30kph coming to Dublin road near you? (note warning in post #254)

MJohnston · 17-09-2020 10:08am

Here's an example:

There was a plan for Merrion Gates, to grade separate the road crossing with a flyover, and provide an excellent pedestrian and cycling underpass.

It would have: drastically improved traffic in the area with a requisite hugely positive effect on buses; allowed the DART to operate at increased speeds and perhaps eventually improved frequencies (if all other level crossings were removed); made this horrible junction much safer for people walking and cycling.

But it was abandoned because all of these objectively incredibly positive changes for thousands of people daily were outweighed by the voices of a few local, vocal residents during the public consultation.

Duckjob · 17-09-2020 10:21am

MJohnston wrote: »

Here's an example:

There was a plan for Merrion Gates, to grade separate the road crossing with a flyover, and provide an excellent pedestrian and cycling underpass.

It would have: drastically improved traffic in the area with a requisite hugely positive effect on buses; allowed the DART to operate at increased speeds and perhaps eventually improved frequencies (if all other level crossings were removed); made this horrible junction much safer for people walking and cycling.

But it was abandoned because all of these objectively incredibly positive changes for thousands of people daily were outweighed by the voices of a few local, vocal residents during the public consultation.

I don't think its been abandoned (at least not yet) I think it was delayed so they can gather more data before deciding how to proceed, but otherwise I agree with your point - far too much attention given to a vocal minority. Similiar happened in Malahide.

MJohnston · 17-09-2020 10:31am

Duckjob wrote: »

I don't think its been abandoned (at least not yet) I think it was delayed so they can gather more data before deciding how to proceed, but otherwise I agree with your point - far too much attention given to a vocal minority. Similiar happened in Malahide.

The 30kph change hasn't been abandoned, no, what happened is that a FF councillor made an amendment to adjust some arterial routes to 40kph, but by the rules of whatever, the amendment passed, and that meant the whole thing had to go back to public consultation again.

The councillor claims that they believed the 40kph amendment was the only way the thing would get passed, but that just raises a whole bunch of questions considering how the "Dublin Agreement" had the 30kph changes at its core.

Can't stop politicians from chasing votes instead of making progress, I suppose.

liamog · 17-09-2020 4:00pm

MJohnston wrote: »

The 30kph change hasn't been abandoned, no, what happened is that a FF councillor made an amendment to adjust some arterial routes to 40kph, but by the rules of whatever, the amendment passed, and that meant the whole thing had to go back to public consultation again.

The councillor claims that they believed the 40kph amendment was the only way the thing would get passed, but that just raises a whole bunch of questions considering how the "Dublin Agreement" had the 30kph changes at its core.

Can't stop politicians from chasing votes instead of making progress, I suppose.

I think it's a logical change, most of the 30km/h changes were completely sensible, some of the arterial roads are clearly not designed to handle 30km/h traffic, and as such any change was premature.

MJohnston · 17-09-2020 4:05pm

I don't know about that, to me that just sounds like the same "chicken and egg" situation we have with reducing car access to the city centre to facilitate public transport.

I definitely agree that speed limit changes won't be effective without design changes to the relevant roads, but at the same time I'm not sure it's worth delaying the whole thing when we could lower the limits now and make the design changes as a follow-up.

CatInABox · 17-09-2020 9:28pm

MJohnston wrote: »

The 30kph change hasn't been abandoned, no, what happened is that a FF councillor made an amendment to adjust some arterial routes to 40kph, but by the rules of whatever, the amendment passed, and that meant the whole thing had to go back to public consultation again.

The councillor claims that they believed the 40kph amendment was the only way the thing would get passed, but that just raises a whole bunch of questions considering how the "Dublin Agreement" had the 30kph changes at its core.

Can't stop politicians from chasing votes instead of making progress, I suppose.

Minor correction, it was a FG councillor that proposed the amendment, and as he points out, the Dublin Agreement crowd mostly voted for it, so it was a cross party failure

MJohnston · 23-09-2020 5:12pm

So many little towns around Ireland ruined by that kind of layout. Just conduits for cars.

Thelonious Monk · 23-09-2020 5:20pm

MJohnston wrote: »

So many little towns around Ireland ruined by that kind of layout. Just conduits for cars.

It looks like every other horrible car park of an Irish town

magicbastarder · 23-09-2020 5:36pm

on that note:

https://twitter.com/DublinCommuters/status/1308707024012746752

liamog · 23-09-2020 11:23pm

magicbastarder wrote: »

on that note:

https://twitter.com/DublinCommuters/status/1308707024012746752

I much prefer the system they use in other European cities, I remember being in Torremolinos a few years back, there was a major construction project to install underground car parks that were built below the roadway, they would then remove surface lanes and improve the streetscape.

I remember seeing something similar in The Netherlands, surface streets within communities were designed as low traffic routes which kept traffic speeds naturally lower, vehicle traffic and storage were hidden underground. That map of Finglas reminds me of Belfast where they used to replace damaged buildings with surface car parks.

monument · 24-09-2020 2:25pm

MJohnston wrote: »

Is this seriously acceptable to the mods? What's going on? Can we get a mod message to let us know if we should stop reporting these posts?

Mods have work and life, this is voluntary and often has to wait. I understand your frustration but please do not discuss moderation in-thread in the future.

— moderator

monument · 24-09-2020 2:47pm

The standard of posting needs to improve on both sides — trolling isn’t allowed, everybody needs to stop focusing on what modes of transport other users use and instead focus on the points being made, and one or two word answers are rarely acceptable.

Infractions applied, and thread cleaned up (sorry for any unrelated tweets which were deleted).

— moderator

monument · 27-09-2020 1:15pm

WARNING: Thread topic is 30km/h in Dublin -- if there's nothing about speed or designing for slower speed in your post, then do not post it here.

-- moderator

liamog · 28-09-2020 12:28am

I'm in the midst of battle with the management company in my estate. One side of a road is managed by a different management company, they've recently implemented permit parking, within marked bays only.
This has had a negative effect on the speed of cars passing through the estate, there is a nominal 30km/h speed limit, but there is never going to be enforcement.

The road is approx 5.5m wide (measure tool on google maps) previously much of it's length was reduced by half due to parked vehicles, now the cars have gone, some people are using excessive speeds.
This is exactly the type of scenario that I provided during the feedback on the DCC moves. Limits without redesign are not workable, if DCC wish to reduce speeds on the arterial routes, they need to tighten road space otherwise it will just result in ignoring the speed limit.

CatInABox · 01-10-2020 10:22am

liamog wrote: »

I'm in the midst of battle with the management company in my estate. One side of a road is managed by a different management company, they've recently implemented permit parking, within marked bays only.
This has had a negative effect on the speed of cars passing through the estate, there is a nominal 30km/h speed limit, but there is never going to be enforcement.

The road is approx 5.5m wide (measure tool on google maps) previously much of it's length was reduced by half due to parked vehicles, now the cars have gone, some people are using excessive speeds.
This is exactly the type of scenario that I provided during the feedback on the DCC moves. Limits without redesign are not workable, if DCC wish to reduce speeds on the arterial routes, they need to tighten road space otherwise it will just result in ignoring the speed limit.

It's a bit of a chicken/egg scenario, isn't it? I believe that introducing a 30km limit will make it easier to actually push through a road diet, as they can then say "Well, the limit here is 30km, but the road encourages excessive speeding, so let's redesign the road."

MJohnston · 01-10-2020 10:28am

CatInABox wrote: »

It's a bit of a chicken/egg scenario, isn't it? I believe that introducing a 30km limit will make it easier to actually push through a road diet, as they can then say "Well, the limit here is 30km, but the road encourages excessive speeding, so let's redesign the road."

Yeah, you have to do one of those things first, and ultimately it doesn't really break anything to do the speed limit changes first. If you have to wait for road designs to be corrected everywhere, that'll essentially never happen.

liamog · 01-10-2020 10:43am

I don't know, I think if you change the limit without changing the design, you end up with non compliance along with our typical lack of enforcement. Long term this just makes any limits ignorable.
They don't even need to go full tilt on a design. Redoing the paint and installing wooden planters is enough to change the streetscape enough to reduce traffic speeds.

The protected cycleways are a good example where the carriageway is reduced significantly and can be delivered quickly.

30kph coming to Dublin road near you? (note warning in post #254)

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