Dublin City Development cycling meetings

monument

Soon to speak about cycling motions...

Special Meeting of City Council - Draft Dublin City Development Plan 2011 - 2017 - 26th July 2010

Live now at:

http://www.dublincity.public-i.tv/site/

Currently on public transport, cycling motions is from 2125 to 2128.

monument

Only mentioned that the fine for developers not including cycle parking is €400, cheaper than stands in most cases - to be deferred to the city's upcoming cycle strategy.

Will update if cycling issues are debated at further voting or debating stages in the next few days.

Cabaal

400e, not much of a fine...as you said cheaper then installing stands

monument

From what I understand the edited motion means the €400 will stand until / unless the cycling strategy says other wise.

I don't know the exact cost, but stainless steel Sheffield stands (or U stands) costs over €100 each.

The joint up (or 'toast rack') versions and non-stainless steel ones cost less, but if it's on-street or not underground the stainless steel Sheffield stands are often needed.

tomasrojo

monument wrote: »

From what I understand the edited motion means the €400 will stand until / unless the cycling strategy says other wise.

Do you mean that the fine will be a recurring fine, perhaps an annual fine, until the bicycle parking is installed?

Or do you mean that it's a one-off fine whose value will remain 400 euro until the cycling strategy revises it?

I could imagine the former changing some developers' minds. The latter, not really.

monument

tomasrojo wrote: »

Or do you mean that it's a one-off fine whose value will remain 400 euro until the cycling strategy revises it?

This.

The reference I think is to the city's cycling strategy, not any national one.

monument

From last night -- Some councillors seem to want Dublin Bikes but don't want the advertising which funds the system -- http://dublinobserver.com/2010/07/bike-scheme-advertising-questioned/

tomasrojo

Cutting in, lord mayor Cllr Gerry Breen (FG), said: “I think you’re not being fair dragging a successful bike scheme and what affect the pay back for that bike scheme may have on the city. For me there would still be questions over the cost of the bike scheme.”

He added: “We’re all for apple pie and sunshine, but there are issues around the scheme.”

Yes, deep, psychological, anti-cyclist issues that you should really see a shrink about.

(Is Gerry Breen the most inarticulate Lord Mayor we've ever had? That's saying something, considering Bertie Ahern was mayor once.)

Doctor Bob

monument wrote: »

From last night -- Some councillors seem to want Dublin Bikes but don't want the advertising which funds the system -- http://dublinobserver.com/2010/07/bike-scheme-advertising-questioned/

That would be my position too.

Edit: If the advertising could be sited discreetly (discreet advertising? Hmm... oxymoron?) and did not contribute to the deterioration of the pedestrian realm, then I'd have less of an issue, but given that the first batch of billboards includes some absolute howlers (Liffey Street, anyone?), I have little faith that they'll get it right next time. And if suitable sites can still be found, it prompts the question- Why weren't those sites used in round 1?

And I think Andrew Montague is being slightly disingenuous here:

Cllr Andrew Montague (Labour), one of the main promoters of the on-street bicycle rental system, responded: “[Some councillors] have been strongly against the advertising policy going back some time so they are being consistent here, but if we followed their advice we wouldn’t have Dublin Bikes.”

The advertising-funded approach is but one business model among a number; elsewhere, bike schemes are run by the railway company, the City Council, the Dept/Ministry of Transport, etc.

And whatever about what has gone before, why must the same model be followed in future? Given the obvious success of the scheme, surely there's an opportunity to try a different approach.

tomasrojo

As someone who's a pedestrian almost as often as he's a cyclist, I agree that too much space has been taken away from pedestrians already.

I do doubt the motivation of some of the people in this scenario though. I think several of the Fine Gael councillors would be perfectly happy to see the Dublin Bikes disappear.

I also don't see public funds being allocated to the scheme. Public funds will continue to dwindle for the next five years or so, and possibly beyond.

On the other hand, it would be very interesting to see what would happen were some public funds to be diverted from buses and into a really widespread cycle-share scheme -- stations every 300m inside a circumference of 8km from the city centre. It might actually be cheaper than running as many buses as are currently run, and it might serve more people more usefully.

Cabaal

If the gov wanted to fully fund the next roll out of the bike scheme in Dublin, just curious how much would it cost?

monument

Cabaal wrote: »

If the gov wanted to fully fund the next roll out of the bike scheme in Dublin, just curious how much would it cost?

The current plan is to mainly expand capacity:

• 100 extra bikes (increasing capacity from 450 to 550)
• Approx 300 new bike stands (increasing capacity from 795 to 1,087)
• 4 new bike stations (40 to 44)

The press release here, says on the cost:

The value of this expansion is estimated at €6.6million which Dublin City Council could not possibly fund from its current resources. The Transportation and Traffic SPC has accepted proposals that fund the expansion through the provision of advertising at some new locations. Seven of these locations have been identified. Income from subscribers from the dublinbikes scheme over three years of €900,000 will also part-fund the expansion plans.

tomasrojo

It occurs to me that if these councillors are so concerned about pedestrians, they might consider altering the timing of traffic lights so that pedestrians don't have to wait so long for a green man. I don't think I've come across as long an average wait in any other city I've been in.

Oddly enough, I don't recall any of these councillors evincing any concern for pedestrians before, though I don't exactly hang on their every word.

Doctor Bob

tomasrojo wrote: »

As someone who's a pedestrian almost as often as he's a cyclist, I agree that too much space has been taken away from pedestrians already.

I do doubt the motivation of some of the people in this scenario though. I think several of the Fine Gael councillors would be perfectly happy to see the Dublin Bikes disappear.

I also don't see public funds being allocated to the scheme. Public funds will continue to dwindle for the next five years or so, and possibly beyond.

On the other hand, it would be very interesting to see what would happen were some public funds to be diverted from buses and into a really widespread cycle-share scheme -- stations every 300m inside a circumference of 8km from the city centre. It might actually be cheaper than running as many buses as are currently run, and it might serve more people more usefully.

Don't get me wrong- I completely agree with you about the FG eejits. But remember- Ivor Callely was right in his opposition to tinted windows, even if it was for reasons he didn't intend.

As for the public funds, I'm not sure I'd like to see funds diverted from buses. Now if you'd said the Western Rail Corridor... Or how about the funds come from a range of Departments- Transport, Health, Environment, possibly more. And even given the dwindling public funds available, the case for funding cycling is more robust than just about any other transport mode- the cost-benefit ratio is one of the best, if not the best.

As for your point about pedestrian green time, I couldn't agree more. Dublin Bikes could be 10 or 20 times bigger and still be in the ha'penny place compared to the numbers using the footpaths on a daily basis. Walking really is crucial to this city, and it's pathetic how little consideration is given to the pedestrians.

@Cabaal- I've heard the figure of €2m per year bandied about as the annual running costs. The figures posted by monument above are for the short-term expansion- a far bigger roll out would cost more, though economies of scale do begin to kick in, and it seems to me that the bigger the scheme becomes, the more efficiently it can be run (less need to redistribute the bikes during the day, to give just one example). (I'm also not clear on the meaning of 'the value' being €6.6m- is this different from the cost? )

tomasrojo

Doctor Bob wrote: »

As for your point about pedestrian green time, I couldn't agree more. Dublin Bikes could be 10 or 20 times bigger and still be in the ha'penny place compared to the numbers using the footpaths on a daily basis. Walking really is crucial to this city, and it's pathetic how little consideration is given to the pedestrians.

Yes, I think pedestrians are probably the most neglected of all "road users" (for want of a better term -- they do have to cross roads all the time and walk on them occasionally).

In Dublin city centre, I imagine they constitute the largest transport mode, but I don't know what the numbers are. Someone posted them here during the 30 Zone dust-up, but I can't remember them now.

I know that a guy called Simon Comer has set up a pedestrian advocacy group, but I haven't heard much more about it. It's mentioned here:
http://www.dublincycling.com/node/578

EDIT: cosain.net is in the Cosain logo on that dublincycling.com page, but it doesn't exist as a website yet. I'm assuming that Cosain is still very much getting off the ground.