Bicycles, Phoenix Park and traffic

Mercian Pro

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I don't live near the park, prob about 10k away, but wouldn't go near it in a car on a day like this because it would be traffic/parking hell. If I was to drive, park somewhere away a bit from the park and walk, to avoid the hassle. Idiots.

And presumably because it's outside your 5km circle?


Walked up there this morning via the Royal Canal and Ashtown. It was busy enough in the Park with walkers, cyclists and motorists but there were still plenty of relatively quiet areas away from the madding crowds. Heading back home, the Canal path was very busy but the Tolka Valley Park nearby was nice and quiet. Spotted some broken glass on the cyclepath there but hopefully it will cleaned up before I'm back that way on the bike during the week.

Thelonious Monk

cletus wrote: »

Covid aside, when should they go? When we were able to travel freely, I would decide on a fine Saturday or Sunday morning to go somewhere nice for the day with my family. I live in a small midlands town with little to no public transport. I'd have to drive somewhere else to get a train or bus to get to our destination. I'll be honest, it's much easier to just drive there.

For a number of years I held a yearly pass to the Zoo. When my kids were smaller (buggies etc) I would drive to the Park, and park in the carpark beside the zoo. I make no apologies for that.

Now that my boys are older, I'll normally take a train and Luas if we are going to the park/city centre etc. as it's much easier now

Fair enough people can keep driving there and sitting in traffic chaos, I think they're all nuts though, would stress me out to no end, I can't handle traffic.

cletus

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Fair enough people can keep driving there and sitting in traffic chaos, I think they're all nuts though, would stress me out to no end, I can't handle traffic.

I haven't driven to the zoo in about 2 and a half years, but the biggest issue I remember was actually finding somewhere to park in that carpark. Trick was to leave early in the morning, and make a day out of it.

sternn

I was stuck in this traffic for over an hour today. A lad on twitter recently posted some drone video of the traffic. Crazy..

https://twitter.com/BOBMCD1/status/1330547378626105345?s=19

Thelonious Monk

Gobsh*tes

Peregrine

I went past it there. Half of them were single occupant cars.

Spanish Eyes

Cannot understand why vehicular traffic was never moved to the periphery North Road. Leave the main avenue free, widen the paths, make it great for walkers and cyclists.

Using North Road for vehicles maintains access. Does anyone agree with me?

Stark

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Cannot understand why vehicular traffic was never moved to the periphery North Road. Leave the main avenue free, widen the paths, make it great for walkers and cyclists.

Using North Road for vehicles maintains access. Does anyone agree with me?

Footpaths along the North road are miserable. If you're going running/jogging there you really have to run on the road. Not much fun if the road is going to be jammed with traffic.

beauf

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Cannot understand why vehicular traffic was never moved to the periphery North Road. Leave the main avenue free, widen the paths, make it great for walkers and cyclists.

Using North Road for vehicles maintains access. Does anyone agree with me?

Two schools of thought.

#1 Actually deal with the traffic properly
#2 Ban cars completely

Usually #2 drowns out any other options on this thread. So its pointless discussing it.

Giruilla

The posts here are embarrassing. Slagging people because they want to go outside and drive to park to enjoy sunshine for the day during this dark time. There's no other way to access for a lot of people.
The problem isn't the people, the problem is the gardai requesting the side gates close at weekends for competely nonsense reason

Bits_n_Bobs

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Bull island was a total mess too earlier. Who are these geniuses that think it's a good idea to drive to these places on a pleasant Sunday?

Anyone who lives in the city center and wants to go for a wal? Just a bunch of entitled citizens thinking they can enjoy a public amenity within 5km of where they live. Lock them up!

Peregrine

Bits_n_Bobs wrote: »

Anyone who lives in the city center and wants to go for a wal? Just a bunch of entitled citizens thinking they can enjoy a public amenity within 5km of where they live. Lock them up!

Most people living in the city centre don't own cars.

Census 2016 small area population stats: http://census.cso.ie/sapmap/

Thelonious Monk

Bits_n_Bobs wrote: »

Anyone who lives in the city center and wants to go for a wal? Just a bunch of entitled citizens thinking they can enjoy a public amenity within 5km of where they live. Lock them up!

I don't care about the 5km restrictions. But on any sunny day, if you're able bodied, you should not be driving across the bridge to Bull Island. Unless you're some kind of self masochist that likes sitting in traffic and not being able to get parking. Park somewhere else and walk over.

Thelonious Monk

Giruilla wrote: »

The posts here are embarrassing. Slagging people because they want to go outside and drive to park to enjoy sunshine for the day during this dark time. There's no other way to access for a lot of people.
The problem isn't the people, the problem is the gardai requesting the side gates close at weekends for competely nonsense reason

I'm slagging them because they're knowingly setting out to sit in traffic like that for hours. I just don't get the mentality, why put yourself through that.

beauf

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I'm slagging them because they're knowingly setting out to sit in traffic like that for hours. I just don't get the mentality, why put yourself through that.

You can't see the queue until its too late to turn back.

Thelonious Monk

beauf wrote: »

You can't see the queue until its too late to turn back.

Common sense would dictate that on a day like this places like the phoenix park are a traffic nightmare. But anyway each to their own, some people don't mind sitting in traffic like that, but it's not for me Clive.

Giruilla

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Common sense would dictate that on a day like this places like the phoenix park are a traffic nightmare. But anyway each to their own, some people don't mind sitting in traffic like that, but it's not for me Clive.

The other option for some people is sitting staring at a wall, or going for a lovely walk around a housing estate.

Im glad all those people went out to park today and created traffic. Shows the gardai and opw how utterly moronic and unfair their 'decision' was.

beauf

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Common sense would dictate that on a day like this places like the phoenix park are a traffic nightmare. But anyway each to their own, some people don't mind sitting in traffic like that, but it's not for me Clive.

So on a rare nice day assume the parks are too busy and wait for miserable day to go to the park with the kids and the grandparents. Its lock down. People have nowhere to go.

Thelonious Monk

Giruilla wrote: »

The other option for some people is sitting staring at a wall, or going for a lovely walk around a housing estate.

Im glad all those people went out to park today and created traffic. Shows the gardai and opw how utterly moronic and unfair their 'decision' was.

There's supposed to be a 5km limit in place too, which is close enough to walk to the park, obviously these people were driving from all over

Thelonious Monk

beauf wrote: »

So on a rare nice day assume the parks are too busy and wait for miserable day to go to the park with the kids and the grandparents. Its lock down. People have nowhere to go.

knock yourselves out, go and sit in traffic chaos. I would have parked away from the park and walked in. Or cycled there, I would imagine the vast majority of people in the cars are able bodied.

magicbastarder

there's one obvious mitigation to all this - high quality cycle lanes leading *to* the park.
i haven't cycled through castleknock in donkeys, but i believe it's a ****show. so people who might live near the park, even a kilometre or two away, may not be able to take their kids cycling there because they don't want to expose their kids to the danger of *getting* there.

my brother lives in carpenterstown, and sometimes goes cycling with the kids (both now teenagers) in the park. but i suspect they don't enjoy the cycle there - the obvious route is past the back of castleknock college.
it's actually possibly safer cycling to the park from parts of finglas than it is from (say) laurel lodge, though that's assuming you go through another public park (tolka valley park)

beauf

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

There's supposed to be a 5km limit in place too, which is close enough to walk to the park, obviously these people were driving from all over

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

knock yourselves out, go and sit in traffic chaos. I would have parked away from the park and walked in. Or cycled there, I would imagine the vast majority of people in the cars are able bodied.

My only recent trips to the park are with people who are not able to walk to the park. Generally I've avoided it myself.

beauf

5km circle from the Park has a massive population.

Its just popular, and they bottle necked all the access down to two gates.

Even if they were open it would be bad. Just not as bad.

Stark

magicbastarder wrote: »

there's one obvious mitigation to all this - high quality cycle lanes leading *to* the park.
i haven't cycled through castleknock in donkeys, but i believe it's a ****show. so people who might live near the park, even a kilometre or two away, may not be able to take their kids cycling there because they don't want to expose their kids to the danger of *getting* there.

my brother lives in carpenterstown, and sometimes goes cycling with the kids (both now teenagers) in the park. but i suspect they don't enjoy the cycle there - the obvious route is past the back of castleknock college.
it's actually possibly safer cycling to the park from parts of finglas than it is from (say) laurel lodge, though that's assuming you go through another public park (tolka valley park)

Main road through the village seems okay as there are bus lanes and reasonable footpaths. I've noticed many of the roads around Castleknock don't even have decent footpaths though, let alone cycle lanes.

Also kind of crazy that the likes of this road has a 60km/hr speed limit despite being very much residential https://goo.gl/maps/23aX8qe76kCkL81n9

Giruilla

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

There's supposed to be a 5km limit in place too, which is close enough to walk to the park, obviously these people were driving from all over

For able bodied people yes. For people with kids, elderly... Walking 3~4km, just to get to park? Ah sure screw them

magicbastarder

FWIW, i drove to the park yesterday, for the first time in a year or two; we ended up parking in the hole in the wall car park. we got lucky and arrived just as someone else was leaving - it was full, at 10:30am.

Thelonious Monk

Giruilla wrote: »

For able bodied people yes. For people with kids, elderly... Walking 3~4km, just to get to park? Ah sure screw them

Walking 3 or 4 km isn't a problem for most of the population.
Anyway nothing's stopping you driving there, or anyone else, enjoy the traffic jams.

magicbastarder

Stark wrote: »

Main road through the village seems okay as there are bus lanes and reasonable footpaths. I've noticed many of the roads around Castleknock don't even have decent footpaths though, let alone cycle lanes.

i think i remember people saying here that at rush hour (which is what it was probably like yesterday) traffic discipline is poor.

beauf

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Walking 3 or 4 km isn't a problem for most of the population.
Anyway nothing's stopping you driving there, or anyone else, enjoy the traffic jams.

Yes but its 3-4k there and back then what ever you walk in park. So closer to 10k.

The point is the park can't handle the number of people on a busy day. Cars or walking makes no difference.

Spanish Eyes

The walk from Memorial Gardens to and from Chapelizod along the Liffey is great. Parking at the Islandbridge end. If you want to, you can cross the road to the Pheeno aswell. And stroll around the Gardens too.

There are options other than driving through the Park.