Dublin Cycleway Projects Halted.

Eamonnator

Report from R.T.E.
A number of city centre projects have been halted because of increased costs related to the new Luas works.
Win Win, I guess for Luas: fewer cyclists, more Luas passengers.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2016/0903/813950-cycleways-dublin-luas/

odyssey06

As far as unelected state bodies go, anyone who takes any other form of transport is a peasant who deserves to be maximally inconvenienced to make way for the shiny new LUAS.

markpb

I could be wrong but the statement from NTA sounds to me like there's a shortage of other resources, not cash. I've heard nothing about cost overruns on the cross city project.

Eamonnator

I took resources to mean cash.

Firedance

In a statement, the National Transport Authority which provides funding for the projects said that the resources of Dublin City Council need to be "re-focussed" because of the demands of Luas cross city and other traffic management schemes.

I wonder what the other schemes are. What a shame, I"m just starting out cycling to work, on the days I don't cycle I get the train (Docklands line) and I often wonder why they don't develop a dedicated cycle lane along rail lines. Obviously Irish Rail wouldn't be very happy if custom was taken from them but if the grand canal was developed from Clonsilla - Castleknock I"d be delighted! Seems to me like rail lines and luas lines are obvious places for cycle paths to be developed along side..

prinzeugen

odyssey06 wrote: »

As far as Dublin City Council is concerned, anyone who takes any other form of transport is a peasant who deserves to be maximally inconvenienced to make way for the shiny new plaza and cycle lanes.

Fixed your post.

Glad the Dodder scheme is on hold as its one of the few "natural" areas left in South Dublin.

Lovely tree lined path by the river around Dartry.

The cycle track would destroy that.

Red Kev

prinzeugen wrote: »

Fixed your post.

Glad the Dodder scheme is on hold as its one of the few "natural" areas left in South Dublin.

Lovely tree lined path by the river around Dartry.

The cycle track would destroy that.

It wasn;t a cycle track that was planned, it was a greenway, to be used by both cyclists and walkers. There was to be no realignment or widening in that area, in fact the idea was to encourage cyclists to go via Orwell walk and over a new or modified bridge to Dartry park (removing the steps on the existing bridge).

The plans were on display at a public meeting in the Dropping Well a couple of months ago, seemed to be sympathetically done all round.

CramCycle

prinzeugen wrote: »

Fixed your post.

Glad the Dodder scheme is on hold as its one of the few "natural" areas left in South Dublin.

Lovely tree lined path by the river around Dartry.

The cycle track would destroy that.

Did you look at the proposals? I would be interested in hearing your view on how it would "destroy" that?

Chuchote

Lunacy. For the first time in modern history, the number of people commuting into Dublin by bicycle has topped 10,000, and this is the point at which the geniuses of Dublin street design decide to axe three greenways that would guide a lot of cyclists along safe and pleasant routes free from cars.

@prinzeugen, could I suggest that you try cycling from Milltown (path through park) to Ringsend along the cycle/walk tracks (you'll only have to enter a road with cars at Beaver Row and briefly at Donnybrook while you squiggle left from Beaver Row and right after Bective). These paths are pleasant for walkers and cyclists.

Apparently Shane Ross thinks managing Transport has been a "doddle"…

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/ross-doddle-jibe-prompts-union-anger-35019396.html

magicbastarder

weird. is that some odd tactic of his in response to the near-universal slating of him for having achieved little since taking office?

2RockMountain

odyssey06 wrote: »

As far as unelected state bodies go, anyone who takes any other form of transport is a peasant who deserves to be maximally inconvenienced to make way for the shiny new LUAS.

The mission of the NTA is to move people out of cars onto sustainable forms of transport, including Luas and cycling and walking and buses and trains.

Firedance wrote: »

In a statement, the National Transport Authority which provides funding for the projects said that the resources of Dublin City Council need to be "re-focussed" because of the demands of Luas cross city and other traffic management schemes.

There is no particular statement from the NTA on their site, so it is hard to see what's going on here;

https://www.nationaltransport.ie/news/latest-news/

Firedance wrote: »

I wonder what the other schemes are. What a shame, I"m just starting out cycling to work, on the days I don't cycle I get the train (Docklands line) and I often wonder why they don't develop a dedicated cycle lane along rail lines. Obviously Irish Rail wouldn't be very happy if custom was taken from them but if the grand canal was developed from Clonsilla - Castleknock I"d be delighted! Seems to me like rail lines and luas lines are obvious places for cycle paths to be developed along side..

There is an engineering challenge about how to mix cyclists and passengers at each train platform. You'd need some kind of underpass or overpass, with inclines that would be difficult for many cyclists.

tomasrojo

magicbastarder wrote: »

weird. is that some odd tactic of his in response to the near-universal slating of him for having achieved little since taking office?

I just read in the Indo that he said Transport had been a doddle compared to Sport. To be fair to him, that's not quite the same as saying that he'd found the Transport part of his portfolio easy, per se. He's just found the IOC scandal the hardest thing he's had to deal with so far.

Of course, as you say, Transport has been easy enough, because he hasn't tried to do very much! Some strikes should get him working. Maybe.

ThisRegard

More swipes taken at Ross, albeit from a man who doesn't want to be alarmist yet says Dublin is not yet safe to cycle in
"It's bananas!": Fury as funding pulled for Dublin cycling projects http://jrnl.ie/2964771

Chuchote

Cllr Smyth says Dublin should be aiming for 15% to 20% of commuters to be cyclists, as in Amsterdam and Paris. I find this a surprising figure. I'd imagine it was waaaaaaayyyy higher in Amsterdam, and much lower in Paris. Are there any figures?

PaddyFagan

Chuchote wrote: »

Are there any figures?

Google found this - https://ecf.com/resources/cycling-facts-and-figures

EU Capitals___Cycling modal share_____Year
Amsterdam________32%____________2012
<snip>
Dublin_____________7.9%__________2013
<snip>
Paris______2% (2nd source: 5%)_____2013

CramCycle

Chuchote wrote: »

Cllr Smyth says Dublin should be aiming for 15% to 20% of commuters to be cyclists, as in Amsterdam and Paris. I find this a surprising figure. I'd imagine it was waaaaaaayyyy higher in Amsterdam, and much lower in Paris. Are there any figures?

Based on the Canal Cordon survey, bikes are at 11.9% last year in DCC

Chuchote

Pretty astonishing figures there, PaddyFagan - but the years are different for different cities. London's cycling is exploding, especially since the 'Boris bicycle superhighways':

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2016/mar/08/boris-johnson-mayor-segregated-cycling-routes-for-london

so the figure for London could probably be trebled. Rome's is really strange - does no one cycle there?

CramCycle wrote: »

Based on the Canal Cordon survey, bikes are at 11.9% last year in DCC

So Dublin city centre cycling rose from nearly 8% to nearly 12% in two years, and numbers are still rocketing? It's insane to cut infrastructure funding, in fact it's murderous, as there will be more cyclists killed as the numbers on city streets rather than separate infrastructure rise.

tomasrojo

Ross doesn't take cycling seriously. He's probably quite dangerous for the future of cycling in that regard. I'm hoping this government falls quite soon, and he can go back to speechifying on the margins.

EDIT: don't bikes take more people into the city centre than the Luas?

tomasrojo

I must say Dublin does have a LOT of cyclists compared to ten years ago, and quite a varied selection of people too, though, as said in the journal.ie article, low on middle-aged women, children and older people.

Berlin, I would say, has many more, and Amsterdam many more again.

The London figure I would say is still quite low, because London is huge and most of the big gains have been in a relatively small number of boroughs. That's just a guess though. I actually don't know at all.

Chuchote

tomasrojo wrote: »

The London figure I would say is still quite low, because London is huge and most of the big gains have been in a relatively small number of boroughs. That's just a guess though. I actually don't know at all.

From that Boris Johnson piece:

While bikes now make up a fairly high proportion of vehicles in central London – 24%, according to Andrew Gilligan, Johnson’s cycling commissioner

tomasrojo

Sure, I'm aware that cycling levels are very high in some areas, but London has a vast area outside central London. I'm sure the modal share is higher than 2% now, but I wouldn't be surprised if that 24% is diluted right down by all the other bits of London.

EDIT: I don't go to London very often, but I'd be very happy to see modal share go right up there. Our lot pay a lot of attention to what goes on there. Not to the point of having referendums to leave trading blocs though, I hope.

buffalo

So the RSA/DoT says "you have to use the cycle facilities provided", and the NTA/TII says "we're not providing any cycle facilities".

Joined up thinking at its best.

magicbastarder

tomasrojo wrote: »

EDIT: don't bikes take more people into the city centre than the Luas?

just did some googling - LUAS claims 89,000 passenger journeys daily (which might imply 45,000 return journeys); that does not necessarily mean that they come into the city centre.
DCC and the NTA claim 11,000 people cycle into the city.

Chuchote

There could be far more Luasers if the promised free park-and-ride car parks had been provided.

Carawaystick

magicbastarder wrote: »

just did some googling - LUAS claims 89,000 passenger journeys daily (which might imply 45,000 return journeys); that does not necessarily mean that they come into the city centre.
DCC and the NTA claim 11,000 people cycle into the city.

Is the dcc/nta cycle count not crossing the canal cordon only? ignoring jopurney's made in the city.

tomasrojo

Carawaystick wrote: »

Is the dcc/nta cycle count not crossing the canal cordon only? ignoring jopurney's made in the city.

Yeah, I thought that the only count done was the Canal Cordon one.

Carawaystick

There were 980k dublin bikes trips in 2015, or 2680 per day.

Doctor Bob

magicbastarder wrote: »

just did some googling - LUAS claims 89,000 passenger journeys daily (which might imply 45,000 return journeys); that does not necessarily mean that they come into the city centre.
DCC and the NTA claim 11,000 people cycle into the city.

The DCC figure covers the period 0700-1000hrs and relates only to cyclists crossing the canal cordon. The only reliable conclusion that can be drawn is that the number of daily cycle trips is no lower that 11,000, but it might be far higher- cyclists who stay wholly within the canal ring (including almost all DB users), cyclists who stay wholly outside it, cyclists who cycle before 0700hrs or after 1000 hrs, etc.

The comparison tomasrojo was referring to, I suspect, is that more people cross the canal cordon by bike than on the Luas in the morning peak hour, which I've heard Andrew Montague say before.

Doctor Bob

Carawaystick wrote: »

There were 980k dublin bikes trips in 2015, or 2680 per day.

According to a Coca Cola press release earlier this year, there were 4.1M trips on DBs in 2015, with 17,222 on the busiest day (8th October).

Firedance

Deedsie wrote: »

And potentially it gets worse and worse for cyclists...

http://www.thejournal.ie/dublin-bus-strike-bus-lanes-2966661-Sep2016/

Reading that it doesn't look like anything will change, bus lanes will not be opened to cars during the strikes and rightly so, there are a lot more than just Dublin Bus using those lanes.

tomasrojo

A number of cycle routes in Dublin including the Dodder Greenway had to be postponed because of a "shock" under-allocation from the Government, according to the city council.

Chief Executive Owen Keegan said that the National Transport Authority had not received the promised allocation for cycling and waking facilities from the Department of Transport.

http://m.rte.ie/news/2016/0905/814409-cycle-routes-dublin/

All the Sir Humphreys at the Department in the driving seat now.