Help me understand this junction!

yannakis

This junction has been realigned with the Luas works so it's been like this since a while now, but it keeps busting my head every time I drive up Constitution Hill (around Broadstone).

1. Up to the traffic light there's a Bike lane + two lanes with arrows allowing to go straight (screenshot 1).
2. After the traffic light, the bike lane continues and there's only one lane.
3. Right after that and in the bend, there's also an arrow for the (non existing) left lane to merge to the right (screenshot 2).

Drivers who are familiar with this junction either speed-up and overtake from the left, or keep pace to allow the others to merge. The rest (if focused) find themselves frustrated right after the traffic light.. I sometimes have experienced cars in both lanes slowing down to let the other one go, and traffic slows down for no reason. Shouldn't the left lane be only for left turns (and straight for busses) or something?

https://goo.gl/maps/gEScgHivp2F2

1:


2:

hi5

I was always taught to 'stay left' so the arrow should direct from right to left.

Bigus

It gets more volume of vehicles through the junction lights per green and they can merge in time beyond.

jhenno78

Looks like the bike lanes were added as a half-baked after-thought.
Take them out of the picture and all the other markings make sense.

Chris_5339762

Bigus wrote: »

It gets more volume of vehicles through the junction lights per green and they can merge in time beyond.

Thats true and there are quite a few in Dublin but none I've seen as poorly designed as this which basically makes driving in the bike lane unavoidable.

Mrs Dempsey

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

......makes driving in the bike lane unavoidable.

FFS driving in the bike lane! The bike lane is for PARKING!

hans aus dtschl

Cyclists tend to avoid using the cycle lanes in Ireland because many of them are death traps like this.

Why is there no accountability for bad road design when it comes to cycle infrastructure? Is it just because there haven't been enough deaths yet?

prunudo

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Thats true and there are quite a few in Dublin but none I've seen as poorly designed as this which basically makes driving in the bike lane unavoidable.

Broken white line so not actually illegal to drive in this bike lane.

jhenno78

jvan wrote: »

Broken white line so not actually illegal to drive in this bike lane.

Legally it's more like over-taking. You can't just go ahead and drive in it or stop there in traffic, but it's permitted to use it to get around stopped traffic or enter it to turn at a junction.
There's also a SI that says you can stop there for up to 30min if loading/unloading, but I'd take any SI with a pinch of salt (especially if they seem to contradict the legislation, like this one does).

Practically speaking of course, they might as well not be there.

Chris_5339762

jvan wrote: »

Broken white line so not actually illegal to drive in this bike lane.

But that in itself is utterly ludicrous. Cars should not be in the bike lane, period. Whats the point of the bike lane.

Carawaystick

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

But that in itself is utterly ludicrous. Cars should not be in the bike lane, period. Whats the point of the bike lane.

It fills statistics...

Charles Babbage

If they moved the blue fence back a metre or two there would be room for everyone.