Comment & Analysis

Public consultation has just ended on the Blanchardstown to Phoenix Park cycle route — this route is ambitious for tackling a confined main route and giving space over to cycling, but it’s also full of missed opportunities and disregard the Manual for Urban Roads and Streets, which the council are obliged to follow.

Possibly the worst element of the route shows a distinct disrespect for the law, or disrespect for cyclists — we’re not sure which one it is. In any case, putting cyclists into share space which leads into zebra crossing is disrespectful of road safety. Bicycles legally should not be cycled across zebra crossings, but the Fingal County Council directing cyclists into the crossing will likely give many cyclists the wrong impression. Motorist rightly won’t be expecting to have to yield to cyclists on a zebra crossing. Combining those two is looking for trouble.

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South Dublin County Council told the Sunday Times in 2010 that traffic lights blocking a cycle track at a pedestrian crossing was “standard design”. Things might have moved on, but it seems that if designs are better now, it’s not by much.

Following from recent projects in other areas, two routes proposed by South Dublin County Council add further proof that Ireland or at least Irish councils are not ready for high-quality segregation. These two projects are the ‘N81 (Fortunestown to N82) cycle track scheme‘ and the ‘Tallaght to Templeogue Cycle Track Scheme‘ — the first of which we deal with below.

There still seems to be legacy issues with individual councils, but likely more central to the issue is weak design standards. It’s not likely that standards will improve any time soon unless stricter and binding design standards are put in place which rules out the cycle lanes and tracks most cyclists. The National Cycle Manual fails cycling by allowing the mistakes of the past to be repeated. A central mistake is the idea that mixing cyclists with pedestrians is acceptable.

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As we recently reported, the National Transport Authority launched their online cycling route planner for the Dublin area. The planner (online here) should excel at showing cyclists and would-be cyclists easier or quieter routes. At the moment it horribly fails on this — so much so it should not have been launched or at least come with a health warning.

We tried several routes between three places we’ve lived at on the north side of Dublin City and work locations as well as commutes to a college and a university.  On the ‘balanced’ and ‘easier’ route options the planned recommended routes which includes gates and steep steps:

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“Supporters of helmets often tell vivid stories about someone they knew, or heard of, who was apparently saved from severe head injury by a helmet. Risks and benefits may be exaggerated or discounted depending on the emotional response to the idea of a helmet. For others, this is an explicitly political matter, where an emphasis on helmets reflects a seductively individualistic approach to risk management (or even ‘victim blaming’) while the real gains lie elsewhere.”

That’s Ben Goldacre, of Bad Science fame, and David Spiegelhalter, Winton professor for the public understanding of risk, writing in the British Medical Journal about the complex issue of mandatory bicycle helmets.

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“We need to ensure that the right speed limits are in operation on the right roads” said transport minister Leo Varadkar at the start of the year when he announced that speed limits will be reviewed. Yesterday the Speed Limits Review report was published.

The aim, the report says, is to restore credibility in speed limits which it’s hopped will “improve safety and reduce collisions”

But the report just isn’t credible.

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ANALYSIS: An independent project which is seeking to “kick start change along the Liffey Corridor” is to present their vision of Dublin’s quays to Dublin City councillors today, but cyclists don’t fare well in detail of the new vision.

The vision from Fergus Browne and David Jordan, who are both urban designers and urban planners, is called “the 21st Century Liffey Project” — including removal of clutter and more space for pedestrians. The research project is supported by but not endorsed by Dublin City Council.

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