Rat running is at epidemic levels in much of Dublin, yet the closing of roads to through traffic as a means of tackling rant running is not very common. However, it might be more common than you might think — IrishCycle.com has started to map examples here, mainly those which were close using bollards or planters.
Please use the comment section below to post details of examples not on the map — thank you.
I use Portland Place as a quietway on my commute: https://goo.gl/maps/Ute3Ff4c8mJ2
Nutley Avenue, D4 is a cul-de-sac that’s permeable to pedestrians and cyclists at the junction with Nutley Road. It is cordoned off with a crude tubular steel fence with a narrow aperture in it.
Not sure if it counts but there is a lane between Ardagh Road and Old County Road in Crumlin that is closed to cars by bollards but easily usable by cyclists. It’s not exactly a useful route but I happen to go that way quite often.
https://goo.gl/maps/ZMhjxwe3XdC2
Different thing but there is no access for anyone between Crumlin Road and Brickfield Road. Brickfield Road is a cul-de-sac and there is a footpath across the end of it. This has bollards on it (presumably because the council felt that merely having a footpath wouldn’t stop motorists taking a short cut.
https://goo.gl/maps/5BdHCjsnvm42
Going this way saves me a lot of time so I usually walk my bike across the path at this point, it would be nice if there was a bicycyle crossing point added here. I frequenly go from Crumlin to Inchicore so I’ve checked out my options and the permeability between those two areas, and through Drimnagh in general is pretty bad. This is great for reducing traffic through Drimnagh but I don’t think there are many (or any) roads which are explicity closed, there just doesn’t seem to be any point in going in to Drimnagh as a short cut, it seems that it would always be quicker to go around the periphery. The canal helps with this I think but it’s an interesting example of a residential island where through trafffic is more or less eliminated (at least that’s my assumption).
In Dublin 5 there is a hidden pedestrian/cycle friendly crossing of the DART line between Lein Gardens and Eannafort Road – it gives access to the greenways along the Santry River.
Have you looked to query the Openstreetmap data as part of this work? There are probably some proper technical solutions that narrow a search down to find closed roads. But even just using Overpass Turbo to search for the simple features you’d expect to see in the situation you describe is going to give you material to work from. See these searches:
Bollards: http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/rMN
Cycleways: http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/rMQ
You may need to click ‘run’ to populate the map.
Best of all, you can take the data and use it directly to create markers on maps – although you need to be aware of copyright issues if you’re also working outside of Openstreetmap.
Planters: https://www.google.ie/maps/dir/53.4005542,-6.14465//@53.4006581,-6.1445695,18z
Dart bike/pedestrian crossing: https://www.google.ie/maps/dir/53.3915611,-6.136647//@53.3927622,-6.139234,17.5z
At Cowper Luas stop, there is good access. They changed the layout this year on the Western side, to segregate bikes and pedestrians.
If we could have all this info aded to Open Street Map, the information is more likely to become more useful in the long run. Lots of wayfinding / map sites and apps (such as Strava) have openstreetmap as a base layer. Your edits can then help many people find better, safe, quick ways around the city.
https://www.openstreetmap.org/
Junction of Aideen Avenue and Mount Tallent Ave. (Terenure)
Junction of Neagh Road and Derravaragh Road (Terenure)
Domville Road and The Avenue, cypress downs (Templeogue)
On leaving Fitzwilliam Quay to access Dodder River greenway there is no direct dishing of pavement to put you up onto track so tricky for a cargo-bike, mobility-scooter, to access river path.
Proper dishing in-line needs to be done.
My attempt to map anti ratruns bollards with osm overpass overpass-turbo.eu/s/rNl I thought this would be easier but its difficult to distinguish between the types of bollards.
Thanks to all for the suggestions.
I think I have added all of the examples to the map now.
Note: I was only looking for examples of where roads (mostly those used for rat running) were closed off using bollards or planters etc, so, Open Street Maps was no good for this as it includes bollards for everything including on greenways, some private access areas etc.