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Why don't some cyclists use cycle lanes?

Smiley012

Hi all,

I am an avid cyclist myself, I try to cycle out on the roads as much as possible, but I get terrified as I have had so many near misses. A thing that does bring my joy are dedicated cycle lanes - they bring me off the road and make me feel super safe, especially along Wickham by Dundrum, Sandyford, down along Marley, by Tallaght, Dun Laoghaire etc etc etc.

What I don't understand is other cyclists who cycle IN traffic, despite there being a great cycle lane next to them.

I don't want to be provoking or start any heated discussions, I'm just not sure. I have literally cycled alongside people, ahead of people who are cycling in the road. Is there a reason I don't comprehend for people not cycling on lanes? Is it faster to be on the road?

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Macy0161

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117701477#Comment_117701477

Chance would be a fine thing in most urban areas (including rural villages) with all the hover* cars parked on them!

*I assume hover cars, because anything else means the person driving was driving the car on the footpath.

murphyebass

Ever try do 30kph on a cycle Lane full of people and random objects? Not to mention when they stop randomly all of a sudden.

bottom line is it’s safer on the road

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117701428#Comment_117701428

Sure, but you can't turn the M50 from three lanes to six just by painting a few lines.

magicbastarder

reading that post again, i am wondering was TaurenDruid deliberately trying to undermine their own point?

Breezer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117704697#Comment_117704697

Don’t be silly. Of course you can. If you paint a new lane within an existing lane, the cars and trucks will magically shrink to fit in the new one.

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117705457#Comment_117705457

Should probably throw a few cycle lanes on the M50 while you're at it.

irishgrover

There is a new combined cycle lane/footpath between Ballinderreen and Kinvara in Galway (part of a road upgrade that probably cost 10s of millions). The new bike lane is probably in the region of 8km in length. If cycling on the road you get on the road and just cycle, and have zero stop signs, yield signs etc.

If you get on the bike lane beside the road you have to yield to every minor road entering the main road. In addition the cycle lane is only on one side of the road and switches sides twice, meaning you have to stop and then cycle across a busy road.

In addition there are, in the space of 8 or so km, 14 different chicanes consisting of 28 wooden barriers, perpendicular to the cycle path, forcing the cyclist to slow down to a crawl, on average, every 280 meters.

If the bike stays on the road, it has zero stops or obstacles.

This is the pinnacle of Irish bike lane design, it’s so new that it’s not even fully open yet. This is as good as it gets. The only people who will use it are young children on tricycles who are going to walk the dog with their parents.

whisky_galore

In a nutshell: overall poor design and envisaged for use by all cyclists; racers/commuters/day trippers/children which clearly cannot all co-exist on the one lane without trouble.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117701146#Comment_117701146

Tells everyone to cycle on the footpath, then gives out in the same breath about cyclists on the footpath.

I've cycled that route every day practically for about 15 years. I've only ever used that lane on the path maybe once a year on average, when the traffic was at a standstill and there were too many buses/trucks already waiting for the lights or, more often than not, when the prick who is doing deliveries to the shop is too lazy to walk across the road so parks illegally in the bus lane and sticks the hazards on.

The "cycle lane" in question is almost always not worth it because of a number of factors....cars parked on the path blocking the way, cars exiting the car-park beside the shop blocking the way, crowds of people already spread out over the path and lane, queues for the dole in the post office taking up the path as they sit on the wall outside, plenty of glass and other crap on the ground because everything gets swept towards the wall......and so on. That's before we even get into the poor design of the lane, the fact that it disappears for about 15 feet inside the first 30 or so feet that it exists, it dumps you out into the middle of traffic with no room to join (much easier to stay on the road and force others to overtake correctly than to try find a gap where you won't be killed), the fact that you have to stop to do this, holding up everyone else behind you.

The lane isn't fit for purpose and anyone who cycles that way more than a handful of times would realise this.

DavyD_83

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117699362#Comment_117699362

Somewhere there is a council worker who sees that as the pinnacle of his work.

"You wouldn't believe how difficult it was to slot in the cycle lane between all those roads and actually make it work"

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117706031#Comment_117706031

Maybe it counts as 20 or 30 cycle paths in total!

Excellent work by Galway Co Co!!!

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117705682#Comment_117705682

Any photos of that abomination in Kinvara? I couldn't find anything online.

For me, it is very much a case by case decision. When heading from Kilmacud to Goatstown, the first two stretches of bike lane along Drummartin Link Road are fine, and I use them all the time, unless I'm turning right onto Lr Kilmacud Road.

The next section on Drummartin Road, heading towards The Goat is awful, bringing cyclists into conflict with vehicles exiting Eden Park at an acute angle, who aren't expecting to find cyclists on 'the path'. So I stay on the road, and about once a week I get beeped or pointed towards the cycle lane. When I catch up to them at the lights at the Goat, we sometimes get to have a little explanatory chat, which helps to bring them up to speed.

TaurenDruid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117705457#Comment_117705457

Ah, for the old days, when you could multiquote...

What you're suggesting happens all over the place - e.g., Amiens Street inbound. Two unequivocal lanes before the railway bridge at Connolly, mumble-something lanes under the bridge itself, two lanes again immediately after the bridge. Magic!

@irishgrover Again, why isn't there a cyclist's lobby group loudly going "Oi! Council! This is stupid!" And saying the same to the RSA and/or NTA, and getting a national minimum standard introduced?

@[Deleted User] I most certainly did not tell anyone to cycle on a footpath, ever. Don't put words in my mouth.

@AndrewJRenko Top speed for most of the M50 is 100km/h, so yep, no real problem with your suggestion - there are plenty of national roads with a 100km/h speed limit with nothing but a dashed line of paint separating one direction of travel from the other.

@Seth Brundle Yes, there are crashes on the M50. At 145,000 vehicles/day (2019 figure) and, say, 5 crashes (cos we're all hugely pessimistic) with 3 cars in each crash, that's one hundredth of one percent of all vehicles. They're pretty good odds!

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117707010#Comment_117707010

They tried it in the early days of the M50, with no central barriers. It didn't work out well.

cletus

Just to keep all figures straight, there was an average of just over 11 crashes a day 2019-2020 on the M50.

Doesn't hugely change the percentages you're talking about, but we might as well deal with the real numbers

[Deleted User]

The "cycle path behind the wall" you mentioned in the post I quoted that you're telling people to use IS a footpath. So yes, you are.

TaurenDruid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117707080#Comment_117707080

It's not a footpath, it's a cycle path. So no, I'm not.

Breezer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117707010#Comment_117707010

And for the days when you could quote part of a post.

@The bit directed at me: Yes, it does. And it’s silly and dangerous!

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117707114#Comment_117707114

It isn't. It's a footpath that has been 'upgraded' with a strip of paint on it.

Wildly Boaring

When cars hit cars at speed travelling in the same direction it is rarely fatal. Particularly on multilane.

When cars hit cars at speed travelling in opposite directions it is often fatal and generally injuries occur.

When cars at speed hit pedestrians or cyclists in any direction it is often fatal and generally injuries occur.

Hence the wall on the m50, footpaths in general, and in ideal world proper segregated bike lanes.

Also to the earlier point about m50 not needing a wall, our multilane highspeed roads originally had a grass median planted with hedges for light screening. After several terrible fatalities the walls were set as a minimum standard unless you have a massive clear zone and include a w2 safety barrier (eg small section of m8 at Cahir, some stretches of m7)

standardg60

There seems to be an attitude that cyclists somehow belong with pedestrians.

Until someone realises that they are actually part of traffic and deserving of the same overtaking rules i will continue to stay on the road and assert my right to do so. I will only be safer on the road when drivers are educated as much.

TaurenDruid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117707203#Comment_117707203

Sure, whatevs. It's got pictures of bikes on it, and pedestrians aren't supposed to walk on it. You can call it a footpath if you want to, I guess. I don't really give a ****. I didn't tell people to cycle on a footpath. Don't try to tell me I did.

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117707464#Comment_117707464

Do you actually cycle?

Non cyclists seem to think that it's fine to yield at every junction like pedestrians do, you don't lose any momentum or energy when walking. It's crazy to associate the two, which seems to be the general attitude.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117707464#Comment_117707464

if you believe 'paint=infrastructure' you can conjure up any logical conundrum you want.

you could even paint a motorway on that section (as someone, dunno who, claimed motorways are largely created via paint) and that'd allow 120k vehicles per day to use it.

TaurenDruid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117707547#Comment_117707547

Personally, no, not in years, but looking to start again soon. Having to yield at every junction is crazy, but then I never advocated that, anywhere. Yielding at red lights, now - well, that's mandatory, even if there is a loss of momentum. Whether your momentum is pedal power, electric motor, ICE, or your feet.

@magicbastarder now don't you go putting words in my mouth, too! What I said is right there in black and white:

the lanes on the M50 only exist as lanes because someone painted those lanes on [emphasis added]

which is entirely different to what you're claiming I said. Case in point, the part of the M50 where they've removed the lanes to do realignment, or whatever it is they're doing the last few weeks.

Macy0161

I'm old enough to remember the retro fit replacement of the hedges with the wire/ concrete/ barriers on the middle of our motorways and dual carriageways!

Just on the ceding priority, it's particularly annoying as the same local authority can move the stop/ yield to before the cycle lane in some spots, but not others. Even on the same road! DLR have done it on most of the N11 iirc, yet other routes are a complete clusterf*ck.

Suvarnabhumi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117685591#Comment_117685591

I do a commute from Dundrum to Tallaght every day. I keep getting punctures at the M50/N81 over pass. Got 3 last week, so bought a new tire. Got another one this morning. So frustrating, there's fresh glass there every morning.

The stretch between Templeogue Village and the beginning of the duel carriageway is too narrow for the cycle lane and bike lane. If I'm in the cycle lane leaving the village and there's cars coming towards me, there isn't enough room for cars behind me to get past, so I've had many an angry driver try and squeeze past me. In the other direction going towards the village, I'm in a race to get ahead of the traffic before the road narrows, so I can take a position in the cycle lane where cars can't squeeze past me, but they still try.

I could go on about the rest of my commute, but most of the problems have already been covered in the thread.

I'd love to have safe cycle lanes to use, but we just don't have them.

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058201598/why-dont-some-cyclists-use-cycle-lanes

The answer to your question is have a look at the Sutton/Clontarf cycle lane.

You yourself have used the description "great cycle lane"......you said "despite there being a great cycle lane beside them" or words to that effect.

IMHO, if you take northside and city centre there is pretty much just one good (great?) cycle lane, and thats the one on the coastline in Sutton/ Clontarf.

If you go out there you will not see any cyclists on the road, or maybe you will see 1 in 500. Pretty much all the cyclists there use your bike lane.

So in short, for me your premise that cyclists use the road despite there being a great bike lane beside them doesnt stand up at all.

There are of course many many mediocre bike lanes, and yes cyclists frequently prefer to use the road. Frequently the reason for this is that - even where there are wands - road works often take place at the edge of the road and bike lane surfaces can be really bad.

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117685791#Comment_117685791

thats actually a very good point, it does look good from a distance quite a lot of the time.

Effects

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117709319#Comment_117709319

There are a lot of people in the Clontarf area who actually think more cyclists should be using the road, and not the Sutton/Clontarf cycle lane.

They also want a 15 km/hr limit put on it.