Cycling in Dublin

A cyclist was seriously injured in a collision with a truck just north of the Dublin Airport Roundabout on the Swords Road. Here’s the statement from the Garda Press Office seeking witnesses: Continue reading →

There’s an interesting discussion on Rothar’s Facebook page about gender and cycling, read it here, and there was some banter about cycling in heels, dresses, skirts, make up, and generally in normal clothes.

Special gear is great if you’re cycling around 15km, or if you’re cycling up and around the Dublin mountains. But it’s amazing how many people think that you need to have gear like helmets, high-vis or special cycling clothes just for a few kms to work or down to the shops. People give all sorts of reasons why it’s just not possible to go without this gear. Continue reading →

Full-sized bicycles are now officially banned on Luas, going against government policy. To date the RPA — the state agency in charge of Luas — and its contracted operator Veolia Transdev had used a more informal operational ban on bring bicycles on board trams.

The national cycle policy firmly commits to allowing full-sized bicycles on Luas, but the RPA previously cited safety reasons as to why they have dismissed this government policy. They only allow fully covered folding bicycles.

While it is common to have rush-hour restrictions, a range of tram, metro and train services worldwide allow bicycles on board.

The new light railway bylaws or bye-laws drafted last year and enacted on Tuesday. The new bylaws read:

5. (1) A person shall not on a light rail vehicle or a light railway—…

(q) board or attempt to board a light rail vehicle with a bicycle unless it is folded and fully encased.

The national cycle policy says:

Bicycles and LUAS We will provide for the carriage of bikes on LUAS when services are of a frequency and at a capacity that allows for it. i.e. when it is considered possible to carry bikes on carriages when they do not interfere with the capacity for pedestrians.

The policy also includes Dart, commuter services and any planed metros:

Bicycles and Sub-Urban Rail We will permit the carriage of bikes on DART and other suburban rail services at off-peak times and on counter peak services at peak hour, following a more detailed study which will recommend suitable devices / facilities for the proper restraining of bikes on the trains. This will include all future Metro plans in Dublin (or anywhere else they may be planned).

Irish Rail now allow bicycles on Dart and Commuter services off peak, but the RPA also dismissed that section of the policy and had been planning the now stalled multi-billion Metro North without any provisions for carrying bicycles.

Cycling in Dublin, a once-off newspaper dealing with the issues of cycling today and cycling’s future in this city, is now live on fundit.ie. This is “all or nothing” crowd funding (the money is only taken from funders if the project is fully funded), so I need you support if this project is to get off the ground!

I should be blogging about it more here, details including a mock-up of what the newspaper is planned to look like can be found at cyclingindublin.com/inprint, and here’s the teaser trailer…

Dublin City Council are looking for the most cycling friendly business and they want you to post nominations on their dublincitycycling.ie blog post here. They are to announce the winners during Bikeweek 2012, June 16-24.

Rathmines and nearby areas just beyond the canals in Dublin seem like good examples of popular cycling areas where the conditions for cycling are ok at best, and are far from ideal.  The cycle lanes are small and the road surface is in bits both sides of the road — think of the possibilities if things were made a little better for cyclists!

Here’s a random 1.5min snippet of video recorded in Rathmines from last week, it was not taken for counting traffic, but it shows 21 cars , 2 taxis not on hire, 1 bus, 2 mopeds and 22 cyclists.

Try having a look at this video from the US, with the same basic problem and solution, it works here in Dublin too:

The loops are usually square or rectangular here in Dublin.

Some traffic lights also have what look like a camera at the top of the the traffic lights. This is a sensor, when it is triggered a small red light should come on — if it is not lit up, and the road is clear, try to move around just behind the stop line to trigger it.

Could building cycle paths help unemployment and economic recovery? Rory O’Donnell, director of the National Economic and Social Council (NESC), talked to Bloomberg Television yesterday on public construction projects which could help recovery and he highlighted cycleways as “relatively small scale, but labour intensive projects” which could be identified and built fairly quickly.

O’Donnell said that these type of projects create “real value” — he could mean return from tourism, as well as transport and health. Continue reading →

New contra-flow cycle lane in Blackrock, part of the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council area

For anybody interested in recent developments and the future of the cycling network in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council area, Engineers Ireland are hosting a free event next week.

It will also shown live on their website. It is on next Wednesday, February 8, from 6.30pm. Details here and here’s the blurb:

This presentation describes the development of a cycle network for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. The key objectives behind the development of a cycle network will be presented along with the individual steps of its development from identifying key attractors, assigning cycle desire lines, assessing the Quality of Service of the emerging routes and identifying a prioritised list of improvement measures for the network.

(via boards.ie)

Map showing the main entry points into the city centre for cyclists

UPDATED: Morning rush hour traffic counts show a 45% increase in the amount of cyclists entering Dublin City Centre in the five years since 2006.

The traffic counts show a 15% increase in the average amount of cyclists last year compared to 2010 and a 35% increase in the last ten years. The counts records cars, buses, taxis, bicycles, motorcycles and pedestrians entering the central area between 7am and 10am and are conducted each November.

Dublin City Council’s annually ‘canal cordon’ traffic count only includes traffic crossing points roughly around the central sections of Grand and Royal canals (and the west ends of the North / South Circular roads) at the peak morning time.

All Dublin Bike stations are currently inside the canals, therefor few of the many Dublin Bikes users were likely counted.

On cyclists the report says:

Over the 10 year period 2001 to 2011 the volume of pedal cyclists crossing the canal cordon during the morning peak period increased by 35.1%. There was a 41.9% increase in the period 2006 to 2011 and a 15.4% increase in the period 2010 to 2011.

Other traffic decreased between 2010 and 2011, expect goods vehicles (up 18.4%) and taxis (up 0.9%). These was a year-on-year 10.3% decrease in motorcyclists, 8.7% decrease in buses and a 3.6% decrease in pedestrians crossing the count lines.

The amount of cars crossing the canal at the morning peak has decreased 3.6% in one year and 10.9% since 2001. Just over 55,745 cars entered the area, but most only had one person inside them, with an average occupancy rate of just 1.25 people.

Records show that cycling numbers reached a ten-year low in 2004, and have been climbing since expect in 2010, when there was a decline due to the unusually cold weather which caused heavy snow. Graph shown the trends in cycling over ten years:

See other details from the count in this Irish Times story here, or download the full report in Word or PDF formats below.

DOWNLOAD: Canal Cordon Counts 2011 final report (Word)
DOWNLOAD: Canal Cordon Counts 2011 final report (PDF)