Meeting with the Green Party - your suggestions

Traumadoc

Legally force trucks driving through any urban area to have "blind spot" mirrors.

flickerx

Yes - nationally, abolish all VAT on bikes. Straight away. Now now now. Income tax breaks too or something like that.

Locally - put some bike locks in O'Connell Street. Ever since they "improved" the street there's been a dearth of places to leave your bike there.

End result is that people lock their bikes to trees (damaging them) and lamp posts (aesthetically miserable).

Either of these two would make me happy, I dont expect the Greens to do much though, considering Tara/M3, Shannon, and all the other things they rolled over on.

DavyD_83

unionman wrote: »

The downside of this is that cyclists are seen collectively as an audience who have already taken the decision to use an alternative, and the political animal will naturally conclude that there is little point in entertaining the views of the converts, because they will cycle anyway.

:pCrazy idea: We should have a bike free day/week. Where everybody who normally cycles drives to work (and any other journeys they'd usually use the bike for) instead. Hopefully the ensuing traffic chaos, will convince the powers that be that it's in their interest to keep cyclists happy and on our bikes:cool:.

Bonus prizes for any cyclist who goes above and beyond to cause blockages and mayhem while in their cars*

It'd probably never work but i reckon it would create some interesting (and ridiculous) debate. No such thing as bad publicity etc...:rolleyes:


*without causing physical damage or injury:pac:

DurtyMurty

Can I add hard shoulder to the cycle lanes point

We don't have much cycle lane in the country - only hard shoulder if you're lucky. On one national road that I cycle on, parts of the hard shoulder have been "rezoned" as traffic lane so that a hatched area could be provided in the centre of the road to protect traffic turning right onto side roads. Surely a worthy cause but this shouldn't be at the expense of cyclists who have to compete with >100kmh traffic at the point where the hard shoulder runs out.

I would really focus on the cycle lane point. While the "ride to work" scheme is a good idea, most of us can afford to buy some sort of bike, ie lack of a scheme is not going to stop us cycling. However, lack of cycle lane could - FOREVER!

Totally agree with all the rest - education, advertising , lighting, safety etc

neilled

May I suggest that Cllr (Lab) Andrew Montague has been rather useful in the past - it was he who provided me with the list of carparks in the city centre that have rack provision. I believe he's involved in the city councils cycling forum and it might be worth directing him to this thread. Actually, I'll email him now!

Persius

I know it's not feasible to put bicycles on the Luas, and probably not on the Dart (except maybe night and or weekend). But it should be easy and cheap to put a bicycle on mainline intercity trains. A lot of the new trains have no place for a bicycle - a retrograde step compared to the older trains with a guards van which had plenty of room.

This would encourage rural cycle tourism for both us natives and foreigners who might come here on holiday. And surely would have a beneficial effect on the health of people who might be tempted by this.

Chips Lovell

Persius wrote: »

I know it's not feasible to put bicycles on the Luas, and probably not on the Dart....

Easy if you take the seats out of one carriage and make it standing room only and allow you to wheel your bike on.

Hermy

Traumadoc wrote: »

Legally force trucks driving through any urban area to have "blind spot" mirrors.

It's just as important for all other road users to be aware of those blind spots!

studiorat

el tonto wrote: »

Easy if you take the seats out of one carriage and make it standing room only and allow you to wheel your bike on.

Taking 4 seats out would be enough. Anyone who has been to Berlin for example would see how well it works.

michaelm

Wow - I wasn't expecting such a response. Here's what i suggest we do now (note the "we"). I think we could now begin to organise these threads into particular categories. Maybe one person for example could volunteer to take all those postings relating to public transport, someone else to do cycling to work, another might take driver/cyclist education and write them in proposal form. When these are ready we could create a new thread called Draft proposal - when this is complete it could be printed and delivered to the relevant authorities.

What do you all think?

Bicyclegadabout

This requires a wiki....

Chips Lovell

If state and local government officials are serious about cycling policy, they'd be checking out this forum.

el tonto

el tonto wrote: »

If state and local government officials are serious about cycling policy, they'd be checking out this forum.

That's a massive assumption to make. Besides, there's nothing wrong with formalising opinions.

I'm really interested in suggestion for the BS or IS for cycle lanes, might look into it.

Sean02

Firstly getting involved with the Green Party regarding cycling issues in my opinion is probaly a waste of time and efford. Recently I wrote to Minister Gormley suggesting a number of possible ideas, particuarly the inititive taken by Ken Livinston to try and reduce the number of deaths and injuries involving cyclist caused by HGV's turning left. I also raised the issue of a designated cycle / walking path along the Royal and Grand Canals. I mentioned that I had previously written to Minister Dempsey who did'nt see fit to even reply other than a standard fob off by his secretary. Ministers Gormleys reply " I will pass on your comments to Minister Dempsey." Its a joke.

Gavin

I'm interested in researching the bike to work schemes, tax breaks, etc best practices in other countries.

It should be quite doable to create several well researched documents outlining our position. The most important thing, fromy my point of view, is to make the documents highly readable. The tone must be professional, not opinionated or zealous. This means correct english (obvious perhaps but I've read very poorly written proposals submitted to govenment bodies), clear and to the point.

Without some sort of clout, I wouldn't see the documents necessarily going anywhere, but they would be valuable to have nonetheless. I'll make a wiki page on the bike to work topic (when the wiki is back up) and whoever wants can join in.

michaelm

Sean02 wrote: »

Firstly getting involved with the Green Party regarding cycling issues in my opinion is probaly a waste of time

I also have had that experience of being fobbed off, and not just on cycling issues, but this is the very reason I started this thread. In the next day or two the number of hits on this particular discussion should pass the 1000 mark and that cannot be ignored. To further my suggestion, once our proposals are written up (thanks Verb for getting the ball rolling on this) I suggest one of us could put up a dedicated website where we distill down the proposals, developed on the wiki. I suggest we could make some gain out of publicly handing over a CD of our proposals to the Minister (no paper-unlike their own 164 page programme for government distributed to all party members before going into coalition last year!) On the dedicated site we could keep a record of all actions taken and responses given to each issue. Not that I want to be seen as holding them to ransom - but my experience of making headway with politicians in this country is that you have to make noise and they have to be held accountable. Perhaps someone with some PR experience might then bring the website to the attention of the press who could do a "Green watch" to see if this party is seriously interested in cycling/transport issues. Remember we are paying their wages and we elected them to work on our behalf on issues such as these. If the Greens cannot develop some of our proposals at least, they cannot be taken seriously on any issue. Remember also that the work of this forum will have saved the Government a fortune on consultancy fees, we are handing them a major opportunity on a plate.

TinyExplosions

michaelm wrote: »

I also have had that experience of being fobbed off, and not just on cycling issues, but this is the very reason I started this thread. In the next day or two the number of hits on this particular discussion should pass the 1000 mark and that cannot be ignored. To further my suggestion, once our proposals are written up (thanks Verb for getting the ball rolling on this) I suggest one of us could put up a dedicated website where we distill down the proposals, developed on the wiki. I suggest we could make some gain out of publicly handing over a CD of our proposals to the Minister (no paper-unlike their own 164 page programme for government distributed to all party members before going into coalition last year!) On the dedicated site we could keep a record of all actions taken and responses given to each issue. Not that I want to be seen as holding them to ransom - but my experience of making headway with politicians in this country is that you have to make noise and they have to be held accountable. Perhaps someone with some PR experience might then bring the website to the attention of the press who could do a "Green watch" to see if this party is seriously interested in cycling/transport issues. Remember we are paying their wages and we elected them to work on our behalf on issues such as these. If the Greens cannot develop some of our proposals at least, they cannot be taken seriously on any issue. Remember also that the work of this forum will have saved the Government a fortune on consultancy fees, we are handing them a major opportunity on a plate.

I have no problem doin some of the techy side and setting up the website and all that, but me writin's not much good, so I wopuldn't be the best to formulate the arguements, but I can draw pretty pictures

Happy to help in any way I can

DurtyMurty

Verb wrote: »

......Without some sort of clout, I wouldn't see the documents necessarily going anywhere....

You might get a bit of clout from the press if you could organise a publicity cycle to Goverment Buildings. Perhaps all the guys with the new "Boards.ie" Kit in front, followed by the masses, representing all areas of cycling

Keep the point simple. We just want one thing...An increased FOCUS on cycling and the needs and rights of cyclists... in road planning, road safety, in environmental decisions, .....and all the other areas raised by members

souter

Have to agree with all the suggestions, and unfortuneately with much of the cynicism. To add my tuppenworth:

1) mandatory provision of set amount of secure cycle storage in all government buildings.
2) ban bull bars. This would benefit pedestrians as well and be politically cheap. It makes me see red when someone is not only driving a massive SUV, but they've added lethal weapons to the front for absolutely no reason. Next time I see one I'm going to ask the driver where exactly he is expecting to encounter kangaroos.

oobydooby

Great idea. I'm not cynical about this at all. There's plenty of goodwill towards cyclists but the planners simply don't cycle and are clueless. (I'd speculate too that the people who run Dublin Bus drive to work:rolleyes:)

The Green Party activists are usually cyclists. Sinn Fein and labour are probably well disposed to cycling and the bigger parties are pragmatic. So if we can show how promoting cycling is in everyone's interest, and can demonstrate some practical 'solutions' this kind of campaign could be effective.

A nice car-lane for Dublin is my proposal. Just wide enough for a mini or a micra. Compulsary for drivers to stay in the car lane:p Rest of the road space for non motorised vehicles or trams (or emergency access). No busses in the city. Massive arteries of trams going every 2 minutes from each bridge on the canals into the city. Another circular tram along the canals every 2 minutes each direction. Day and night. Usually empty. Each bridge is a massive bus station for routes away from the city...

Make the public transport so good, that it rivals cycling and do this before you restrict traffic and pi$$ off stressed out drivers who have no real choice but to drive to work.

I'll help you out behind the scenes, I don't do practical too well. But there are some excellent suggestions on this thread.

flickerx

oobydooby wrote: »

The Green Party activists are usually cyclists.

So can anyone explain to me exactly why John Gormley was opposed to a dedicated cycle engineer being appointed by Dublin City Council? WTF?

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0428/cycling.html

kenmc

ooooh they're advertising for the post of cycle engineer!
we should all apply so!