Commuting by car is king!

cdebru

Cienciano wrote: »

Cycling doesn't suit everyone. My commute comes up with a journey time of 52 minutes on a bike on google. From my experience a motorbike is the best way to get around Dublin city. Quicker than a bicycle, not as miserable, especially in weather like we had the last 10 days, fairly high winds and cold. No need for a shower at work and can wear normal clothes under waterproofs, can cover longer distances easier. Disadvantages is you still need a gym membership and it's far more expensive.

You can't use them on a motorbike officially, but no gardai will stop you. Even dedicated gardai bus lane checks will just wave you on.

No one method will suit everyone, weather is overplayed as an excuse not to cycle, I have cycled everyday the last 10 days, nothing miserable about it, it only appears cold and miserable when you're not cycling, you get cold on a motorbike because you are just sitting there cycling you are working cold is not a problem. You don't have to wear lycra to cycle btw,

Pinch Flat

cdebru wrote: »

Cycling is by far the easiest way to get around the city, a 10km commute by bike is less than 30minutes, no bus or car can compete with that, and your commute time is regular, besides that it is far cheaper and you can even scrap the gym membership you never use. No parking nightmares you can go directly to whatever part of the city need to get to.

I agree. I live just outside the m50 and cycle to Dublin City centre daily. Why anyone would drive it is beyond me, but there's a few masochists in the office who wouldn't travel any other way. Some are of a generation where the car was always a part of their lives - even in Dublin. So ferrying to and from school, activities and general areas that are well within walking distance.

Laziness though is a key factor. Some neighbours of mine will drive and park (and pay) at the local train station where It's a 10 minute walk away. Similarly I had a work colleague in a previous job who used to drive 500m from his apartment to the office (and back again at lunch). He complained of having no exercise and putting on weight - my suggestion to walk this was met with horror.

So it's horses for courses - for me a 5km walk to work is doable (have done so in the past - about 50 mins at a brisk pace) and I've looked previously at jobs that would involve a 30km commute by bike.

I cycle 13km to work - have done 20km previously. it's about 40 minutes door to door regardless of traffic and most weather (ie rain).

cgcsb

If people can cycle in their hundreds of thousands in wintery Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki then there's hardly an excuse in one of Europe's mildest climates. The problem with transport in Dublin is basically two issues:

1) low capacity public transport
2) no integrated ticketing

They are the big issues, everything else is a small technical problem. The NTA have had 6 years to make leap an integrated ticketing solution. So far nadda.

Various governments have dithered on DARTu and MetroN in various forms since 1976, which could add huge capacity through the City Centre, so far nadda.

Jawgap

Cienciano wrote: »

Cycling doesn't suit everyone. My commute comes up with a journey time of 52 minutes on a bike on google. From my experience a motorbike is the best way to get around Dublin city. Quicker than a bicycle, not as miserable, especially in weather like we had the last 10 days, fairly high winds and cold. No need for a shower at work and can wear normal clothes under waterproofs, can cover longer distances easier. Disadvantages is you still need a gym membership and it's far more expensive.

.......

Well it might be the quickest way, but is it the 'best' way? I think for anyone living around Dublin within 10 to 12 km of their workplace the bike is your only man.

Kilometer for kilometer cycling is the cheapest and most effective mode of moving around the city. You don't have to pay for insurance, road tax etc and you don't have to pay for a gym membership.

I agree, however, that it won't be attractive to everyone for a diverse range of reasons. I think though it suffers from the same 'image' problems scooters and motorbikes suffer from - it's dangerous; the weather is unsuitable; sweatiness; helmet hair etc

I used to do a ridiculously long commute (50km each way) which could take up to two hours - that's a long time I hear you say and it is for a commute. I didn't do it every day, but on the days I did it would take a total of about 3.5 hrs - if I drove it would take about 90 mins - however, if I drove and used the gym that would easily take the same time chunk out of my day.

The only added expenditure associated with doing a long commute by bike is food!

KevR

Seaswimmer wrote: »

slightly OT but is there any push to allow scooters and motorbikes use bus lanes? I think if bus lanes were opened up to them then with a bit of advertising and marketing we could switch some people from cars.

Would a motorbike be more efficient from a road space usage point of view than say a car with 3+ occupants?

I would be very much in favor of Galway City doing a trial with a number of its bus lanes. Open them up to cars with 3+ occupants (HOV lanes) for 6 months and see what happens. If it works well, it could be made permanent. If it doesn't work, switch back to bus lanes. The Seamus Quirke Road would be an ideal place to trial it in my opinion. Unfortunately, this idea was proposed and then shot down all too quickly.

BoatMad

KevR wrote: »

Would a motorbike be more efficient from a road space usage point of view than say a car with 3+ occupants?

I would be very much in favor of Galway City doing a trial with a number of its bus lanes. Open them up to cars with 3+ occupants (HOV lanes) for 6 months and see what happens. If it works well, it could be made permanent. If it doesn't work, switch back to bus lanes. The Seamus Quirke Road would be an ideal place to trial it in my opinion. Unfortunately, this idea was proposed and then shot down all too quickly.

Absolutely , bus lanes are a shocking waste of road space, and carry far fewer passengers per sq Km of road area, then peak cars. Additional space as bus lanes isn't a bad idea, but scavenging space from editing roads is nonsense, as is 24 hours bus lanes etc. Imagine suggesting a piece of road should be forbidden to other roads users, let there is no actual other public transport using it at that time.

Utter nonsense, just like the port tunnel, a piece of expensive infrastructure largely empty.

Pinch Flat

Port tunnel takes hundred of lorries off the quays everyday, so not exactly largely empty.

If it was open to the private car on the same pricing as the other tolls around Dublin it would quickly become clogged up.

BoatMad

Pinch Flat wrote: »

Port tunnel takes hundred of lorries off the quays everyday, so not exactly largely empty.

If it was open to the private car on the same pricing as the other tolls around Dublin it would quickly become clogged up.

why not drop the tolls to zero after a certain key time for trucks

I mean have you driven it in the middle of the day, often you are the only vehicle in it.

maninasia

Muahahaha wrote: »

AFAIK a scooter takes up 2sqm of road space and a car 12sqm. Scooters are actually part of a viable solution to Dublins traffic problems but sadly recent law changes from the EU have made getting into riding any kind of moped or motorbike very restrictive and a lot more expensive than it used to be.

Electric scooters and electric bikes are a great alternative to cars for short commutes. Traditional scooters are polluting and can be noisy. But electric scooters and bikes...massive potential and very convenient and cheap too. Problem in Ireland specifically would probably be theft and vandalism related.
Check out gogoro...just one of many innovative electric vehicles being developed worldwide.

http://www.gogoro.com/about/press/

In China electric scooters and bikes are everywhere but there are rumours that some cities will ban them due to poor driving behaviour, which doesn't make sense if you've seen the average Chinese car driver!

Within 10 years a confluence of electric vehicles and autonomous driving vehicles could make things very different in terms of getting around in dispersed areas. But to handle masses of people efficiently at rush hours in urban areas..nothing beats a modern subway system.

BoatMad

maninasia wrote: »

Electric scooters and electric bikes are a great alternative to cars for short commutes. Traditional scooters are polluting and can be noisy. But electric scooters and bikes...massive potential and very convenient and cheap too. Problem in Ireland specifically would probably be theft and vandalism related.
Check out gogoro...just one of many innovative electric vehicles being developed worldwide.

http://www.gogoro.com/about/press/

In China electric scooters and bikes are everywhere but there are rumours that some cities will ban them due to poor driving behaviour, which doesn't make sense if you've seen the average Chinese car driver!

Within 10 years a confluence of electric vehicles and autonomous driving vehicles could make things very different in terms of getting around in dispersed areas. But to handle masses of people efficiently at rush hours in urban areas..nothing beats a modern subway system.

LOL electric scooters, I can see the partner carrying home the weekly shopping in that , and where do the 3 kids go !!!

maninasia

Pinch Flat wrote: »

I agree. I live just outside the m50 and cycle to Dublin City centre daily. Why anyone would drive it is beyond me, but there's a few masochists in the office who wouldn't travel any other way. Some are of a generation where the car was always a part of their lives - even in Dublin. So ferrying to and from school, activities and general areas that are well within walking distance.

Laziness though is a key factor. Some neighbours of mine will drive and park (and pay) at the local train station where It's a 10 minute walk away. Similarly I had a work colleague in a previous job who used to drive 500m from his apartment to the office (and back again at lunch). He complained of having no exercise and putting on weight - my suggestion to walk this was met with horror.

So it's horses for courses - for me a 5km walk to work is doable (have done so in the past - about 50 mins at a brisk pace) and I've looked previously at jobs that would involve a 30km commute by bike.

I cycle 13km to work - have done 20km previously. it's about 40 minutes door to door regardless of traffic and most weather (ie rain).

Most 'lazy' people will remain 'lazy'. So give them a means of propulsion that doesn't involve too much exercise, wouldn't it just make sense that they can use electric bikes?

maninasia

BoatMad wrote: »

LOL electric scooters, I can see the partner carrying home the weekly shopping in that , and where do the 3 kids go !!!

Yes you could carry the weekly shopping on a scooter, millions do. But actually more people these days don't do weekly shopping.

Anyway...a scooter is not designed for carrying lots of people, but for quick trips for one or two people max. It does that very well and very economically.

The electric scooter is a huge advance compared to old scooters due to it's zero tail gate emissions.

Jawgap

BoatMad wrote: »

LOL electric scooters, I can see the partner carrying home the weekly shopping in that , and where do the 3 kids go !!!

The question is not where do the three kids go, the question is if you only have three kids what do you do with all the vacant space

Pinch Flat

BoatMad wrote: »

why not drop the tolls to zero after a certain key time for trucks

I mean have you driven it in the middle of the day, often you are the only vehicle in it.

It's i think €3 off peak - which is reasonable. It still has to get paid for in some shape or form - it is a public private partnership, not a charity that's running it

BoatMad

maninasia wrote: »

Most 'lazy' people will remain 'lazy'. So give them a means of propulsion that doesn't involve too much exercise, wouldn't it just make sense that they can use electric bikes?

perhaps you could reduce their food supply legally too!!

sheeesh talk about justifications

We live in a demand oriented society, people will use the form of transport they like

cgcsb

Provided public transport is sorted out, I'd say a congestion charge is the way forward, ringfencing the money collected for further infrastructure improvements

BoatMad

cgcsb wrote: »

Provided public transport is sorted out, I'd say a congestion charge is the way forward, ringfencing the money collected for further infrastructure improvements

infrastructure improvements

you mean more roads in Dublin , good idea, we definitely need an eastern ring to finish the M50. with all those high sped electric cars in the next 50 years , we need to engineer our roads for better speeds too. I mean the tesla can do 0-60 in 4 secs, and its only at the start of the technology curve.

BoatMad

cgcsb wrote: »

Provided public transport is sorted out, ....

that will never happen

Pinch Flat

BoatMad wrote: »

Absolutely , bus lanes are a shocking waste of road space, and carry far fewer passengers per sq Km of road area, then peak cars.

Do you have anything to back this up? I'm fininding it hard to imagine 80 single occupant cars taking up less road space than a full double decker bus or packed Luas.

Where I do see these as a waste of road space is where we have 24 hour bus lanes for a non existent 24 hour bus services.

BoatMad

Pinch Flat wrote: »

Do you have anything to back this up? I'm fininding it hard to imagine 80 single occupant cars taking up less road space than a full double decker bus or packed Luas.

Where I do see these as a waste of road space is where we have 24 hour bus lanes for a non existent 24 hour bus services.

Its simple logic,

stand beside a busy early morning bus lane , bedside a two carriageway road. say at cabinteely

Count buses in a half hour period, count cars in the same half hour period

assume nominal full bus and 1 person per car for worst case analysis, try it again at a 1.5 people per car average.

Bus lanes make sense where busses are extremely frequent and fill the lanes space. in rush hour traffic cars do fill the same space.

It makes for interesting counting

Do the same thing on say the Nangor road and its even more surprising


essentially far more people pass in cars in a given time period


Luas is actually better because of numberscarried per train set

Cienciano

cdebru wrote: »

No one method will suit everyone, weather is overplayed as an excuse not to cycle, I have cycled everyday the last 10 days, nothing miserable about it, it only appears cold and miserable when you're not cycling, you get cold on a motorbike because you are just sitting there cycling you are working cold is not a problem. You don't have to wear lycra to cycle btw,

No, definitely miserable getting onto a bike in the wind and rain! You won't get cold on a motorbike if you're doing a city commute with any half decent gear. Only if you go out onto a motorway.

Jawgap wrote: »

Well it might be the quickest way, but is it the 'best' way? I think for anyone living around Dublin within 10 to 12 km of their workplace the bike is your only man.

Kilometer for kilometer cycling is the cheapest and most effective mode of moving around the city. You don't have to pay for insurance, road tax etc and you don't have to pay for a gym membership.

I agree, however, that it won't be attractive to everyone for a diverse range of reasons. I think though it suffers from the same 'image' problems scooters and motorbikes suffer from - it's dangerous; the weather is unsuitable; sweatiness; helmet hair etc

I used to do a ridiculously long commute (50km each way) which could take up to two hours - that's a long time I hear you say and it is for a commute. I didn't do it every day, but on the days I did it would take a total of about 3.5 hrs - if I drove it would take about 90 mins - however, if I drove and used the gym that would easily take the same time chunk out of my day.

The only added expenditure associated with doing a long commute by bike is food!

The "best" way is entirely down to the individual and their commute. Bike suits lots of people, but doesn't suit others. I'd imagine if I lived and worked on the green luas line I'd use that.
I've done commuting by car, bike, motorbike and bus. Currently car is the best. When I worked in the city centre motorbike or bicycle was the best. Public transport has never suited my commute though.

Pinch Flat

Ok fair enough - but the vast majority of cars commuting to Dublin are 20% full (ie single occupant). If an average car measures say 2m wide by let's say 5m long, that's I occupant per 10 sq m of road space. Let's take a packed bus - say 60 people. I'm no transport expert, but packing 60 people plus into a space that takes up say 35 sq m of road space.

Show me any mass transit system tgat works on the model of the private car as its primary means of moving lots of people and I will stand corrected.

BoatMad

Pinch Flat wrote: »

Ok fair enough - but the vast majority of cars commuting to Dublin are 20% full (ie single occupant). If an average car measures say 2m wide by let's say 5m long, that's I occupant per 10 sq m of road space. Let's take a packed bus - say 60 people. I'm no transport expert, but packing 60 people plus into a space that takes up say 35 sq m of road space.

Show me any mass transit system tgat works on the model of the private car as its primary means of moving lots of people and I will stand corrected.

Yes, but the flaw in that argument is that busses at peak times don't use all the road space allotted to them , whereas cars do. So if you had a near continuous flow of busses, your arguments would be correct. But all that would do is actually cause massive bus foulups.

At the end of the day, transport is about moving people per hour ( or by minute etc ) a bus lane with fractional loading is very inefficient in that. ( even if the people on any given bus are benefitting).

Light or heavy rail is actually much better as its a tightly controlled system, and hence with modern signalling or direct train control , you can potentially use far larger percentages of track space. of course the capital costs are huge .

Not arguing car re private transport,merely that bus lanes are a bad use of a scare resource , i.e. a road, especially where that lane is scavenged from existing car users.

Its a triumph of ideology over common sense

room_149

View wrote: »

In the case of the Mullingar-Athlone route, it could be as it would mean connections to Connolly and the IFSC.

Would this really be an option for people in Athlone? The Mullingar service to Dublin rattles along at a snails pace. I used it, gave up on it & used to drive to Leixlip or Maynooth & get the train into work from those places instead. I'd make my office in less than an hour

BoatMad

room_149 wrote: »

Would this really be an option for people in Athlone? The Mullingar service to Dublin rattles along at a snails pace. I used it, gave up on it & used to drive to Leixlip or Maynooth & get the train into work from those places instead. I'd make my office in less than an hour

There is unfortunately no justification for reopening that line. The rail connections from Connolly are way to over utilised at present and there is plans to electrify that section and introduce high frequency local commuter. This tends to kibosh sub-urban or interurban facilities as there isn't any train paths available.

The fact is that both Heustion and Connolly stations where never designed for high frequency commuter systems and are far to space constrained to ever be.

The fact is a good road system with then high density commuter trains , running from proper park and ride is a far better solution. Not that we can actually implement that properly

Pinch Flat

BoatMad wrote: »

Yes, but the flaw in that argument is that busses at peak times don't use all the road space allotted to them , whereas cars do. So if you had a near continuous flow of busses, your arguments would be correct. But all that would do is actually cause massive bus foulups.

At the end of the day, transport is about moving people per hour ( or by minute etc ) a bus lane with fractional loading is very inefficient in that. ( even if the people on any given bus are benefitting).

Light or heavy rail is actually much better as its a tightly controlled system, and hence with modern signalling or direct train control , you can potentially use far larger percentages of track space. of course the capital costs are huge .

Not arguing car re private transport,merely that bus lanes are a bad use of a scare resource , i.e. a road, especially where that lane is scavenged from existing car users.

Its a triumph of ideology over common sense

I'm finding it hard to visualise 60 single occupant cars being more efficient than a bus with 60 passengers in terms of road space usage, whether the bus is using the bus lane or not. Of course the ideal situation would be a dedicated bus corridor like what's planned for swords.

But yeah light rail / metro on dedicated infrastructure is the way forward for mass transport that's efficient

BoatMad

Pinch Flat wrote: »

I'm finding it hard to visualise 60 single occupant cars being more efficient than a bus with 60 passengers in terms of road space usage, whether the bus is using the bus lane or not. Of course the ideal situation would be a dedicated bus corridor like what's planned for swords.

But yeah light rail / metro on dedicated infrastructure is the way forward for mass transport that's efficient

Once in rush hour , assuming a basic movement of cars, once more then a busload of people in cars pass, before a bus passes, means the busway is being used less efficiently then the adjacent road space.

In many many busways in Dublin, you will get 60 cars past before a bus passes. On the nangor road for example, you can have three to four times the number of cars passing in the time a bus passes and the bus may not be full

Pinch Flat

BoatMad wrote: »

Once in rush hour , assuming a basic movement of cars, once more then a busload of people in cars pass, before a bus passes, means the busway is being used less efficiently then the adjacent road space.

In many many busways in Dublin, you will get 60 cars past before a bus passes. On the nangor road for example, you can have three to four times the number of cars passing in the time a bus passes and the bus may not be full

That's assuming the road is clear. The sheer volume of private one person cars going into Dublin is far in excess of what the system can cope with - this adversely affects the road space available for more efficient means of transport which includes buses.

I observe something different in Pearse st in the evening coming home - severAl lanes of cars that are at a standstill. The bus lane is busy - perhaps half a dozen or so buses would pass the near stationary line of cars.

Interesting reading at the following link
http://www.planetizen.com/node/59357

cdebru

Pinch Flat wrote: »

Do you have anything to back this up? I'm fininding it hard to imagine 80 single occupant cars taking up less road space than a full double decker bus or packed Luas.

Where I do see these as a waste of road space is where we have 24 hour bus lanes for a non existent 24 hour bus services.

24 hour bus lanes are normally where they wouldn't be a road lane if it wasn't a bus lane so there is no loss of road space, besides if you can do without it all day you are hardly likely to need to drive in it at 3am are you ?

cdebru

BoatMad wrote: »

Once in rush hour , assuming a basic movement of cars, once more then a busload of people in cars pass, before a bus passes, means the busway is being used less efficiently then the adjacent road space.

In many many busways in Dublin, you will get 60 cars past before a bus passes. On the nangor road for example, you can have three to four times the number of cars passing in the time a bus passes and the bus may not be full

A full AV carries upto 91 people, a full VT carries up to 124 people put yourself at the end of a queue of 124 cars and see how long it takes to get through a junction, that's presuming the other side of the junction isn't full of cars as well. Even if you are correct and 60 cars pass you would need another 30 to 60 before you the equivalent of a bus load had passed.
Three to four cars passing before a bus passes lol yeah how inefficient.