Cycle infrastructure planned for south Dublin

I'll have to disagree with you, this is good design. Its not perfect though, there are issues, but I think its good for the following reasons

• The junctions are sharp as you mention, in order to slow down turning traffic i.e. it nearly has to come to a stop to turn
• The raised junctions keep pedestrian/cyclists at the same level and instead the car is "entering" the ped/cyc area.
• The surface change reinforces this by being deliberately closer in colour and material to the ped/cyc infrastructure than the road i.e. the car is crossing a footpath, not the ped/cyc crossing a road (if that makes sense, its a psychological thing I've seen explained somewhere)
• The change in surface level behind the bus stop is a good accessibility improvement

Unless I'm missing something, the bike lane doesn't appear to be protected on where it joins the road, am I right or is it on a raised surface or with a kerb perhaps, hard to see for sure.

Now, to your point about blockages, ideally there should be space just ahead of the bike lane for a single car length, then the bike lane should be clear, then the next car. It doesn't look like there is even room for a single car ahead of the bike lane, as in one car waiting at the junction would still be infringing on the bike lane, thats not ideal at all if thats the case

I didn't mention the junctions being sharp, I said where the cycle lane curves around obstacles is sharp (look at before the bus shelter in pic 1, and the pole in the distance in pic 4)!

I only see it as a very slight improvement on this ~20 year old design

Upside is, cyclists get priority (finally)!

Except the priority isn't obvious due to a lack of road markings and signposts, which makes conflict even likelier imho.

Also no, in none of the junctions is there enough space for a single car to sit ahead of the cycle lane. Even on a weekday-evening cycle last week I had to stop once on the cycle lane eastbound due to a car blocking me.

It is very aesthetically pleasing though.

Don't we sometimes use triangles (wrongly, internationally they're meant to be inverted to match direction of lane travel but we don't bother) to indicate priority at those sorts of raised crossings? e.g.

I know i've come across somewhere recently that had full on stop lines + STOP written on the road leading to the raised cycle path too, but I'm struggling to remember exactly where.

All my accidents and most of my near misses have been at junctions with minor roads, usually with someone turning into one while I have right of way - so a junction that has no signage, no road markings, and relies on a tan pavement to indicate that cyclists have right of way gives me the heebies jeebies tbh

Actually, the main road is curved into the junction, it's just disguised by the choice of surface material. You can even see the curve in the picture by looking at the stains left by vehicle tyres as they drive in and out. From the plan:

Both dutch and danish designs use bright colouring at junctions to indicate priority of cycle lanes: blue in danish, red in dutch. Using a neutral colour+different material for the rest of the junction is only part of the design, the other part is a) road markings & b) brightly coloured cycle lane. My experience with dutch and danish junctions is that both use a mixture of signs & road markings, the former indicating that it's a cycle track (i.e. blue circular bicycle sign) and the latter giving clear visual indication as to who has priority.

NSW design manual:

NACTO:

Ontario design manual:

Scotland:

& England&Wales (note the much sharper turn in than on the kilmacud road entrance)

So the summary is: it's apparently the best we have, but it's no better than something 20+ years old (and arguably worse in several ways) and doesn't seem to follow any modern design guidelines from elsewhere in the world.

Annoyingly, it wouldn't have cost much more to design the junction to a better standard, it just seems like no-one really cared about doing it right. One only need to look at Temple Hill or Newtown Avenue to see a few examples of a better treatment of cycle lane/junction infrastructure in DLRCC but in the absence of an updated national cycle manual (which was meant to have been ready by 2021, but seems to have been lost in the abyss).

Considering it likely costs the same, and considering that there is no shortage of guidance on doing it right, why do we happily accept long-term infrastructure that does it badly?

(also, when looking at the Copenhagen design manual, it suggested curves in cycle tracks should allow a design speed of 30km/h - the curve leading into and out of that junction is to facilitate the planting of some new trees - trees that will also reduce the visibility at the junction....)

>Thirteen of the 21 bus stops along the route would be made into island bus stops, meaning the cycle lane will run behind the bus stop.

This jumped out, hopefully they design them better than some of the island bus stops that are more like a chicane with very little sight behind/beyond!

It'll be tough designing the junctions, would love to see detailed plans. It's a narrow enough road and pretty unpleasant to cycle through currently.