Cycling on M50

rubberduckey

Hi There, Am heading to teh National Aquatic centre tonight after work. Looking on the DTO's journey planner it suggests cycling on the M50.

Is cycling on the M50 allowed??? Anyone cycle along it regularly??

thanks

Kingsize

You Aint Allowed Cycle On The M50 but i did once cycle north along the southbound lane from tallaght to palmerstown - although that was about a week befor the motorway actually opened!!
is the national aquatic centre re opened? or are you a plumber?

NotInventedHere

You can't cycle on the motorway.

Trojan

Cycling is not allowed on the motorways. Is there a parallel off road cycleway?

ciaran76

Trojan wrote:

Cycling is not allowed on the motorways. Is there a parallel off road cycleway?

I have seen people cycling the M50 mainly at the Finglas - Blanch section and there is no parallel cycleway.

Oh and I know they shouldn't be cycling by the way.

copacetic

not really,
where is he coming from, even if cycling was allowed on m50
you would have to be nuts or have a death wish!

rubberduckey

Thanks for the replies, The DTO website advises that I should take this route... which is very much dependant on cycling on the M50!!!!

1 Depart On Belgard Square for 230(m)
2 Turn Right Onto Old Blessington Road for 307(m)
3 Bear Left Onto Roundabout for 24(m)
4 Bear Left Onto Main Street for 98(m)
5 Bear Left Onto Belgard Road for 155(m)
6 Bear Left Onto Roundabout for 29(m)
7 Bear Left Onto Belgard Road for 1145(m)
8 Turn Right Onto Cookstown Industrial Estate for 9(m)
9 Continue Straight On Ballymount Road Lower for 1300(m)
10 Turn Left Onto M50 Slip Road for 440(m)
11 Continue Straight On M50 for 509(m)
12 Continue Straight On M50 Slip Road for 456(m)
13 Bear Left Onto Roundabout for 151(m)
14 Bear Left Onto M50 Slip Road for 690(m)
15 Continue Straight On M50 for 6570(m)
16 Continue Straight On M50 Slip Road for 565(m)
17 Turn Left Onto Blanchardstown Bypass for 396(m)
18 Continue Straight On Roundabout for 43(m)
19 Bear Left Onto Blanchardstown Bypass for 1071(m)
20 Turn Right Onto Snugburogh Road for 596(m)
21 Arrive at Destination On Snugburogh Road for 0(m)

rubberduckey

Oh yeah in case anyone wants the mapping link its...

http://www.dto-journeyplanner.ie/dtojp/jsp/content/start.do

usually quite good and informative

daymobrew

rubberduckey wrote:

Hi There, Am heading to teh National Aquatic centre tonight after work. Looking on the DTO's journey planner it suggests cycling on the M50.

What is your start point?
I live near the NAC so could suggest a route. (From the southside prob suggest something via the Phoenix Park, Castleknock then Blanchardstown).

Is cycling on the M50 allowed??? Anyone cycle along it regularly??

See if selecting the 'Walk' option, instead of 'Cycle', gives you a different route.

I'll report the flaw to Mapflow (the backend of the feature).
I spoke with someone in DTO and he described that the system was aware of one way streets and turning restrictions. As an example he suggested starting at Doyle's Corner in Phibsborough and selecting 'Cycle' (no right turns at that junction).

rubberduckey

Thanks for the reply daymobrew, the walk option gives the exact same route.

Am now trying to manually work out the quickest non M50 route from Tallaght to the Aquatic Centre!!!

Arrgghh!!

cormie

don't go on the m50, you'd be mad to, far too dangerous. It's not you, it's other motorists, they may not be alert and you could easily end getting involved in something you may not be able to get out of! Someone could easily not see you when they are taking a slip road off and they may not even hit you but they may swerve out and crash. You're not just putting yourself at danger.

Pherekydes

I submitted to the following message to the DTO website:

While looking for a route to get from Tallaght to the National Aquatic centre by bicycle the DTO website suggests I should cycle on the M50.

Is it the policy of the DTO to advise road users to break the law as it pertains to the Road traffic act?

Let's see what they say.

daymobrew

I went for the sarcasm-free approach in my email to info@mapflow.com, the company that hosts the DTO Journey Planner. They've been helpful in the past e.g. when a train station was 'missing'.

This maybe a bug in the mapflow backend for the DTO Journey Planner.

I requested a cycle route between The Square Tallaght and Blanchardstown Shopping Centre. The suggested route uses the M50 which is closed for bicycles.

The suggested walk route is okay, using surface streets via Walkinstown, Chapelizod and Castleknock.

Can someone please look at the route code to remove motorways.

seamus

Allegedly the Gardai stopped two professional cyclists cycling down the M50 during the tour de france (when the race wasn't on obviously) a couple of years back. They were actually doing the legal 30mph minimum speed.

</folklore>

DaDa

Jaysus... talk about an awkward place to get to on bike alright... once you hit the N4 options for getting across the liffey are pretty limited!

If you have to go by bike then I'd say the best of a bad bunch might be:

Belgard Rd
Clondalkin
Intersect with N4 (Lucan road at Liffey Valley)
Head in towards town on N4, but go down into Chapelizod
Turn left up Knockmaroon hill
Right at Castleknock village
Left onto Auburn avenue
Left onto N3
Then up onto overpass at Blanch for the NAC

Capt'n Midnight

or to avoid the M50 roundabout at Palmerstown

Tallaght - Walkinstown roundabout - Kylemore road - Capelizod (next bridge is in Lucan so that's a no brainer) - you could cycle through the park not as steep as Knockmaroon Hill (there is an entrance in a lane behind the national school in chapelizod)

rubberduckey

Thanks for your help guys, I went with daymobrews proposed route and it worked out quite well.

Bit of an adventure

Civilian_Target

yeah - don't cycle on the M50. I cycled on the M3 once and never again, absolute ****ing suicide, particularly at the intersections. Plus, what would you do at the toll bridge

Personally, I've found the DTO planner to be no less than absolutely crap in the past.

Since I'm not entirely familiar with the Belgard road part of the world I can't really help you with that end of the route, but I used to live near the NAC. If you were cycling by day I'd suggest going out of town, down towards Leixlip, but at night I can only suggest you go through town...

cormie

Hey Civilian_Target, you should swap usernames with rubberduckey:D:D

michaelanthony

Go on ya lunatic ya.

Hagar

You can't cycle on the motorway.
It only makes the gridlocked drivers jealous.

daymobrew

Civilian_Target wrote:

Personally, I've found the DTO planner to be no less than absolutely crap in the past.

Really? I like it.

Has it been plain wrong, like suggesting the M50, or just routes you didn't think highly of?
The route to work it suggests for me is not the one I use but it has a lot in common with it. I tend to use it for ideas, maybe it'll suggest roads I would not have known about.

If you have specific issue you should tell the DTO and Mapflow.

Civilian_Target

Both. Example - ask it Stoneybatter -> Blanchardstown Road Nth - it'll guide you though a series of suicidal roundabouts and up the N3.

Ask it Cowper Luas Station -> Blanchardstown Road Nth - it will just fail to find any routes at all

Ask it Damastown Industrial Estate -> Swords Rd. Whitehall, it'll guide you down a suicidally narrow back road across north Dublin, dipping you down the N2 in Finglas, asking you to cut straight across the damn road in a very small space.

My suggestion - get a map book of Dublin, they cost €11, and use a highlighter pen as you discover routes that are good and bad, and mark them out. Then, when you plan a route, you know what to avoid and where to go...

daymobrew

Civilian_Target wrote:

My suggestion - get a map book of Dublin, they cost €11, and use a highlighter pen as you discover routes that are good and bad, and mark them out. Then, when you plan a route, you know what to avoid and where to go...

I asked DTO to add the Royal Canal towpath to the routes - it's traffic free so is very safe. They said it had to be lighted and wheelchair accessible in order to be listed

Civilian_Target wrote:

Stoneybatter to Blanchardstown Road Nth

Unfortunately it doesn't know about the pedestrian bridge over the M50 at Castleknock Tennis Club emerging at the 12th Lock Bar. Very handy. If it used that then it might direct you via Blanch village and turning just beyond the Garda Station.

Civilian_Target wrote:

Cowper Luas Station -> Blanchardstown Road Nth

Wow, it only finds a walk route. That's bizarre. I'll email MapFlow about this.

Civilian_Target wrote:

Damastown Industrial Estate -> Swords Rd. Whitehall

Ten years ago I cycled that narrow back road every day for 3 years. It's a lot wider now! The N2 crossing is an overpass leading into Finglas village - I don't see a problem with that.

Yes, I agree, especially with your examples, that it can provide less-than-ideal routes (I'm trying to defend it). I mainly use it to find the general location of places and maybe a route I wouldn't have thought about. I still use a route that I decide.

zynaps

daymobrew wrote:

I mainly use it to find the general location of places and maybe a route I wouldn't have thought about. I still use a route that I decide.

I use it constantly, being a cyclist myself - it's also been handy lately as I'm looking for a place to move into with my girlfriend, and since both of us cycle it provides a good distance metric for comparing different locations.

That said, the last 2 days it seems to be down and has been throwing up loads of j2ee error traces from the routing engine, which is a bit annoying.
However, by and large, when it's working, the routes it has given me have usually been excellent.

For example, I used to plan my route from Finglas East to Rathmines (just in and out once a week, thankfully) as into town (through Phibsborough/Berkerley Rd), up O'Connell St, up Dame St, then up Georges'/Camden St, around the bloody Black Horse Inn and over Portobello Bridge.
The route handed to me by the journey planner gets me to Dorset St (rather than up through Phibsborough as I used to do), through some weird cyclist lane going against the flow of traffic (which is, granted, a bit nerve wracking every time given that drivers here can be a bit brutal), up Capel St, over the bridge and up the cobbledy road beside City Hall, then downhill and uphill again on some other road until I cross the SCR, around some residential streets and up onto Portobello Bridge from the canal side.

I'd probably never have thought of that, but I can make it in in about 25 minutes, which definitely shaves a bit off my previous journey.

A local version of the program/database would be nice, as I feel a bit guilty sending repeated requests to the server when it's obviously under a bit of strain already...