Reduced Speed Limit in Dublin City Centre

Doctor Bob

meathstevie wrote: »

If Dublin pedestrians started to obey traffic lights that have been put there for their safety at a high cost a few less a year might be knocked down. I've driven around Dublin quite a lot over a period of seven years and the worst behaved people on the road are pedestrians followed by cyclists.

Pedestrians and cyclists are common law road users. Drivers are licensed road users.

Traffic lights were put there to control and regulate the flow of motorised traffic, not to make the roads safer for pedestrians. They discommode pedestrians.

Now, what was your point?

zynaps

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

I know it was a freak accident, but what about the bus accident on the quays a few years ago? There is still a risk, even if it is independent of the speed limit. I mean, there are so many things that could happen: sociopath driving, heart attack, brain aneurysm, driving a Prius....

[edit: were those disasters listed in order of best to worst? ]

Though we're revisiting arguments made in the other thread... a significant proportion of the actual serious injuries and deaths are likely from freak accidents like the bus on the quays, and another significant proportion is from trucks turning left and creaming cyclists. And outside town, IIRC a woman was killed by the driver of a stolen bus on the Naas Rd a few years ago.
So, if the statistics of serious/fatal accidents in the area in question are low and/or made up mostly of cases that couldn't possibly be helped by a 30kph speed limit (e.g. the examples above), it dampens the safety argument somewhat IMO. Not that there haven't been and won't be "normal" accidents that can be mitigated by the limit.
But I'd say more of these normal accidents happen outside the city centre, on suburban and urban roads.

It feels like they didn't do any real analysis of where the dangerous roads and junctions are.
And if they're not willing to do that and place lower speed limits in those more dangerous areas, it's not really fair to call this a safety measure, is it?

zynaps

Doctor Bob wrote: »

Traffic lights were put there to control and regulate the flow of motorised traffic, not to make the roads safer for pedestrians. They discommode pedestrians.

That sounds a bit odd. How are pedestrian crossings not there to make the roads safer for pedestrians? Anything that commands cars to stop, by force of law, so that pedestrians can cross the road safely, is surely making the roads a safer place for everybody.

humbert

A little perspective...30km areas(from October but seems to be correct).

Love the decision to use different shades of pink rather than waste money on another colour.

IM0

el tonto wrote: »

Soon we'll all be driving cars powered by our own sense of self-satisfaction,

yay! the roads will be empty so, more room for bikes then.

IM0

zynaps wrote: »

but none of it will make any difference when a pedestrian walks right out in front of a bus.

why did the chicken cross the road?

to try and get run over by a bus

you cant save everyone, best the dumbasse of this world are subjected to natural selection. :rolleyes:

petethedrummer

I'm just praying for another Irish solution to this. Lets not bother with international best practice. Lets just do something wishy washy and half hearted. Then forget about the whole thing.

tomasrojo

zynaps wrote: »

So, if the statistics of serious/fatal accidents in the area in question are low and/or made up mostly of cases that couldn't possibly be helped by a 30kph speed limit (e.g. the examples above), it dampens the safety argument somewhat IMO.

You may well be right, but there is also the fact that you don't see many children or old people down on the quays. Some roads can have quite good injury/fatality statistics because the vulnerable won't go near them or aren't allowed go near them. As I mentioned in the Motors thread, the downward trend in child road deaths in the UK (of which the British government was very proud) turned out to be on closer inspection due in large part to parents not allowing their children to play in the street.

I personally favour the restriction on the grounds of quality of life rather than safety. But as well as lowering risk, slower traffic lowers the perception of risk and it might mean the quays stop being such a dead zone in the city (no safety-related pun intended).

I do wonder at this stage, given the percecption of great unpopularity (and possibly actual net unpopularity) whether the 30 zone will survive past March.

tomasrojo

Incidentally, I saw over on John Adams' blog (http://john-adams.co.uk) a mention of Smeed's Law, (increasing traffic volume leads to an increase in fatalities per capita, but a decrease in fatalities per vehicle) and this really struck me:

In 1922 in Britain there was very little traffic and a nation-wide 20mph speed limit - and there were more than three times as many children killed in road accidents than today. The Smeed Curve might be described as a social learning curve.

tomasrojo

John Adams also, I've just discovered, covered my point above when writing on Shared Space:

It was now realised that many streets had good accident records not
because they were safe, but because they were so dangerous that children were
forbidden to cross them, old people were afraid to cross them, and fit adults crossed
them quickly and carefully. The good accident records were being purchased at the
cost of community severance; people on one side of the road no longer knew their
neighbours on the other.

http://john-adams.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/shared-space-for-la-times.pdf

Jip

Another fu(king cyclists thread started over on the motoring forum. There's some decent lads there but they're slowly drowning in the ignorance of the masses. Thank god I'm banned since the previous one because if I wasn't I'd only get a longer one now.

concussion

I've had a look at some articles which suggest that cars and drivers experience higher concentrations of particulates.

David J. Briggs, Effects of travel mode on exposures to particulate air pollution wrote:

On all routes studied, average exposures whilst walking are considerably greater than those in-car. Differences between walking and in-car exposure also vary by particle size fraction. Ratios of walking:in-car exposures increase with increasing particle size, approaching 5:1 for the coarse fraction; for finer fractions, walking exposures are between 40 and 120% higher than those in-car. When travel time is also taken into account, these differences become even more pronounced, with ratios of as much as 16:1 between walking and travelling by car for the cumulative exposure to coarse particles across a complete trip, and more than 4:1 for ultrafines.

These findings differ from those reported in the few previous studies of particle exposures in similar transport modes (though these have generally only considered average exposures, and have not taken account of travel time) (Kaur et al., 2007). In Copenhagen, for example, average dust exposure of car drivers was found to be 1.7 times higher than that of cyclists (Rank et al., 2000). (Adams et al., 2001) and (Adams et al., 2002) reported lower exposures for cyclists than for car-drivers in London. In Sydney, Chertok et al. (2004) found exposures to BTEX while walking and cycling to be lower than those experienced when travelling by car or bus, though higher than on the train.

Transportation Research Part Transport and Environment
Volume 3, Issue 4, July 1998, Pages 271-274

Jette Rank et al, Differences in cyclists and car drivers exposure to air pollution from traffic in the city of Copenhagen wrote:

On the basis of this study, we can conclude that cyclists in the city of Copenhagen are exposed to lower concentrations of traffic related pollutants than car drivers. Furthermore, we conclude that car drivers experience 3–4 times higher BTEX concentrations and approximately two times higher exposure of particles than bikers. The study also indicates that the air children breathe may be better on the back of a bicycle than inside a car.

Environment International
Volume 34, Issue 1, January 2008, Pages 12-22


Both studies hosted on Science Direct.

It should be noted that the Copenhagen experiment used air pumps with a 1.9 l/min flow rate to sample both cyclists and drivers, which ignores the fact cyclists are breathing deeper and heavier than drivers. The cars would also be over 10 years old now, would there have been advances in car air filters since then?

zynaps

concussion wrote: »

I've had a look at some articles which suggest that cars and drivers experience higher concentrations of particulates.

But the first study you quoted says exactly the opposite!

On all routes studied, average exposures whilst walking are considerably greater than those in-car.

Also it looks like you dated the study 1998, but it cites a 2007 study?

concussion

Well spotted on the reference Zynaps - I was in a hurry when I posted so I must have copied the wrong title.

I looked through several articles and there were some conflicting findings, which is why I posted the first article. The second specifically looked at cyclists so I included that also.

doozerie

Yet another perspective (or multiple perspectives, more like, as the article kind of jumps all over the place) on the 30kph limit is given in this Times article which focuses on how it has worked well city-wide in Graz. Mind you, it sounds like the mayor there was willing to put his money where his mouth was when dealing with at least some people who objected to the limit on the grounds that you can't drive at that speed, and it certainly paid off according to the article - maybe we should do something similar here by for example testing the real impact on a human of a car moving at 30kph versus 50kph, and I nominate Gerry Breen as the human dummy for the latter case (if he can find time in his busy schedule of blaming everything he dislikes on cyclists and launching silly campaigns against cyclists as some sort of childish response).

There is some interesting stuff in the article but it also reiterates some of the nonsense that tends to get spat out on both sides of the argument over the new limit e.g. the description of the guy from Amárach Consulting having to drive behind someone at 20kph as "a nightmare" and the quote from the aggrieved guy/drama queen of anyone choosing to drive at 20kph as "behav[ing] so cravenly before authority".

Doctor Bob

If you were as annoyed as me by the way Pat Kenny addressed this topic recently (links were posted here previously), this might be of interest. It's a 14 page letter of complaint to RTE from the PRO of Cosain, the (recently established?) pedestrian campaign/advocacy group. (Linked from the Dublin Cycling Campaign website.)

http://www.dublincycling.com/sites/dublincycling.ie/files/users/12/2010-02-03-COSAIN-Pat_Kenny-30kph-Zone.pdf

It addresses both the offensiveness of Pat Kenny's tone and approach to the issue as well as many of the canards being bandied about by opponents of the initiative.

Also, apologies zynaps for missing this the first time round:

Doctor Bob wrote: »

Traffic lights were put there to control and regulate the flow of motorised traffic, not to make the roads safer for pedestrians. They discommode pedestrians.

zynaps wrote: »

That sounds a bit odd. How are pedestrian crossings not there to make the roads safer for pedestrians? Anything that commands cars to stop, by force of law, so that pedestrians can cross the road safely, is surely making the roads a safer place for everybody.

My post and the post to which I was responding specifically mentioned traffic lights, not pedestrian crossings, and were specifically talking about the purpose of them rather than any incidental benefits. The purpose of them is to regulate the flow of motorised traffic. The fact that they may make roads safer for pedestrians is relevant, but wasn’t my focus.

Jesuitical hair-splitting aside:)- pedestrian crossings do indeed provide safe places for pedestrians, but I would dispute that they 'make the roads safer for pedestrians'. If anything, they make the road less safe in general by making one specific location safer.

What I was hoping to convey in my first reply was that, in a pre-motorised age, pedestrians could cross where they liked.* Now we have to go to appointed places, wait up to 90 seconds in the city centre (and, in many suburban locations, longer than that), and cross within a very short time. We have virtually no 'on demand' pedestrian crossings and pelican crossings are nowhere to be seen in Dublin City. (I think someone mentioned one in Blanchardstown- that might be the closest one to O'Connell Bridge?) And why? Because of the almost total dominance of the private car over the public streets.

I'm not of the opinion that all cars should be banned from the city, and I'd fully support the position (as put by Lumen and others) re the ongoing need for some car-based access, but I do believe fundamentally that a) the city centre should be about people first, and b) the current volume of cars and the nature of the traffic regime in the city centre are inimical to the achievement of this state.

*It is still the case that pedestrians can cross where we like, with very few exceptions, but it’d be a brave man to attempt it in this city.

seamus

pedestrian crossings do indeed provide safe places for pedestrians, but I would dispute that they 'make the roads safer for pedestrians'. If anything, they make the road less safe in general by making one specific location safer.

I think the various studies into "shared space" schemes have proven this. When you have pedestrian crossings, drivers have less consideration (and less patience) for the fact that pedestrians may cross at other places. However, if you remove the ped. crossings and make it so that pedestrians can cross anywhere, then drivers will be expecting pedestrians in their path. Imagine, for example, if all of college green was at the same level, with just cursory markings to indicate the edge of the roadway. You'd have to crawl through it on a car because the peds would be everywhere.

Lumen

Doctor Bob wrote: »

I'm not of the opinion that all cars should be banned from the city, and I'd fully support the position (as put by Lumen and others) re the ongoing need for some car-based access

Thanks, but I don't believe I ever advocated maintaining car-based access (if I did it was unintentional).

I just said that if there was access, I wanted to be able to drive really fast.

Doctor Bob

Lumen wrote: »

Thanks, but I don't believe I ever advocated maintaining car-based access (if I did it was unintentional).

I just said that if there was access, I wanted to be able to drive really fast.

Maybe not in this thread, but I think I recall you having sick kids a few months back and saying that the car was the only practical option. It made sense to me then; still does!

For the record, I don't drive at all, but I do believe that the private car has a place in the general traffic mix; just a much smaller place than most drivers want it to have.

zynaps

Doctor Bob wrote: »

My post and the post to which I was responding specifically mentioned traffic lights, not pedestrian crossings, and were specifically talking about the purpose of them rather than any incidental benefits. The purpose of them is to regulate the flow of motorised traffic.

Fair enough - I had assumed that by traffic lights he meant pedestrian crossings, but perhaps I picked it up wrong. Wouldn't be the first time.

Doctor Bob wrote: »

What I was hoping to convey in my first reply was that, in a pre-motorised age, pedestrians could cross where they liked.* Now we have to go to appointed places, wait up to 90 seconds in the city centre (and, in many suburban locations, longer than that), and cross within a very short time. We have virtually no 'on demand' pedestrian crossings and pelican crossings are nowhere to be seen in Dublin City. (I think someone mentioned one in Blanchardstown- that might be the closest one to O'Connell Bridge?) And why? Because of the almost total dominance of the private car over the public streets.

Absolutely - I've been frustrated by this for a long time. Traffic and road infrastructure has evolved to suit cars, but in the last couple of decades it's been more and more at the pedestrian's expense (often needlessly) - especially the elimination of "on-demand" crossings.
They still change in response to the button being pushed, but there's usually a minimum delay of 30-60 seconds - the three nearest to me on Collins Avenue and the Howth Road are examples of this; usually, by the time pedestrians get a green light, they've already crossed the road ages ago when a gap opened up and they got fed up of waiting. In any case, they only have a green light for 10-15 seconds, and if the button is not pushed, the lights NEVER change.

So even though the default setting is that cars have a green light (for an unbounded length of time), pedestrians are still forced to wait for an arbitrary and long period after hitting the button. Why? Why wait for a minute when the light has already been red for 30 minutes? :mad:

Instead, the light should immediately change, with a slight delay only added if the crossing has already gone green within the last 30 seconds, say. That would be fair on both drivers and pedestrians IMO.

AMontague

To keep everyone up-to-date on what is happening, Dublin City Council's Traffic and Transport Committee has passed a motion put forward by the Labour Group to go back out to public consultation on parts of the new 30kph zone. The motion proposed that parts of the quays, Winetavern Street and Kildare Street should go back to public consultation. The motion that was passed by the Traffic Committee still has to be passed by the next meeting of the City Council - which will be next Monday, 1st March. If the City Council also passes the motion, then there will be a public consultation process.

I'm attaching the map of the 30kph zone. If the motion is carried by the City Council next week, the streets in yellow will go back out to public consultation. The streets in blue will remain at 30kph. All streets will remain at 30kph during the public consultation. When the public consultation is complete, the City Council will then vote again to decide whether the streets in yellow should stay at 30kph or revert to 50kph. This process is laid down in law and has to be followed in order to change the speed limit on any roads or streets. It will take several months before a final decision is made.

doozerie

It is a shame that Eden Quay is one of the stretches up for debate. I travel that particular stretch as part of my commute each day and the layout of the road is a mess - lots of traffic swinging to the left hand side/lane of the road to turn left while buses pull out from the bus stops on the left and sometimes need to cross a lane or two to go straight ahead. The (often ignored) cycle track for those traveling straight on falls in the middle of this criss-crossing traffic and far too many drivers make no allowances for the fact that a cyclist following the cycle track on the far left may actually be going straight on at the lights. I have had quite a few near misses there where ignorant drivers (and cyclists) simply presume that I'll be going left too, or they just don't care, and they cut right across me in their rush to tag onto the back of a line of traffic, usually stopped, in the left turning lane.

Despite the fact that I am not convinced that reducing the speed generally to 30kph makes me safer as a cyclist, I am convinced that the points where the speed limit jumps back up to 50kph will be treated by many people as an opportunity to make up "lost time" by hitting the accelerator. Take an already chaotic and dangerous stretch of road and add in some impatient drivers who no longer feel constrained by a speed limit (in much the same way as people leaving a motorway seem happy to far exceed the 60kph or 50kph limit on the first few stretches of road that they meet, and similarly as they approach a motorway entrance), and I think you are increasing the dangers for everyone. Garda enforcement of the limits would reduce the risk/dangers, but whatever about the presence or not of gardai on other streets, not once in several years have I seen a garda stop any traffic on Eden Quay so I have little faith they'll start any time soon.

Also, Eden Quay gets a lot of pedestrian traffic and is already a popular place for pedestrians to cross at random points so I would have expected that the risk to pedestrians, stupid pedestrians admittedly, on that stretch is already significant even at 30kph. I have little sympathy for people that willingly march their way in front of traffic, but if one of the main goals of the 30kph limit in the first place is to protect such people, then changing the Eqen Quay stretch back would fly in the face of that too.

Jumpy

Way to back down.

If you cant stick out the original plan then why bother? The parts in yellow along the quays are the parts that should stay. Fancy overlaying your picture with the serious incidents map?

monument

Looks to be a high amount of minor injury, with at least two or three counts of serious injury on the sections around the quays which are in the new map marked as to be removed, if approved.

zynaps

+1 for the quays deserving a 30km/h limit if anywhere does. I used to cycle between Killester and Ballyfermot for work, and the quays was the worst, most confusing and oppressive part of the journey. Even worse than the Con Colbert Road - Heuston Station stretch.

tomasrojo

I'd rather lose the yellow sections than see the 30 zone totally revoked though and see the hands of Tormey and Breen strengthened.

Personally, I'd like to see the quays be 30km/h all the way to Heuston Station, but I guess if there is to be a concession, this one is ok; it still covers the part of the quays with the most pedestrians.

I'm sure that once it survives for a year or so, the 30 zone will be as controversial as the plastic-bag levy. Then people will be able to consider its extension more rationally than they have in the last few weeks.

monument

zynaps wrote: »

+1 for the quays deserving a 30km/h limit if anywhere does. I used to cycle between Killester and Ballyfermot for work, and the quays was the worst, most confusing and oppressive part of the journey. Even worse than the Con Colbert Road - Heuston Station stretch.

Just to be clear, by post was just showing around about what the previous poster talked about.

My post was not advocating a position, but just providing information.

AMontague

Jumpy wrote: »

Fancy overlaying your picture with the serious incidents map?

Here's the map of fatalities from 1998-2007. You can see that the area of the quays with most fatalities is between Capel Street and O'Connell Street. If our motion is passed, we will be keeping this area as 30kph.

?Cee?view

Was speed the proximate cause of these accidents?

seamus

churchview wrote: »

Was speed the proximate cause of these accidents?

Actually, the valid question to ask is - "What speed was involved in these accidents?". It doesn't matter whether speed caused the accident, all that's important was the effect of speed as a factor in the accident.

?Cee?view

Can't say I agree with you Seamus.

The cause of the accident should be tackled. The populist move may be to identify speed as the predominant cause (if not the proximate cause) of injury, while neglecting to deal with underlying root causes, such as poor engineering and poor road user education.

For instance, are driver's adequately educated as to the danger of not checking the so called "blind spot"?

Are cycle lanes (where provided) designed in such a way as to maximise safety?

These questions are ignored and a "law" brought in which panders to sectional concerns.

Casualty figures on Irish roads are down significantly while the NRA has virtually completed Ireland's high speed motorway network. An engineering solution which results in higher speeds and increased safety.

blorg

churchview wrote: »

Casualty figures on Irish roads are down significantly while the NRA has virtually completed Ireland's high speed motorway network. An engineering solution which results in higher speeds and increased safety.

I don't think anyone questions that motorways are the safest roads in the country or is campaigning to bring down the speed limit on them. The streets in the center of Dublin are not however motorways.

?Cee?view

a·nal·o·gy

   /əˈnælədʒi/ Show Spelled[uh-nal-uh-jee] Show IPA
–noun,plural-gies. 1.a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based: the analogy between the heart and a pump.



I was using an analogy (see above) to suggest that there may be less cynical and more effective methods (although less politically expedient) to bring down casualty levels in Dublin City Centre other than a reduced speed limit. I was not suggesting that the quays (while they are thoroughfares) are, or should be Motorways.

DirkVoodoo

Sectional concerns? That doesn't even make sense, but I guess you are referring to cyclists. I think it has been shown many times in both the thread here and the thread on motors that speed kills, simple as. Why you seem to think that ignoring this and making some comment about "blind spots" is any more effective? If you want an overhaul of the driving test system in this country, you are talking about something that will be even less politically expedient.

I don't see how you can say dropping the speed limit won't improve safety for everyone along the quays. Without resorting to Pat Kenny levels of cynicism about men with red flags, speeding rickshaws and other nonsense.

I honestly don't have an opinion one way or the other on the matter. I can see the benefits of course, but I can't understand the attitude of some people, is it really the end of the world?

I agree with Blorg, your motorway "analogy" is not an analogy at all, where is the comparison, how are they alike?

?Cee?view

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Sectional concerns? That doesn't even make sense, but I guess you are referring to cyclists. I think it has been shown many times in both the thread here and the thread on motors that speed kills, simple as.

If that were true, then Motorways would be the deadliest roads. They're clearly not

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Why you seem to think that ignoring this and making some comment about "blind spots" is any more effective? If you want an overhaul of the driving test system in this country, you are talking about something that will be even less politically expedient.

You're agreeing with me. We should expect our politicians to do what needs to be done, not what's politically expedient.

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

I don't see how you can say dropping the speed limit won't improve safety for everyone along the quays. Without resorting to Pat Kenny levels of cynicism about men with red flags, speeding rickshaws and other nonsense.

I honestly don't have an opinion one way or the other on the matter. I can see the benefits of course, but I can't understand the attitude of some people, is it really the end of the world?

I don't believe that anyone has said it's the end of the world. However, it will contribute to a further erosion in respect for road use laws in Ireland. By contrast, Germany has lower limits in appropriate areas which are overwhelmingly respected.

Macha

churchview wrote: »

I don't believe that anyone has said it's the end of the world. However, it will contribute to a further erosion in respect for road use laws in Ireland. By contrast, Germany has lower limits in appropriate areas which are overwhelmingly respected.

What is is about these areas that makes you feel they are not appropriate for lower limits?

DirkVoodoo

churchview wrote: »

If that were true, then Motorways would be the deadliest roads. They're clearly not.

All traffic on the motorway is moving at speeds of between 100-120 km/hr. In the city the relative speeds between cars, cyclists and drivers is much better. They are also more densely populated, not exactly continuous roads with clearly marked on and off ramps, traffic travelling in multiple directions, parked cars, etc. I mean, I could go on and highlight the obvious differences and hazards between motorways and city streets, your extrapolation does not work. If it did, then would having 120 km/hr speed limits in Dublin yield the same safety results, is this what you are saying?

You can't compare the two, it's completely ridiculous. Can you honestly not distinguish between the two? Is "well, look at the motorways and how safe they are" the best argument you can put forward for removing the 30 km/hr speed limit?

Speed, in the city, is dangerous. Speed on the motorway is also dangerous, but you are less likely to strike a cyclist or a pedestrian.

Laws are not there looking for your respect, they are there for the common good. If people think a 30 km/hr speed limit is so ridiculous that they can speed regardless, then the real societal erosion is that they are allowed on the roads at all.

?Cee?view

I feel that the main thoroughfare i.e. the quays from west to east (and vice versa) should not be limited. They are not predominantly residential and are not of a character to require low limits. They are main routes into and out of the City.

By contrast, many of the other areas not on the Quays are appropriate for a lower limit due to their very character i.e. they are not thoroughfares; many cafes, pubs, restaurants etc. open on to them.

Jumpy

churchview wrote: »

If that were true, then Motorways would be the deadliest roads. They're clearly not

Um...

Try getting pedestrians to share a motorway at the same level of volume as DCC, the place would be littered with body parts.

DirkVoodoo

If you need to get through Dublin at such ridiculous velocities along "throughfares", why not take the M50? I did yesterday and I went pretty fast, no 30 km/hr limit and no frustration.

blorg

churchview wrote: »

If that were true, then Motorways would be the deadliest roads. They're clearly not

Motorways are safe because they are wide multi-lane roads, with hard shoulders, without junctions and a reduced level of bends where traffic flow is segregated and slow moving traffic and pedestrians excluded. Hence it is appropriate to have a high speed limit.

I don't think many pedestrians tend to be killed on the country's motorways.

How does this apply to the streets in Dublin city centre?

?Cee?view

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

All traffic on the motorway is moving at speeds of between 100-120 km/hr. In the city the relative speeds between cars, cyclists and drivers is much better. They are also more densely populated, not exactly continuous roads with clearly marked on and off ramps, traffic travelling in multiple directions, parked cars, etc. I mean, I could go on and highlight the obvious differences and hazards between motorways and city streets, your extrapolation does not work. If it did, then would having 120 km/hr speed limits in Dublin yield the same safety results, is this what you are saying?

You can't compare the two, it's completely ridiculous. Can you honestly not distinguish between the two? Is "well, look at the motorways and how safe they are" the best argument you can put forward for removing the 30 km/hr speed limit?

Speed, in the city, is dangerous. Speed on the motorway is also dangerous, but you are less likely to strike a cyclist or a pedestrian.

Laws are not there looking for your respect, they are there for the common good. If people think a 30 km/hr speed limit is so ridiculous that they can speed regardless, then the real societal erosion is that they are allowed on the roads at all.

A few posts back you said "speed kills, simple as".

You've now moved this to "the relative speeds between cars, cyclists and drivers is [sic]* much better" whatever that means.

Rather than touting the old chestnut, can you not agree that there may be other more effective solutions which are less politically expedient and thus being ignored by the proponents of the current measure, or are you just not for turning?



*Sic is a Latin word meaning "thus", "so", "as such", or "in such a manner". In writing, it is placed within the quoted material, in square brackets – or outside it, in regular parentheses – and usually italicized – I]sic[/I – to indicate that an incorrect or unusual spelling, phrase, punctuation, and/or other preceding quoted material has been reproduced verbatim from the quoted original and is not a transcription error.[1]

Jumpy

AMontague wrote: »

Here's the map of fatalities from 1998-2007. You can see that the area of the quays with most fatalities is between Capel Street and O'Connell Street. If our motion is passed, we will be keeping this area as 30kph.

Thanks for that.



Im still pissed off though! Even any change to the orginal plan shouldnt even be considered. You are dealing with people whinging about an extra few minutes when you have a chance to improve the central city.

?Cee?view

blorg wrote: »

Motorways are safe because they are wide multi-lane roads without junctions and a reduced level of bends where traffic flow is segregated and slow moving traffic and pedestrians excluded. Hence it is appropriate to have a high speed limit.

How does this apply to the streets in Dublin city centre?

The analogy was given in response to a suggestion that "speed kills, simple as".

DirkVoodoo

churchview wrote: »

A few posts back you said "speed kills, simple as".

You've now moved this to "the relative speeds between cars, cyclists and drivers is [sic]* much better" whatever that means.

Rather than touting the old chestnut, can you not agree that there may be other more effective solutions which are less politically expedient and thus being ignored by the proponents of the current measure, or are you just not for turning?

No, because you skewed my statement and said because the speed on the motorway is high and fatalities low, it must be false.

Like I said, I don't care about the speed limit, I never found 50 km/hr bad when cycling, but I can see the bigger picture and the benefits for Dublin as a whole. I am not some lycra clad zealot, if you made a good case for having it removed I would happily agree, but so far you haven't.

?Cee?view

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

If you need to get through Dublin at such ridiculous velocities along "throughfares", why not take the M50? I did yesterday and I went pretty fast, no 30 km/hr limit and no frustration.

What? How would the M50 get me from say Smithfield to Sandymount?

?Cee?view

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

No, because you skewed my statement and said because the speed on the motorway is high and fatalities low, it must be false.

Like I said, I don't care about the speed limit, I never found 50 km/hr bad when cycling, but I can see the bigger picture and the benefits for Dublin as a whole. I am not some lycra clad zealot, if you made a good case for having it removed I would happily agree, but so far you haven't.

I never "skewed" your statement. I directly quoted you. You then compounded your own logical inconsistency by introducing the concept of relative speeds, and further ignored the suggestion that other solutions might be more appropriate to make the roads safer for all users.

However, more to the point, I note that Mr. Montague (or the poster who purports to be Andrew Montague "AMontague") has ignored my question. Further I note that his "update" has been posted on the cycling forum and not the infrastructure forum or the motors forum. Perhaps his update is just directed to his own constituency rather than the public as a whole?

ten speed racer

churchview wrote: »

I feel that the main thoroughfare i.e. the quays from west to east (and vice versa) should not be limited. They are not predominantly residential and are not of a character to require low limits. They are main routes into and out of the City.

By contrast, many of the other areas not on the Quays are appropriate for a lower limit due to their very character i.e. they are not thoroughfares; many cafes, pubs, restaurants etc. open on to them.

Err, have you walked on the quays between Capel Street and O'Connell Street. Have you not noticed the large number of cafes, pubs, and restaurants? Or the huge number of apartments? Or the many pedestrians?

I lived on the quays until a couple of years ago.

?Cee?view

ten speed racer wrote: »

Err, have you walked on the quays between Capel Street and O'Connell Street. Have you not noticed the large number of cafes, pubs, and restaurants? Or the huge number of apartments? Or the many pedestrians?

I lived on the quays until a couple of years ago.

I still live just off the quays.

I said predominantly residential, not residential. There are indeed a number of cafes etc., not a large number, but then again an opinion on this is largely subjective.

eoferrall

churchview wrote: »

A few posts back you said "speed kills, simple as".

You've now moved this to "the relative speeds between cars, cyclists and drivers is [sic]* much better" whatever that means.

Rather than touting the old chestnut, can you not agree that there may be other more effective solutions which are less politically expedient and thus being ignored by the proponents of the current measure, or are you just not for turning?

It's that speed kills, its when there is an accident speed kills. the differences are that there are very few accidents on a motorway due to their construction and design. but when there are they are most certainly fatal. But there is no where near enough to justify crawling along. compare this with a city centre and you will see little bumps all the time due to peoples impatience and so forth. but none of these are fatal as you bump a car at 10/20km/h and bumper gets damaged if even. bump a pedestrian or cyclist at that speed and might break a leg arm etc. faster more damage. it is to do it design and that a city centre will NEVER be as safe as motorway.

I agree there are some poor designed streets, but that will always be the case in old cities like Dublin that have developed over several hundreds of years. (we didnt have the luxury of Napoleon deciding to redesign like in Paris and kick everyone out of their homes!