Clontarf to City Centre Cycle & Bus Priority Project discussion (renamed)

Local Green Party counciller was onto DCC Parks about it, it does seem to be a temporary measure

I see them there regularly. It wasn't illegal to rally motorbikes around public parks in the past, but I think that's changed now.

Could a bus lane camera be installed so that those who choose to illegally use it get a fine and penalty points? Seems like a prime candidate for such a camera.

Bus Lane cameras? Sure that would just punish hard pressed motorists!

I thought that the chicane in the cycle lane at the Fairview pedestrian bridge was a significant design disaster on the project as there have been numerous crashes there between bicycles, scooters and pedestrians but they have topped it!

Changing the junction at East Wall Road and East Road from a straight and a right turn lane to a single lane that is constantly blocked with vehicles waiting to turn right has been a disaster. The impact has been wide reaching:

 - trucks are struggling to turn left from East Road to East Wall road

 - Cars and vans moving to the local residential roads to avoid the gridlock.

 - Inbound traffic now extends to both Clontarf Road and Howth Road.

 - Cars queuing from Clontarf Rd to turn left on to Alfie Byrne Road are queuing in the bus lane back to the Yacht pub in the morning. This blocks 3 bus stops.

 - bus routes on both Clontarf Road and Alfie Byrne Road are being delayed.

This will not improve when the construction work is completed.

Cyclists should never have been routed down East Wall Road. West Road should have been changed to a one way street with a cycle path and a new pedestrian and cycle bridge over to Docklands station to connect to the cycle path on Guild street.

Wow you reckon they'll start on the malahide road soon? Does it not need to go out to tender? Imagine being able to roll all the way from Clare Hall to Connolly Station on separated cycle lanes. The stuff of dreams.

Is there any live or recent tracked data on this project? For example, How has the mix of traffic modes on these roads changed over the last two years? How has the average point to point time changed? Have the number of reported accidents in the area reduced?

It seems bizarre to me that there are good aspirations for the initiative that can be tracked with actual data that can be used to improve this design or future designs. It also tells the story of the journey through the old state to the implementation to hopefully the result in the future.

Explain why it would be pointless please? Every change along the way has an impact, it is useful to see the effect of these changes. The data can lead to better delivery of these projects i.e. faster and cheaper. It can highlight flaws in the design quickly so that changes can be made while the builders are still on site, again faster and cheaper.

You would like to think that we would want to do more projects like this in the future and learn from mistakes. While before and after data is great, it misses the detail and the nuances of each change.

Just in gym and come out to this mess. Who are these people that think it's a good idea to drive to that car park at the busiest time of the week? So odd to me that you'd sit there blocking a bus and bike lane for 10 minutes queuing instead of parking elsewhere and walking a bit.

What's more shocking is that the owners of those old cars in the picture don't appear to have functional heating fans in the car to demist the windows!

This has been like this for year and years even back when I was a member of Westwood some 20 years ago.

The overflow is usually full at this time too. The Problem is that Westwood is over subscribed and doesn't have the required parking facilities. which is interesting given the price of the monthly subscription.

Even still to this day, it's Ireland ONLY 50m swimming pool (Olympic class). If it were to ever close, there'd be a lot of flack. So Westwood seem to be able to do what they want. (Anyone remember Barcode... and all the messing that went on with it?)

Sorry, that's not true at all. Westwood has never been an Olympic standard pool. There are 3 Olympic pools in Ireland. Limerick being the first one, over 20 years ago.

Took a stroll through North Strand to Connolly. The outbound works are at various stages of completion, some almost done others a while away.

Interesting to see the level of older pipes, wires and utilities buried at various depths. Another section had exposed huge tree roots and they had dug under them. Hugely complex.

Just a few pics:

I'm far from a Westwood smypathiser but am a member and have kids in creche so plenty of experience in it. A few things to note...

1. As someone pointed out, the overflow is always full in the evening this time of year, so the the "can't be bothered to walk 50m" comment isn't really relevant
2. Westwood creche parents do have a pickup, parents are asked to "skip" the queue, essentially drive in the out side of the gate. I've hated this forever, my wife who's a nervous driver hates it to the point she'll park in the dart and hope she doesn't get clamped for 10mns rather than do it. That's what's happening in the photo above. As I said I hate it and WW really need to find a better solution to that.
3. Westwood have asked the council to make it no right turn outbound into WW. I think this would work better for everyone. Hopefuly council go along with that plan. Same leaving WW should be no right turn to Clontarf. You then have more people using overflow as they know they can't get back to Clontarf easily from the main carpark (granted we already know this is at capacity at peak).
4. The bike lane should have a yellow box on it to remind drivers they can't stop there. Minor thing but it wrks on roads, might work on cycle paths if samerules apply.
5. Weekends WW gets worse again, swimming lessons plus birthday parties add to the meyhem.

I'm pretty sure there's already no right turn when leaving Westwood. Nobody obeys the sign though. It's been there for years, but not sure if it's currently in place due to the works.