Importing ideas on roads / signage etc.

ucdperson

ucdperson wrote:

Well Mayo county council have it on their website, although not on the road. Too lazy to use the Irish one I suppose.

Maybe they see the errors in using an odd sign!

spacetweek

Deleted User wrote:

That may be so, but they can be difficult to see in poor light and everyone knows what the international no entry sign looks like, in fact it's used in some carparks (eg. the square multi-storey,Tallaght) and numerous pedestrianised areas.

Agreed - the most important thing is recognisability, not logicality. The international No Entry is more commonly used, so we should use it - even though our sign is more logical.

Terrontress

Carawaystick wrote:

I think our No Entry sign is preferable. It's meaning is far more obvious than the international one. It's also consistent with no left turn, no right turn signs.

I don't think we should adopt the signs of foreign countries just to be the same as them. If they are demonstrably better than ours, then take them, but not just to be the same.

In France and Spain there's two types of motorways - Those with a car and the normal chopsticks kind.

I don't believe so. A friend of mine was driving through the one-way junction just on the north-side of the canal at Leeson Bridge to take a left turn.

I told him it was no entry but he said it meant you can't go straight ahead onto Adelaide Road but that it is fine to go left or right onto Leeson Street.

The no-left-turn sign implies you can turn right or travel straight. The no-right-turn sign vice versa.

The current Irish "no entry" sign implies that it is acceptable to turn left or right but not travel straight ahead.

murphaph

spacetweek wrote:

Agreed - the most important thing is recognisability, not logicality. The international No Entry is more commonly used, so we should use it - even though our sign is more logical.

Also used in every Lidl and Aldi in the land...

Victor

Terrontress wrote:

I don't believe so. A friend of mine was driving through the one-way junction just on the north-side of the canal at Leeson Bridge to take a left turn.

I told him it was no entry but he said it meant you can't go straight ahead onto Adelaide Road but that it is fine to go left or right onto Leeson Street.

The no-left-turn sign implies you can turn right or travel straight. The no-right-turn sign vice versa.

The current Irish "no entry" sign implies that it is acceptable to turn left or right but not travel straight ahead.

I'm not sure that I agree.

I always understood it to be to stop people from Wilton Terrace obstructing Leeson Street.

Terrontress

Regardless of that junction, can you take my point that the internationally recognised "No Entry" sign means do not pass this sign in any direction whereas the Irish version seems to imply that it is fine to make a left or right turn?

Zoney

Terrontress wrote:

Regardless of that junction, can you take my point that the internationally recognised "No Entry" sign means do not pass this sign in any direction whereas the Irish version seems to imply that it is fine to make a left or right turn?

The situation seldom arises as the no-entry sign is usually used on entrances, rather than before a junction.

Metrobest

My question is this - why is the signage on the M50 such a disgrace? The thing is being upgraded, yet it does not even seem to have the decent gantry signage that is standard fare along practically every motorway in Europe.

Barcelona´s ring roads are not classified as motorways, they are like urban expressways, but they have green gantry signs marking the approach to each exit very clearly and that is easy for the driver to make out.

Also, electronic overhead displays tell you how long it will take to reach certain exits; this is updated in real time so you know exactly how long your journey will take even in the rush hour. The M50 badly needs this technology.

Oddly, the only overhead signs on the M50 that I recall are for the Dun Laoghaire ferry port, on the approach to which there are several such signs. How those responsible for these signs expect tourists to reach this point in the first place is another matter.

Every time I exit Dublin airport I glare at the signs in despair. Chaos, lazy planning .. it is a neat synopsis of why transport in Dublin functions so badly. The signs are so bad they make Ireland look like an African country. There is simply no excuse for it. We do not have to be the poor relation of Europe anymore, yet it is a role we seem to still be playing. And that saddens me.

murphaph

It's because nobody wants to tread on anyone's toes and it sucks. People should have been fired en-masse for the mess we are in.

spacetweek

Metrobest wrote:

Every time I exit Dublin airport I glare at the signs in despair. Chaos, lazy planning .. it is a neat synopsis of why transport in Dublin functions so badly. The signs are so bad they make Ireland look like an African country. There is simply no excuse for it. We do not have to be the poor relation of Europe anymore, yet it is a role we seem to still be playing. And that saddens me.

A thoroughly ridiculous over-reaction.

murphaph

spacetweek wrote:

A thoroughly ridiculous over-reaction.

No it's not. Sure I felt the same way crossing the border last week Signage is diabolical. We are an intelligent bunch of people in the main. We deserve better than this sh!te.

murphaph

To see how a real country does it, see the new chapter 3 from the UK TSM. In the preamble you'll find this:

All traffic signs placed on a highway or on a
road to which the public have access (right of
passage in Scotland) must be either prescribed by
Regulations or authorised by the Secretary of State
for Transport (for installations in England), the
Department for Regional Development (Northern
Ireland), the Scottish Executive or the Welsh Assembly
Government as appropriate. Care should be taken to
ensure that signs are used only as prescribed in the
Regulations, and in accordance with any relevant
directions, and that no non-prescribed sign is used
unless it has been formally authorised in writing.
Failure to do so may leave an authority open to
litigation, or make a traffic regulation order
unenforceable.

Sadly, plenty of illegal and undefined signs are erected on irish roads every day. And people wonder why so many driving offences are let off on technicalities.

3MB pdf

RadioCity

A great phrase I saw in that document, referring to (too much) road signage

Visually intrusive

I think that's the order of the day in Ireland, isn't it? And that's not just signposts etc, but seemingly unregulated amount of advertising.

prendy

i was gonna start a new thread but decided to post here instead
RANT ALERT!!!
Driving around dublin last night i was infuriated by the positioning of traffic signs.
Do they intentially put them in the most awkward places....under bushes behind trees etc..
why dont they ensure the road signs are clearly viable???
one of the worst is headin westbound on the north keys near the IFSC...its completely hidden
its the same all over the country...i could go on!!!

Metrobest

spacetweek wrote:

A thoroughly ridiculous over-reaction.

Space, your attitude is one best summed up as "it´ll do" whereas I´m saying it´s not good enough for one of Europe´s richest countries to have signage that makes us look third world.

I may have been unfair to Africa by saying Ireland´s signage looks better than Africa´s. It´s probably worse. Indeed, I´ve visited many developing countries where the signage is superior to Ireland´s. Even Cuba has gantry signs on the junctions on its highways; Ireland doesn´t.

Here´s what the Spanish edition of the Lonely Planet to Ireland tells its readers about driving in the Republic. "You need a good map and a sense of humour for facing with the grave lack of signs when driving in the Republic. On the secondary roads there are a lot of potholes." That´s the sort of information you might expect to read about Romania or Honduras, but not about Ireland, a country that has experienced one of the world´s greatest-ever economic booms.

Ireland´s European rivals are improving their road and transport systems faster than Ireland, and that means Ireland is actually going backwards.

How are we ever going to get away from the image of Ireland as being some sort of Quiet Man-style backwater when international visitors have to suffer our dismal road signage and the politicians, planners and residents of Dublin sit there and say "it´ll do"?

Terrontress

Zoney wrote:

The situation seldom arises as the no-entry sign is usually used on entrances, rather than before a junction.

Seldom perhaps, but it does happen.

The signs are confusing and should be changed to the internationally recognised ones.

icdg

Metrobest wrote:

My question is this - why is the signage on the M50 such a disgrace? The thing is being upgraded, yet it does not even seem to have the decent gantry signage that is standard fare along practically every motorway in Europe.
Oddly, the only overhead signs on the M50 that I recall are for the Dun Laoghaire ferry port, on the approach to which there are several such signs. How those responsible for these signs expect tourists to reach this point in the first place is another matter.

Most junctions on the M50 will have gantries (and lots of them) once the upgrade is complete. Unfortunately when we have used gantries before they have tended to be very misleading (encouraging users to break the keep left rule and drive constantly in the overtaking lane). I'm not sure one TSM-correct gantry has ever been erected on an Irish motorway.

As to why they weren't there when the M50 was constructed, they would have been deemed overkill in 1990 on a then lightly-trafficked motorway at a time that there was only a handful of them in the country at all. Only J3 had gantries at opening in 1996.

Anyway, gantries are IMO overkill at most junctions on D2Ms. Where you really need them is on D3 or wider roads.

spacetweek

Metrobest wrote:

Space, your attitude is one best summed up as "it´ll do" whereas I´m saying it´s not good enough for one of Europe´s richest countries to have signage that makes us look third world.

To be clear, I don't think it'll "do" at all - I'm also annoyed by obscured signs, missing signs, and misleading signs.

The part that was an over reaction was saying our signage is third-world. It's messy, but only average at worst. For example, Spain's is much more messy than ours, due to frequent overhauls where they don't remove all the old signs, and the increasing tendancy towards regional government and its associated pointless road renumbering.

Also, albeit unevenly, I think I can see signs of progress (no pun). I went to Waterford county recently and never got lost once, even on back roads. Whether N or R, I found signage to be easy to follow and pretty clear - and I wasn't using a map. Surely this small part of the country can't be an exception?

Metrobest wrote:

Even Cuba has gantry signs on the junctions on its highways; Ireland doesn´t.

Eh? You mean apart from all the gantries we have on the N7, M50, N2 Ashbourne etc.? Yes these are not perfect, but the NRA seems to be slowly replacing them with better versions (e.g. here.)

Victor

On the N11 at Mount Merrion, are versions of the sign attached. It is a borrowed UK sign with no legal standing in Ireland. Except the cyclists are expected to cycle on the right and pedestrian on the left. The sign is the wrong way around.

Bazzy

In the uk recently i noticed they have "HUMP" instead of ramp much better IMHO

Zoney

Victor - The Limerick councils use that cyclist/pedestrian sign here too. They also have used the mandatory "cycle lane" (i.e. cyclists only) sign not just for the start of a cycle lane (or end with a plate underneath), but to warn motorists of cyclists merging into traffic. That should be a yellow diamond warning sign with the bicycle instead (presumably with an arrow plate below denoting the direction cyclists are merging from?)

steve-o

Victor wrote:

The sign is the wrong way around.

The signs on Stillorgan Park are the same and contradict the markings on the ground (bikes to the right). Regardless of whether they are legal or not, it's just plain stupid having conflicting signs/markings. My suspicion was that someone ordered the wrong signs and they used them anyway.

Metrobest

spacetweek wrote:

To be clear, I don't think it'll "do" at all - I'm also annoyed by obscured signs, missing signs, and misleading signs.

The part that was an over reaction was saying our signage is third-world. It's messy, but only average at worst. For example, Spain's is much more messy than ours, due to frequent overhauls where they don't remove all the old signs, and the increasing tendancy towards regional government and its associated pointless road renumbering.

Also, albeit unevenly, I think I can see signs of progress (no pun). I went to Waterford county recently and never got lost once, even on back roads. Whether N or R, I found signage to be easy to follow and pretty clear - and I wasn't using a map. Surely this small part of the country can't be an exception?



Eh? You mean apart from all the gantries we have on the N7, M50, N2 Ashbourne etc.? Yes these are not perfect, but the NRA seems to be slowly replacing them with better versions (e.g. here.)

I think you'll find that in the the rich regions of Spain, such as Catalonia, signage is simply stupendous. Even the tiniest village is signposted with amazing clarity, road surfaces are impeccable and junctions are a breeze to navigate.

What I will do in the next while is take pictures of the signs on Barcelona's ring roads and I'll challenge you to tell me that Ireland shouldn't have these signs on its 2 lane duallers, too!

Strokesfan

I agree with a lot of people that mentioned the US/ Canadian system of putting the street names on display at every junction (where possible) - I'm a bad driver at the best of times but I'm in LA at the moment and it's a pleasure getting around...

I suppose it's not really practical with our little twisty turning streets... such a shame that we can't redesign half of all Irish towns

Victor

Bazzy wrote:

In the uk recently i noticed they have "HUMP" instead of ramp much better IMHO

From flikr. It had the flikrati giggling.