Comment & Analysis: BusConnects recently released a video of its Liffey Valley to City Centre Scheme, which received a bit of local and international attention and discussion. So, it’s worth having a quick run-through of the project’s junction.
I’m using the only available drawings for the project, the planning drawings. It is hoped that some of these junctions will be tweaked at the detailed design stage to be more in line with the Cycle Design Manual, the Manual For Urban Roads and Streets, and some of the planning conditions.
First, here’s the video in case you haven’t seen it:
In the Cycle Design Manual, this junction design — which can be called a Dutch-style protected junction — is set forward as the standard protected junction design:
Another style of protected junction in the Cycle Design Manual is the ‘CYCLOPS’ layout, which is used on some other BusConnects routes but not the Liffey Valley project. The Cyclops was developed in the UK. I won’t include the details here because it’s not used on this route.
The third style is what is known as the “Dublin-style” protected junction. A number of junctions have been designed using this general layout idea — including at Balbutcher Lane in Ballymun and the Five Lamps junction along the Clontarf to City Centre route.
As an aside: Both the Balbutcher Lane and the Five Lamps junctions have enough space for Dutch-style layouts — the former comfortably so and the latter with a bit of a squeeze (even CPOing some privately owned public space if needed).
This is how the ‘Dublin-style’ design junction is shown in the Cycle Design Manual:
As has been covered here before, both people cycling and pedestrians do not use Dublin-style junctions as they are designed. In most cases where Dublin-style junctions have been implemented, it makes little sense to try to regulate cycling and pedestrian interactions with traffic lights, and the locations where the design has been used mostly have space for the other options.
As far as I can see from long observations of the Balbutcher Lane example, it functions safely because most people on bikes, electric scooters and bike-shaped objects using the cycle tracks do so when motorists have red lights — ie breaking the pedestrian lights (although, as hinted at, pedestrians are also breaking their lights waiting at the kerb between the cycle path etc.
This is one of the things which happens when you’re cycling and you use the design on Balbutcher Lane and you arrive when the traffic lights just go green:
Because of turning restrictions, the junction at the Five Lamps does not have as many conflicts, but people are reporting there’s often an issue with motorists turning left over the cycle track straight ahead flow:
The Dublin-style junctions also mean people walking have longer to cross (at minimum around the width of an extra traffic lane), which is less safe and harder for some people on foot, and it adds to the junction time.
Never mind about people walking or cycling, I don’t think these junctions will work well for buses. Even with strong traffic signal priority for buses, there will be delays at some junctions, especially without the use of dedicated turning lanes at the larger junctions.
If Dublin-style designs are used at all, it should not be where there is ample space for the other design choices — that includes most main junctions on the Liffey Valley route, including in and around the Liffey Valley shopping centre and retail park:
(all of the below follow the format of the planning drawing followed by the current view from Google Maps)
This is the second junction around the retail park, south of the shopping centre….
It’s worth saying that in some cycling-friendly cities, these are the kinds of places where you might expect two-way cycle paths running on both sides of the road. This means that people cycling who have to pass through a number of these junctions can limit the number of times they have to cross at the junctions depending on which location they are going to. This can mean significant time saving vs having to cross the main flow of bus and car traffic one or more:
Just south of the shopping centre, the widths of the roads here really are not great for crossing on foot, and that shouldn’t be added to by making people cross the cycle track at the same time:
Just east of the M50, this is another strange attempt to avoid using the Dutch design. The project team has removed the use of the service street (at the bottom left) for cycling, which is one of the better features of the existing infrastructure.
If the service street was used and the cycle track along side it was removed, there could be more space on the other side of the road for a buffer between the cycle path and the road, and more stacking space for people cycling from the north here to the west:
It’s a bit harder here to provide the space for a Dutch-style junction now, but it wouldn’t have been much of an issue at the CPO stage without unduly affecting the businesses etc:
As we move east along the Ballyfermot Road, these are the sizes of junctions where you might expect these Dublin-style junctions to be used:
Although looking at the drawings (top of image below) and the 3D visuals (bottom), parts of it look like too much of a squeeze, with the cycling waiting area sticking out beyond a straight line along the bus lane.
This is highlighted with a green line below — the images are orientated differently, but the green line is in the same place in both parts of the image:
Further into Ballyfermot Village, this junction can also still be changed to a Dutch-style junction and it would likely much improve safety and capacity here:
As can the Kylemore Road junction (famous as one of the two “Save Our Roundabout” campaigns in Ireland). There’s ample space here for better design at the detailed design stage.
One of the points of using the Dublin-style design and including traffic signals between people on foot and those on bicycles is apparently fear for vulnerable pedestrians.
Yet, here we have the footpaths removed on three corners of the junction and turned into shared space with the small church car park and the parking outside houses:
Filtering side streets like this can improve traffic (including bus) flow as well as safety and sustainable transport measures. But here, no cycling access was included in any direction. This should be fixed rather than the NTA leaving it to the council to retrofit in years to come:
At the junction with the Sarsfield Road (the railway underpass), there’s junction tightening, but then the Dublin-style design is forced into it when there’s space for better:
At the other end of Sarsfield Road there’s maybe the opposite problem than discussed so-far.
Are some of these cycle lanes here for box-ticking? With all the approaches requiring mixing in traffic and the lanes at the mouth of Sarsfield Road mainly just being painted lanes, is there really a benefit here?
The following image skips ahead to the city centre because there’s a massive gap in cycling provision along this route — this should be somewhat made up for by the parallel route along the former N4, but this does not help local cycling in some areas like around Inchicore.
More locally to the following location below at James’s Street, there is also a ‘quiet street’ treatment bypassing the section of James’s Street with tram tracks, but it’s a bit convoluted if you’re going back onto the same route. And at its western end, it’s unclear how you’re supposed to enter it going eastbound without a really zig-zag movement across two traffic and tram lanes:
At the other end of the tram tracks, without signalising more of these movements, I’m unclear of most of the changes to the junction here:
Where the quiet street ends on the eastern side, there’s no clear way to turn right and enter the eastbound cycle track:
At Cornmarket, the junction is reorientated away from the main bus route — but, as well as being able to fit a Dutch-style junction design (yet again), there might be an element of bus property lost here:
The Liffey Valley to City Centre route ends on High Street at Christchurch, but the junction is part of another route.
(This means I won’t use a GIF of a dog looking at you strangely to try to explain how I feel about the design):
