision. Instead we have teachers and publicans trying to keep their constituents happy, with no forward thinking or mater plan. It really is pathetic.

looie

A few of these signs scattered around the city centre would be a good starting point IMO. Driver would be issued a ticket immediately and automatically.

07Lapierre

BoardsMember wrote: »

What we really need is people in power with vision. Instead we have teachers and publicans trying to keep their constituents happy, with no forward thinking or mater plan. It really is pathetic.

Well said! ... this is why i couldn't care less when Enda Kenny leaves office...I have no faith in any of the others to do a better job!

BoardsMember

07Lapierre wrote: »

Well said! ... this is why i couldn't care less when Enda Kenny leaves office...I have no faith in any of the others to do a better job!

Here's one for you, I know it is not original....according to Wikipedia, 2/3rds of Irish port traffic goes through Dublin Port, i.e. pretty much into the city centre. There's nearly 200 hectares down there, right in the city centre.

Our Island's main deep water port should not be on the most valuable land in the country, that also happens to be the busiest traffic wise. Why ship stuff into the hardest place to get it out of? That which needs to come into the city centre could come via the tunnel, dont bring everything for the whole country into the middle of the bloody city!

The port should be moved up the coast, where a number of possibilities exist. That land should be all residential, museums, hotels etc built to the highest standard with high rise accommodation, an excellent transport system, local amenities including green areas, creches, youth clubs. It could be absolutely fantastic. It's a massive area on the sea and the river liffey. A bit of foresight and vision and you could have 100,000 people living down there happily, families, singles, couples, all socio-economic background. Cruise ships coming into a lovely modern part of the city, easily accessing other parts.

It could be amazing. Sure, there are loads of obstacles, like ownership of the land for one, but all these can be overcome with the right vision and leadership.

buffalo

BoardsMember wrote: »

It's a massive area on the sea and the river liffey. A bit of foresight and vision and you could have 100,000 people living down there happily, families, singles, couples, all socio-economic background.

And ready to be wiped out by climate change in 20 years! :pac:

magicbastarder

BoardsMember wrote: »

That land should be all residential, museums, hotels etc built to the highest standard with high rise accommodation, an excellent transport system, local amenities including green areas, creches, youth clubs. It could be absolutely fantastic.

if we don't do it already on existing land being developed...
the above idea is great. but the cost would be astronomical, and with all the best will in the world, i think people idealise what we would do with the land partly because we know it's not going to happen. we should be thinking this way on actual upcoming developments - but we're still living in a country where 40% of house builds are one off, and where the minister for the environment is striving to reduce building standards so houses get lashed up more quickly.

Chuchote

tomasrojo wrote: »

Any evidence that quietways or similar schemes push up property prices? It's the only language NIMBYs understand.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/oct/05/blame-bike-cycling-contribute-city-gentrification

But does cycling really contribute to gentrification? John Stehlin, a geographer at the University of California, Berkeley who has studied San Francisco’s cycling politics, says the relationship is complex. “Cycling feeds into wider urban changes, including gentrification, but it does not cause gentrification. A bicycle lane gets put on a street that is already undergoing change.”
==
When it comes to cycling, our cities are certainly changing. The numbers cycling to work in London more than doubled from 77,000 in 2001 to 155,000 in 2011, according to census data. Brighton, Bristol and Manchester all registered big increases, too. In the US, the number of people cycling in the previous 12 months increased from just over 47 million in 2008 to more than 66 million in 2015.

Gentrifying districts are often those most suited to cycling. Closer to the inner city, they were often built during the age of slow-moving, horse-drawn carts. In the 10th arrondissement of Paris, for example, where on-street parking is scarce, the bike is often a far more rational choice than the car for newcomers.

But the growth of city cycling is not purely utilitarian. Among what urban theorist Richard Florida calls “the creative class”, the bicycle is a potent symbol of identity and status. And more bikes, it seems, means more well-paid knowledge economy jobs. “Cycling to work is positively associated with the share of creative-class jobs and negatively associated with working-class jobs,” Florida wrote in 2011.
==
“Bike lanes are often introduced in areas that are gentrifying,” says Stein. “The people who produce gentrification – landlords and developers – want this because it makes a neighbourhood more desirable and increases their property prices.” City planners often “use cycling infrastructure as a way to facilitate development. So where gentrification goes cycling infrastructure follows, but that is a problem of planning, not cycling.”

Chuchote

Also:

Cycle lanes boost real estate value - where you build a cycle lane, house prices rise - http://atlanta.curbed.com/2013/8/8/10210634/bike-lanes-property-values-is-there-a-correlation

and http://www.icebike.org/property-prices/ (American)

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest-news/living-near-popular-cycling-routes-add-value-home-280901 http://lcc.org.uk/articles/cycle-lanes-and-parking-rival-tube-stations-in-boosting-property-prices (UK)

Facts and figures from the UK on cycle lanes and local value - https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/509587/value-of-cycling.pdf

Bike Lanes Mean Business - an analysis of what a cycleway can mean to local businesses https://www.sfbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Protected_Bike_Lanes_Mean_Business.pdf

Alanstrainor

Damn this thread got huge. For those that remember from earlier. I have a conclusion to this scenario:

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Most passes I deal with are not to do with people not seeing me. They are to do with people who do see me, and decide to chance their arm in passing where there is no room to do so. I have 2 lights front, and 2 lights rear. I do have some highvis gear, but I don't always wear it, and I definitely don't agree with RSA's fetish for highvis clothing.

This about sums it up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE0YZ-y6hKA

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Just an update on this for anyone that remembers. (Close pass by a taxi in Portmarnock, video now private)

I got a call from the local station about a week after contacting Traffic Watch, and for a few different reasons I only managed to go up to the station with the footage this evening. His opinion on the pass was that it was ridiculously dangerous. He asked whether I'd be willing to go to court over it, which I said I would. He took the footage and said he will call to the drivers house and see what he says.

So far, everyone has been incredibly professional and courteous. So a thumbs up on the response so far.

So the Gard did call to his house that evening and confronted him. The gard had the footage on his phone to show whether his story lined up with reality. The driver seemed to remember the incident, although his take was slightly different.

Initially the taxi driver stated that "he was forced to swerve due to the on-coming bus, which caused the close pass". Now the gard didn't take this excuse and said well then you shouldn't have passed. The taxi driver also stated to the gard that he had stopped further up the road to apologise, but saw my banging my fist on the bars and thought the better of it.

The gard then got me to come again to the station and show the extended footage to see if he indeed stopped. The footage shows him slow, and then take off again. It was at this second meeting that the gard said "well, there's nothing really here to convict him on, as dangerous driving wont stand, so there's not much we can do". He suggested I come to the station again and meet the driver and he would caution him.

So this is what happened. I went to the station this evening and met the driver, who was incredibly apologetic about the whole thing and said that he should have just waited for a safe moment to pass. The gard just reiterated that it was very dangerous and if there had been a collision it would have been a completely different situation. We shook hands, I said fair play and that was that.

The whole experience was a bit odd really. At the second meeting with the gard I got the impression that there wasn't much that could be done. He even asked me if there was a 1.5 meter rule, which I explained that there wasn't (but that it is recommended in the RotR). And then they talked about cyclists who take the lane and how that wasn't right. To which I corrected them in saying that there was nothing I was aware of to prevent a cyclist using the entire lane.

In one sense I'm happy with the apology, and I think that was a fair resolution. I suppose the let down here is to do with the current legislation, or lack there of, for this kind of situation.

TLDR: Went to Gards, got a direct apology from the taxi driver. Not much else the gards could do.

Chuchote

Or not much the garda could do in the current circumstances. When (if) An Garda Síochána follows the lead of the many UK police forces now taking legal action on close passes (Edinburgh is just the latest), then the ordinary garda on the beat will be able to act.

Tenzor07

That coast road is a nitemare, I've only ever tackled it when there's a strong wind behind me and I can do about 35/40kph along it..

Would be a definite No-Go for your average or casual cyclist!

There's a video on the Green's Facebook page talking about that road: https://www.facebook.com/pg/GreenPartyIreland/videos/

magicbastarder

I've often used that road and wouldn't consider it that bad. Yes, it certainly could be better but it's not one I particularly fear.

Annie get your Run

He even asked me if there was a 1.5 meter rule, which I explained that there wasn't (but that it is recommended in the RotR).

As a matter of interest, why aren't the ROTR law? What's the point in having them if they're not enforceable? I always just assumed that they were.

Chuchote

Dublin (and Galway, and Cork, and Limerick, and Belfast, and Derry) could be like Oslo

https://player.vimeo.com/video/212846367