Dun Laoghaire Traffic & Commuting Chat

Where did I mention a cycle lane?

I said the junction radii have been tightened. Its not for cycle lanes, its for f**king tables and chairs and poxy planter beds, in the middle of a main road, such that the bloody public transport can no longer negotiate it safely.

Why don't you ring up Aircoach or Dublin Bus and ask them to speak to their drivers about how they drive. Better yet, go in person.

Here's the Council's own dwg of the design / vandalism.

Jesus you're as deliberately obtuse as Renko.

Enjoy your failing city, you deserve it.

If that's your best example maybe you could tone down the hyperbole. As others have pointed out it has nothing to do with any active travel scheme.

I highly recommend use of the ignore feature!

Don't mention the war. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it.

Living Streets ?

More like dying streets.

If you need it explaining to you like a child, Ted, fine.

I posted a screenshot. It was a screenshot from a popular local community Facebook group.

The person who made the post was demonstrating the congestion and delays caused specifically to buses and longer commercial vehicles by the current works at York Road / Clarence St junction. Works that are part of the so-called Living Streets scheme.

The facebook poster claimed, mistakenly, that the works are to do with the installation of cycle lanes at that location. The works are NOT to do with cycle lanes, they are for footpath widening, junction tightening and the installation of planted verges and other street furniture, as per the Council's drawing I posted.

Why the poster was mistaken about it being for cycle lanes, I do not know. Perhaps they aren't as knowledgeable as you or me or others here about what is happening locally, but as I don't know them, have not spoken to them, and am not psychic, that must remain forever a mystery.

However, the substantive point, from which you are doing your best to deflect, for what I can only assume are zealous ideological reason, is that there ARE works at that location, they ARE the cause of the roadway and junction being tightened, and that IS, in turn, the cause of buses and long vehicles having difficulty negotiating this main route and important junction.

Now, you can stick your head in the sand as much as you want, Ted, as to the local and regional social and economic damage these various schemes are doing, but when you do eventually emerge and squint in the sunlight at the dereliction and decay, do not say you weren't warned.

As I say, the social fabric of this city is coming apart, not only for this reason, but this idealogy from our unelected officials is chief among them. And you deserve it.

As for me, I'll have sold my house, taken the profit, and be living comfortably on the copper coast of Waterford coast by 2030. I can only shrug and say I tried.

you are been called out for propagating a false narrative.
you keep referring tithe poster making a mistaken and being wrong. Yet you reposted this, why would you repost it , known it to be false ?

Everybody i talk to is complaining about traffic. As you said its going to get worse and I have been saying the same to people. It all comes down to poor planning and investment. There about 10 years behind re the metro. Public transport is at capacity. The congestion on roads is getting worse and worse. They have been putting sticking plasters on all transport for years. Extending luas lines and adding an extra lane to the M50 etc.

There’s no doubt that the changes in Bakers and Deansgrange has made the congestion far worse for cars. But it’s also much worse for the buses so there’s no alternative for people and this is before they do it all over again on other roads and junctions.

We can all agree that significant investments should have been into improving public transport capacity years ago but that’s not a reason to actually reduce what capacity they have.

The fact that you can’t increase capacity and throughput at Bakers Corner doesn’t mean that it makes sense to reduce the capacity. Congestion was bad but it’s a lot worse now following the works and in addition it’s worse during off peak times as well.

The sort of changes that the council are making to the roads only make sense if significant investments had been made into increasing the capacity and speed of public transport options either there or in the local area. This hasn’t happened and shows no likelihood of happening in the next few years.

Watch any E2 bus coming up to Bakers from Dun Laoire or heading down to Deansgrange Crossroads. 30 or 40 people on the bus which is sitting behind a long line of cars with mostly one person in them. As long as we treat buses with the same priority as regular traffic then public transport will never improve. You could have a bus every 5 minutes but it will still be sitting in traffic for long periods of its journey. There is going to be no alternative to buses in lots of these outlying suburbs. No Dart, Metrolink, or Luas for the vast majority of Dublin city and county. On the particular stretch in question from Dun Laoire to the N11 there is very little scope for any bus priority measures. So we either accept the status quo or we somehow encourage more people onto public transport, active travel or to simply reduce unnecessary trips.

changing the light sequence at Bakers/Deansgrange may marginally improve things for motorists but will penalise pedestrians who will face longer wait times to cross…

I'm not disagreeing with you on the buses and I have used them regularly and along the way Kill Avenue/Kill Lane portion as well. (In the last year, however, I have moved to taking the DART as the bus service has become too unreliable in terms of when or if you might actually get on a bus at peak times but that's a separate issue).

I'm all in favour of dedicating road space to buses in order to help them go faster or provide a more reliable service but I haven't seen that actually happening across DL at all. Instead the narrowing of the junctions, which is is happening in a lot of places apart from Bakers, is slowing everyone down including the buses. To me this isn't around altering the light sequence after you've made the changes to the junction - it's whether the junction should have been reduced in the first place and whether this making the overall commuting experience better or worse? I'd suggest the latter and I say that from someone who relies on public transport to get in and out of the city centre every day.