Clontarf to City Centre Cycle & Bus Priority Project discussion (renamed)

theskeptic

Fairview on Sunday morning (3 Apr 2022) - it's a bit more congested on weekdays with the lane reductions ;)

magicbastarder

i am curious also about what 'sort' of people have to drive in to the city centre through fairview; tradespeople, obviously, but it's not a route where you'd get people having to commute into dublin from far afield, in the way that someone might be able to claim 'i need to drive from carlow to dublin'.

given that anyone coming in from further north or east than swords would be using the M1/airport road or further west, surely the vast majority of commuters transiting fairview are headed no further than malahide - and northeast dublin is served by the dart and rail, out to malahide, and plenty of buses. in fact, it's hard to find anywhere in that part of dublin which is more than about 12km from fairview.

speaking of the latter, one obvious pinch point for buses won't be addressed by this work - the very bottom of the malahide road between griffith avenue and fairview. it's a total of three lanes (all directions) and has to carry a lot of bus traffic serving that part of dublin, as well as all other sorts of traffic.

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118874128#Comment_118874128

I worked in a law firm in the IFSC before and several partners who lived in Clontarf drove in every day. They couldn't be seen on public transport :D That's what BIK free parking at work results in, particularly in the city centre.

I'm in D5 and my wife works in Harold's Cross. She has tried all sorts of options for her commute, bus x 2, dart and bus, dart and cycle, driving. All pretty crap options from her experience. She was essential worker during Covid and the drive time reduced to 23 minutes with the reduction of vehicles on the roads. Otherwise the drive can be an hour plus.

magicbastarder

any hope that busconnects changes might play into her hands?

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118874238#Comment_118874238

Haven't looked at it properly to be honest as it's going to take so long to be implemented, thanks to the usual moan and object brigade. You know yourself!

She was good at taking Dart to GCD and cycling up the canal, even as a not very experienced cyclist, because when you build good infrastructure it encourages more users. Unfortunately those who complain about the work in Fairview are too short sighted to consider this.

Atlantic Dawn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118874128#Comment_118874128

The civil service has thousands of free parking spaces provided for them within the city, if you don't have to pay for it lots of people will stick to the car every time rather than travel in complete poverty spec trains and buses.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118874274#Comment_118874274

This issue is overstated. IIRC, the figure is 4,000 spaces, for the entire civil and public service in Dublin - so that includes all the DCC architects and engineers travelling to sites, all the public health nurses, all the HSA inspectors, all the HIQA inspectors, lots of people with mobile roles and genuine needs to travel significant distances at short notice to locations not served by public transport.

Yes, there are SOME CS offices with generous parking. Newer CS buildings have very little parking, (3 spaces between 100 people in my last building).

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118874274#Comment_118874274

Revenue should charge BIK on this. Take a €3 hourly charge, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week at day 45 weeks a year = €5,400. If someone is facing an extra tax hit of €2,800 a year on top of fuel etc it might encourage a change over to public transport or cycling.

Easy to implement too. And then ring fence the tax raised to pay for more public transport and cycling infrastructure.

blackbox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118873985#Comment_118873985

Did someone Photoshop the cyclists out of these pictures?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118874329#Comment_118874329

For ALL employer car parks, right? Not just public sector.

Some UK cities (Sheffield, Nottingham) have introduced workplace parking levies, with the income going to fund public transport.

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118874363#Comment_118874363

Absolutely for all. I've seen job descriptions where parking is advertised as a perk/benefit, so the employers even acknowledge it. No idea if Revenue provide parking and therefore turkeys won't vote for Christmas.

johnnyrotten

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118869401#Comment_118869401

Keep smoking that stuff

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118874581#Comment_118874581

Revenue have some parking in Dublin Castle, but not a huge amount afaik. George’s St office has very limited parking. Not sure about other locations.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118874766#Comment_118874766

Powerful stuff indeed

johnnyrotten

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118874886#Comment_118874886

You are missing the point here, The affected area is a major artery to and from the northeast of Dublin which is not served by the LUAS. Stop trolling.

johnnyrotten

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118870098#Comment_118870098

On a cycle track already established?

johnnyrotten

Theres a grand aul cycle track here already, Would make sense to leave it alone and not cut down 60 odd trees for a "Sustainable" option.

Pinch Flat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118874180#Comment_118874180

Just talking about this today. Brother in law is a director in a multinational in the IFSC. They're actively discouraged from using public transport and (god forbid) cycling. It gives the wrong impression apparently.

Anyway on the fairview thing, looking forward to this. Its a horrible stretch tp cycle from the end on the clontarf path which puts you in conflict with taxi and buses. Having a dedicated path here will make it much more pleasant. Fairview has been besieged by traffic and essentially has a dual carriageway running through ot so no harm to give some of the road space back to more sustainable means.

Atlantic Dawn

I'd say it's going to lead to a congestion charge rather than any actual new measures to move more mixed traffic through the city.

I suppose even if you took 2 car lanes worth wide of Fairview park to leave existing flow as it was you would still have the traffic bottlekneck at Malahide Road and coming in to Clontarf but you would be back to where it was previously. The ancient trees that are so close to the bus and cycle lane are a ticking time bomb, only a matter of time before there's fatalities.

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118876092#Comment_118876092

Weren't those trees to be cut down until a bunch of green tree huggers protested and tied some ribbons around, and they got left in place. It's impossible to fart in Ireland without someone objecting.

If the removal of a tree is required in order to implement cycling infrastructure then surely the cycling benefit outweighs the loss of the tree.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118875833#Comment_118875833

So just the DART then?

Seth Brundle

Actually, Drumcondra station wouldn't be too far away either which is served by the Maynooth and Newbridge trains.

magicbastarder

Drumcondra station serves people heading west though, and would have very little impact on traffic in Fairview, I'd wager.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118875929#Comment_118875929

I remember many years ago frank McDonald wrote about a bank manager who approached him; he cycled to work but the bank decided to issue company cars to all managers so he had to take one. A few months later he was summonsed to a meeting and asked why his wife has been seen driving the car, so his obvious answer was it would be sitting in the driveway during the day anyway, so what harm? So they told him to dutch the cycling and drive to work, they had spent a lot of money getting the car for him.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118877100#Comment_118877100

True but it shows the available transport links which would help negate some of the "I have to drive across the city" excuses

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118875858#Comment_118875858

🤣🤣🤣🤣

If the arguments against the work in any way involve describing what is currently there as "grand" then they are not worth listening to.

Breezer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118875929#Comment_118875929

Many years ago when I was a trainee on work placement, I was told something similar. “Do you have a car?” was the first thing the new boss asked me. “Yes,” I said, “but I’m only down the road and was thinking I’d cycle in.” “No no, that won’t do at all. A colleague did that before and naturally people assumed he was an alcoholic who had lost his licence.”

These days I own my own business, and I cycle past that place twice a day. I still think of that conversation every time and have a good chuckle!

dublin49

was walking beside the cycle path along fairview today on the tree side and it mysteriously changes to walkin on it around the bridge,not sure where the change ocurred but I missed it.

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118880807#Comment_118880807

Yeah it switches from one side to the other at a random point. I never really understood why 🤣

Glaceon

It switches at the entrance to Fairview Park opposite Marino Mart. I think it's something to do with the bus stop up ahead.