What do you think about Irish cycle lanes?

tomasrojo

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

As a motorist i have to say i often laugh to myself when i see a cycle lane along a stretch of road and the car lane is actually not big enough for a car....it's as bad as the new traffic lights that have a red and a green on at the same time.

Yes, this is one phenomenon that makes it very clear that they're an exercise in box-ticking and little else. "We have 'created' x km of cycle lane this year" ... by dividing one usable traffic lane into two unusable traffic lanes, one painted red.

tomasrojo

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

i can't see anything wrong with that tbh.

I tend to agree, on first sight. It would be better without the cycle lane, but at least the straight-ahead cycle lane is where you'd expect a cyclist going straight-ahead to be, more or less.

tomasrojo

patrickbrophy18 wrote: »

It looks like an accident waiting to happen. What happens if the cyclist and the driver accidentally cross paths?

WHAT A MESS!:D

But they have "to cross paths", if the cyclist wants to go straight on and the motorist wants to go left, same as any other road user. The presence of the cycle lane might lull a novice into a false sense of security, maybe, but the thing to do here is the same as in any such situation:

• look over your shoulder for a gap in the traffic
• signal that you're moving over the the right
• get into the straight-ahead lane as soon as it's safe to do so

If you find this too intimidating, you can wander down the left lane until you're near the lights and wait and cross as a pedestrian.

McCruiskeen

What annoys me about Irish cycle lanes in Ireland is that the County Councils have the inclination and desire to include cycle lanes. They spend money on them etc

But they put so little intelligence and thought into their design that they become useless and actually put cyclists in a position where they are open to abuse from car and truck drivers for not using them.

If they just asked one cyclist about their proposed designs this would not happen but they obviously don't even bother doing that.

I live near the Point and there are cycle paths all the way up to the city centre that obviously cost a l lot of money.

This could really be such a nice cycle along the Liffey and a lot of money was spent putting cycle paths down here but the made such utter balls of it.

But they stop and start all the time so that you continuously have to go onto the road and there is usually a car parked in the way. Sometimes the cycle path just stops with no way to get onto the road. The actual footpath for pedestrians is out of the way so pedestrians have to go out of the way to use the footpath and thus walk all over the cycle path.

Pedestrians then look at you like you have two heads when they see a bike coming towards them on the cycle path. I have actually received abuse off pedestrians who were walking in the cycling path for guess what...

cycling on a cycling path!

electrogrimey

Cycle lanes used: North Inner City, City Centre area (I.e., Drumcondra, Glasnevin, Clontarf, all of town, all the way to Ranelagh)

Problems: Low coverage of cycle lanes, maybe 40% of the routes I take have cycle lanes.

10% of those routes are blocked by parked cars.

Quality of cycle lanes is nearly always much worse quality than the rest of the road.

Cycle lanes often lead you into dangerous positions in the road - having to swerve around parked cars, or dodge cars turning left.

All problems listed above...

monument

Thanks for the replies everybody.

Before this I was thinking I might have built up a too pessimist or critical view of cycle lane. If so, I'm not alone

Thinkingaboutit

Everything I can say has been said. Many are very badly designed, most are barely maintained. There is gravel, glass, litter, pretty much all the waste on a road seems to be left there. This means that a person has to often use a road that can be pretty narrow beside the cycle lane. There are also mothers pushing double prams, cars parked people walking and loitering on cycle lanes marked out on wide paths. A lot of them won't consider moving.

kcphoto

I have found the same in Cork as many others have found elsewhere i.e.:
poor quality(token) cycle lanes
Badly maintained
cars parked in them (should be ticketed for this)
Not joined up (random short stretches of lane)
Seen as a convenient place to put bollards, light poles etc.

Between Carrigaline and Crosshaven, they have widened the footpath to allow walkers and cyclists to share the path - this only works for people pottering along or bringing children. Add in avoiding walkers and their dogs and it really doesn't work, (especially if you're doing 25-30k).
What really annoys me is that they could have widened and resurfaced the road and made the road safer for all cyclists. I think the effort to create cycle paths reinforces the idea that the road is not the place for cyclists.

I cycled in Majorca last summer and the designated cycle lanes are on the roads and are the width of the hard shoulder on main roads and are well connected, across junctions , roundabouts etc.

Personally I feel the more people cycling on the roads, the safer all cyclists should be.
I know many people getting into cycling are nervous of cycling on the road but I hate seeing adults cycling along on ordinary footpaths .

Zoney

Incidentally, on the subject of cycle lanes - does it seem at all odd that the Limerick orbital route project seemingly has *no* provision for any cycling facilities, either cycle lanes or junction arrangements? I'm not entirely in favour of segregated cycling lanes, but it seems rather arbitrary not to include them on such a recent wholescale streetscape remodelling or junction arrangements (e.g. Sexton St., junctions at top of Parnell St., end Roxborough Rd., start of Mulgrave St.).

Mind you I'm not sure the scheme is following modern design standards - all the new streetlighting standards on Sexton Street (much more dense than the old poles) are placed right at the kerbside rather than back off the road against buildings.

evolutionqy7

cabra to bolton street the 120/121 bus route...a short distance of cycle track...then all of it gets abandoned in the most places where traffic is the most wish cycling tracks were everywhere...would make it so much easier

tomasrojo

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

wish cycling tracks were everywhere...would make it so much easier

Do you really think so? Personally, I wish there were virtually none of them. Do you really find the typical cycle track in Ireland useful? Just asking out of interest.

markpb

tomasrojo wrote: »

Do you really think so? Personally, I wish there were virtually none of them. Do you really find the typical cycle track in Ireland useful? Just asking out of interest.

A lot of cyclists find the existence of a cycle lane a comfort. It might not be perfect or ideal but it puts a space between them and _most_ motorists. Even when they're not mandatory, most motorists will stay clear and keep right. They added a non-mandatory cycle lane to the south end of the Malahide road (going north) and everyone driving now drives 1.5m out.

evolutionqy7

markpb wrote: »

most motorists will stay clear and keep right.

more like get out of my ****ing way or ill run you over lol...

tomasrojo

markpb wrote: »

A lot of cyclists find the existence of a cycle lane a comfort. It might not be perfect or ideal but it puts a space between them and _most_ motorists. Even when they're not mandatory, most motorists will stay clear and keep right. They added a non-mandatory cycle lane to the south end of the Malahide road (going north) and everyone driving now drives 1.5m out.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/report/cycle-lanes.pdf

The Effect of Cycle Lanes on Cyclists’ Road Space

Conclusion

The effect of the cycle lane studied in this report is to reduce the amount of road-
space available to cyclists, and therefore makes conditions significantly worse for
cyclists. Superficially, this may seem counter-intuitive, but there are a number of
possible explanations.
1. Drivers understandably tend to assume that the cycle lane represents an
adequate amount of space for the cyclist, so position their vehicles according
to the lane markings rather than relative to the position of the cyclist.
2. Drivers see less need to take special care when overtaking if the vehicle they
are overtaking is in a separate lane.
3. The presence of the cycle lane on the opposite side of the road forces
oncoming vehicles nearer to the centre line. This reduces the space available
for overtaking vehicles to move to the right.