Dublin - BusConnects

Last Stop

monument wrote: »

The NTA has admitted their modelling doesn’t track cycling well.

Proof?

LeinsterDub

Last Stop wrote: »

The current numbers cycling in Dublin at the minute is around the 10% mark. So while cyclists continue to moan about a lack of infrastructure as the reason people don’t cycle, even if we did built the infrastructure that number would not rise considerably as has suggested by monument and others on here.
I don’t know how much clearer I can make this point.

You can't take figures from one source and use them to dismiss the findings of an unrelated report. And even if you could I would just refer you back to the NTAs report which shows the GDA cycling plan is predicted to lead to a doubling of the modal share

monument

Last Stop wrote: »

I don’t see how you can be positive about the response from DMURS given he has said what I have been saying all along.

No, he said it’s workable. You said it wasn’t.

The junction as it is currently proposed priorities cyclists.

Raised zebras do not proposed priorities cyclists over pedestrians.

Last Stop wrote: »

Do you really want to frustrate people more by leading them astray again?

Anybody can look at your posts and mine and judge who is trying to be misleading — you have asked questions you know the answers to just to make “got you” type replies. I’m really not going to engage with you again today like before.

Last Stop wrote: »

And once again I have to point out that if you remove the space you still have a Dutch style junction which of course you don’t like because it would mean cyclists have to stop. Can you not just admit that?

It should be fairly clear to everyone you don’t know much about cycling infrastructure and especially not Dutch infrastructure.

Last Stop

LeinsterDub wrote: »

You can't take figures from one source and use them to dismiss the findings of an unrelated report. And even if you could I would just refer you back to the NTAs report which shows the GDA cycling plan is predicted to lead to a doubling of the modal share

Which brings me back to my very original point that spending €2bn as is required to build the GDA cycling strategy would not have the same impact as building €2bn worth of tram lines.
Cycling investment would increase modal share by 5%
Luas investment (based investment to date) would increase modal share by over 10%

monument

Last Stop wrote: »

Proof?

LeinsterDub wrote: »

You can't take figures from one source and use them to dismiss the findings of an unrelated report. And even if you could I would just refer you back to the NTAs report which shows the GDA cycling plan is predicted to lead to a doubling of the modal share

What he said.

LeinsterDub

Last Stop wrote: »

Which brings me back to my very original point that spending €2bn as is required to build the GDA cycling strategy would not have the same impact as building €2bn worth of tram lines.
Cycling investment would increase modal share by 5%
Luas investment (based investment to date) would increase modal share by over 10%

Where did the 2 bl for the GDA cycling scheme come from? Where did your Luas figures come from?

Last Stop

monument wrote: »

No, he said it’s workable. You said it wasn’t.

Raised zebras do not proposed priorities cyclists over pedestrians.

Anybody can look at your posts and mine and judge who is trying to be misleading — you have asked questions you know the answers to just to make “got you” type replies. I’m really not going to engage with you again today like before.


It should be fairly clear to everyone you don’t know much about cycling infrastructure and especially not Dutch infrastructure.

Where have I ever said it’s not workable. Or are you twisting my words yet again??
Putting the space there as you have openly admitted is used to avoid cyclists stopping. DMURS says consider pedestrians first. If you considered pedestrians first, the cyclist would have to stop.
I have asked questions that you and I know the answer to but you refuse to acknowledge.

When you say I don’t know much about cycling infrastructure, I assume you’re referring to my unwillingness to be duped into all the fallacies and nonsense that is being used to justify their demands for more space and great priority even though it has been pointed out time and again that other modes are more efficient

Last Stop

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Where did the 2 bl for the GDA cycling scheme come from? Where did your Luas figures come from?

The €2bn comes from the estimated cost in the GDA cycling strategy.
The €2bn for Luas comes from the 50km of lines I’ve advocated for instead of Busconnects. Monument has advised on existing Luas investment which is in line with what I would estimate.

Last Stop

monument wrote: »

What he said.

So you don’t have proof is what you’re saying?

MJohnston

What's all this penis flopping got to do with BusConnects again?

LeinsterDub

Last Stop wrote: »

The €2bn comes from the estimated cost in the GDA cycling strategy.
The €2bn for Luas comes from the 50km of lines I’ve advocated for instead of Busconnects. Monument has advised on existing Luas investment which is in line with what I would estimate.

Links please. Luas cross city cost 368 million for circa 6 km. Putting 50km of Luas north of 3.5bl. Where are your costings coming from?

Sam Russell

Mod: Can we drop this stuff about cyclists. Bus connects is about buses (and less about cyclists).

I think the arguments about cyclists and provision for them have run into repetition at this stage.

Luas is for another thread.

monument

Last Stop wrote: »

Where have I ever said it’s not workable. Or are you twisting my words yet again??
Putting the space there as you have openly admitted is used to avoid cyclists stopping. DMURS says consider pedestrians first. If you considered pedestrians first, the cyclist would have to stop.
I have asked questions that you and I know the answer to but you refuse to acknowledge.

When you say I don’t know much about cycling infrastructure, I assume you’re referring to my unwillingness to be duped into all the fallacies and nonsense that is being used to justify their demands for more space and great priority even though it has been pointed out time and again that other modes are more efficient

Re your line that “DMURS says consider pedestrians first. If you considered pedestrians first, the cyclist would have to stop”

That’s your claim. But the author of the manual says yielding would be good enough.

I’ve already replied to your other points.

Last Stop

monument wrote: »

Re your line that “DMURS says consider pedestrians first. If you considered pedestrians first, the cyclist would have to stop”

That’s your claim. But the author of the manual says yielding would be good enough.

I’ve already replied to your other points.

So we’re now settling for good enough instead of best practice?

donvito99

Bus Connects intends to provide for 200km of cycle lanes. Why is discussion on this to be ended along with discussion of Luas, which does not form a part of Bus connects?

Last Stop

donvito99 wrote: »

Bus Connects intends to provide for 200km of cycle lanes. Why is discussion on this to be ended along with discussion of Luas, which does not form a part of Bus connects?

Because as was noted there is only so many times you can repeat the same argument.
The argument around cycling was regarding a substandard junction design proposed as part of Busconnects which some on here have argued is adequate when even on of the authors of DMURs says it’s not great.
I agree cycling in general should be discussed but continually trying to defend a substandard design shouldn’t.
I apologise in advance mod if someone takes offence and sees the need to reply based on a senseless argument.

CatInABox

Last Stop wrote: »

The argument around cycling was regarding a substandard junction design proposed as part of Busconnects which some on here have argued is adequate when even on of the authors of DMURs says it’s not great.

Just out of curiosity, which author said it's not great? Where?

Last Stop

CatInABox wrote: »

Just out of curiosity, which author said it's not great? Where?

In my interpretation of the English language; good enough (as monument has paraphrased the author) is the equivalent to not great.
Now can we please park this.
Busconnects is a hard enough sell as is without those who are interested in the scheme being put off by senseless arguments

CatInABox

Last Stop wrote: »

In my interpretation of the English language; good enough (as monument has paraphrased the author) is the equivalent to not great.
Now can we please park this.
Busconnects is a hard enough sell as is without those who are interested in the scheme being put off by senseless arguments

Ah here, I'm happy to take a rap on the knuckles for this, but you can't go around throwing out lies and then declaring that it's the last word.

Monument didn't say the author said the junction would be "good enough", he said "yielding would be good enough", which is a very different thing.

The author is also quite happy with other, very similar designs:

https://twitter.com/JTUrbanDesign/status/1173894251228422146

Last Stop

CatInABox wrote: »

Ah here, I'm happy to take a rap on the knuckles for this, but you can't go around throwing out lies and then declaring that it's the last word.

Monument didn't say the author said the junction would be "good enough", he said "yielding would be good enough", which is a very different thing.

The author is also quite happy with other, very similar designs:

https://twitter.com/JTUrbanDesign/status/1173894251228422146

Ah here. Mods I’m afraid someone is going to have to intervene here because as much as I’d like to avoid an argument, I cannot sit back and let someone defend a substandard design by nitpicking.

The author said “yielding is good enough”. Do you agree that in general the term good enough is the equivalent as not great because you failed to address that point previously?
So if yielding is not great and the design includes yielding then surely the design is not great or good enough.

The author is not also quite happy with other, very similar designs as you suggest.
You cannot seriously compare a bus stop to a signalised junction.
To clarify the bus stop deign makes sense because unlike a signalised junction example:
1. The pedestrian only has to cross once to get to where they want to go (unlike the 3 in the other example)
2. There is a yield sign on the pedestrian crossing unlike the junction example.
3. The sign as noted in the twitter thread clearly defines the area as a pedestrian priority zone
4. It’s by far the safest way to manage THIS situation. I’ve pointed out countless times that in the junction example, if cyclists were to stop it would be far safer.

So can we please just close this argument by acknowledging that the proposed design is lightyears better than the previous one but not great (which with some adjustments it could be)

specialbyte

Last Stop wrote: »

It’s beyond laughable at this stage.
NTA have shown building infrastructure won’t increase cycling.

I know we want to end this cycling argument but can I quickly dispel this myth.

When the Frascati Road and Temple Hill (Blackrock Bypass) cycle scheme was built by the NTA and DLRCC it caused a 49% increase in cycling. This scheme was only 1.4km long. It doesn't form a cycling network (but it will some day). Network effects (and the underling maths - used in the models) are compelling.

Source: https://www.dlrcoco.ie/en/news/general-news-press-releases/council-announce-49-increase-cyclists-rock-road-blackrock
Source 2: https://irishcycle.com/2016/10/06/making-space-for-cycling-increases-numbers-of-people-cycling-on-dublin-route/
More details on that project here on the cycle infrastructure tracker board: https://trello.com/c/66sQgSLa/74-frascati-road-and-temple-hill-route-improvement-scheme

If you're using the NTA's modelling from the GDA Strategy then you don't really understanding what strategic modelling it trying to model. It intentionally ignores some short journeys for simplicity. This includes walking and cycling journeys. This is because of the kinds of screen-level analysis that these strategic models do. When you do fine-grained street level modelling the models *predict* increases in people cycling. When we actually build good cycle infrastructure we actually see more people cycle.

I don't see why BusConnects and the 200km of cycle track it is proposing would not create even more significant boosts in cycling.

Sam Russell

Mod: I am reopening this thread.

Can we keep the cycling topic to just how it affects the infrastructural elements of Busconnects. General comments about cycling should go elsewhere.


Sorry for any inconvenience.

CatInABox

More meetings last night, and more of these junctions revealed:

https://twitter.com/Feljin_J/status/1174077608658706432

Last Stop

CatInABox wrote: »

More meetings last night, and more of these junctions revealed:

https://twitter.com/Feljin_J/status/1174077608658706432

Slightly improved design but still don’t get why they can’t swap the cycle lane and footpaths

specialbyte

CatInABox wrote: »

More meetings last night, and more of these junctions revealed:

https://twitter.com/Feljin_J/status/1174077608658706432

I just want to highlight that the junction shown at the Swords meeting is a Manchester-style Protected Junction. The junction shown at the Bray BusConnects meeting was a Dutch-style protected junction. The junction shown at the Clongriffin meeting was most similar to the protected junctions Dublin City Council are proposing for the FitzWilliam Cycle Route and Clontarf to City Centre cycle route (Dublin-style protected junction???).

All three have protected corners and provide traffic lights to cyclists. This prevents the dangerous (lethal) left-hook from motor traffic. It's a huge barrier to many people starting cycling. All of these designs are quite similar but with some subtle differences that mostly affect the traffic light sequencing. I'm not an expect on this topic but here's the key differences:

* Dutch-style has an island for pedestrians. (Image here: https://trello.com/c/TzGnF5Na/32-busconnects-cbc13-bray) Pedestrians cross the cycle track to an island to wait to cross the road. Pedestrians normally have priority across the cycle track with a zebra crossing and raised platform. Cyclists crossing the road can have green light at the same time as pedestrians when travelling in parallel. The conflict is handled by the islands/zeberas out of phase of the traffic lights.
* Manchester-style also has an island for pedestrians to wait at but this island is where the corner island are in the Dutch design (image above). I understand that this arrangement allows you to run an all-green wrap-around pedestrian phase. This allows pedestrians to cross the junction in a diagonal without conflicting with bikes. Manchester are mostly using it for inner-city junctions and not on larger distributor roads like the N11, Malahide Road or Swords Road.
* The Dublin-style (which you can see here: https://trello.com/c/sljdIlQI/3-clontarf-to-city-centre-cycle-route) don't have an island for pedestrians there is instead three sets of traffic lights for cyclists so that they never cross a pedestrian crossing when the pedestrians have a green light. This is because the Irish Traffic Signals manual and Irish Law prevents such an arrangement. This could be avoided using a Manchester or Dutch approach.

I think it's great to see the NTA looking at all of these designs. I hope BusConnects will settle on one or two of these approaches and not all three. Consistency of design is useful. Though the design needs to respond to the context it is in. A junction like the Five Lamps in the city is very different to White's Cross on the N11. The modal share at these junctions and their purpose is different so the design should be different too.

Last Stop

specialbyte wrote: »

I just want to highlight that the junction shown at the Swords meeting is a Manchester-style Protected Junction. The junction shown at the Bray BusConnects meeting was a Dutch-style protected junction. The junction shown at the Clongriffin meeting was most similar to the protected junctions Dublin City Council are proposing for the FitzWilliam Cycle Route and Clontarf to City Centre cycle route (Dublin-style protected junction???).

All three have protected corners and provide traffic lights to cyclists. This prevents the dangerous (lethal) left-hook from motor traffic. It's a huge barrier to many people starting cycling. All of these designs are quite similar but with some subtle differences that mostly affect the traffic light sequencing. I'm not an expect on this topic but here's the key differences:

* Dutch-style has an island for pedestrians. (Image here: https://trello.com/c/TzGnF5Na/32-busconnects-cbc13-bray) Pedestrians cross the cycle track to an island to wait to cross the road. Pedestrians normally have priority across the cycle track with a zebra crossing and raised platform. Cyclists crossing the road can have green light at the same time as pedestrians when travelling in parallel. The conflict is handled by the islands/zeberas out of phase of the traffic lights.
* Manchester-style also has an island for pedestrians to wait at but this island is where the corner island are in the Dutch design (image above). I understand that this arrangement allows you to run an all-green wrap-around pedestrian phase. This allows pedestrians to cross the junction in a diagonal without conflicting with bikes. Manchester are mostly using it for inner-city junctions and not on larger distributor roads like the N11, Malahide Road or Swords Road.
* The Dublin-style (which you can see here: https://trello.com/c/sljdIlQI/3-clontarf-to-city-centre-cycle-route) don't have an island for pedestrians there is instead three sets of traffic lights for cyclists so that they never cross a pedestrian crossing when the pedestrians have a green light. This is because the Irish Traffic Signals manual and Irish Law prevents such an arrangement. This could be avoided using a Manchester or Dutch approach.

I think it's great to see the NTA looking at all of these designs. I hope BusConnects will settle on one or two of these approaches and not all three. Consistency of design is useful. Though the design needs to respond to the context it is in. A junction like the Five Lamps in the city is very different to White's Cross on the N11. The modal share at these junctions and their purpose is different so the design should be different too.

Great summary of the options available.
Based on the application of DMURS and putting all them in an Irish context you’d have to say that the best option is the “Dublin style”. Which begs the question. Why in God’s name did the NTA develop an inferior design when there was a better version produced as part of another NTA funded project? Honestly the mind boggles.

As regards the other soundbites coming out of these meetings, there are rumours of certain corridors such as the Crumlin one going from 4 lanes (I.e. a full QBC) to 3 lanes (2 car and 1 bus lane) with bus priority signals for the direction without a bus lane.
If that’s the case then we’re screwed. The Crumlin corridor is planned for a frequency of 5 mins or better. There is absolutely no way that can be done without a full QBC and even with a QBC then it’s questionable.
To explain the above; buses struggle to achieve high frequencies for a number of reasons including
1) on board ticketing (we’ll still all have to tag on)
2) Ramps requiring mechanical deployment for disabled passengers
3) frequent stops and irregular stopping patterns
4) interaction with other modes of transport
Other modes of transport don’t have this problem due to off board ticketing, platform level access, fixed stopping patterns and typically a reasonable amount of segregation/priority.
The reason we need high frequencies is because capacity is a function of vehicle capacity x frequency.

It is is quite clear that because of the high frequencies proposed under Busconnects that a number of corridors have demand far in excess of what can be provided by buses. A radial solution is needed.

donvito99

Last Stop wrote: »

You’re seriously trying to resurrect this argument (when it has been shown just 2 posts above that there is a better design more in keeping with the Irish context) by subjective use of the English language?
I never said it was the opposite of good enough so you’re wrong there. What I said was it wasn’t great.
Call it good enough, sufficient, fine, adequate, could do better or whatever the **** your thesaurus is feeling but you cannot call that design great. End of story, move on.

You can't call the design you favour great either. I would support the design which is extremely successful at safely accommodating pedestrians, cyclists and motorists in other jurisdictions. That is not the 'Dublin design'.

Great to see the NTA championing this, if done correctly and without compromise, could lead to the roll out of this spec to non-bus connects projects across the country. Any bit of design that reduces the number of people on bicycles being crushed to death by left turning heavy vehicles is a good thing.

Last Stop

donvito99 wrote: »

You can't call the design you favour great either. I would support the design which is extremely successful at safely accommodating pedestrians, cyclists and motorists in other jurisdictions. That is not the 'Dublin design'.

Great to see the NTA championing this, if done correctly and without compromise, could lead to the roll out of this spec to non-bus connects projects across the country. Any bit of design that reduces the number of people on bicycles being crushed to death by left turning heavy vehicles is a good thing.

But this isn’t another jurisdiction is it? The Dutch design works well for them but the Dublin model has adapted it to be more in line with Ireland and the design standards we use

MJohnston

Is there an example of the "Dublin model" actually in use anywhere in Dublin right now?

roadmaster

When the bus corridor construction works actually start who will be in charge of the works will it be TII or each individual local authorities looking after sections that are in there area?