69 thoughts on “Hemmed-In Street

      1. Nigel

        If there’s one thing we’ve learned it’s that sensible urban traffic management in our capital city is nobody’s business.

          1. scottser

            yeah, well i’m gonna overtake you and fling thumb tacks all over the road behind me.

            only messing jimmy. i’m only wating for the tendonitis to clear up and i’ll be back on the bike meself.

  1. K Quinn

    You mean you can’t pass the bus on the inside anymore? How appalling. It’s as if no one understands the huge favour you’re doing for society and the environment by cycling instead of taking the bus. I can’t believe the swine have done this to you.

    1. Sinabhfuil

      Yeah, much, much better to haul your great lardarse around in three tons of metal, using the earth’s finite supplies of fossil fuel.

      1. ollie

        The earth has enough fossil fuel to last for hundreds of years. You don’t need to worry about this just yet.

        1. ahjayzis

          Exactly. And burning fossil fuel can go on for hundreds more years without a hitch.

          I’m not even an eco-freak, but idiocy like this gets anyone’s back up.

        2. Nigel

          Yeah, we just need to worry about a return to tiger-era levels of traffic congestion and air pollution! God, they were so much fun!

    2. MyloD

      True, cyclists should just sit behind several tons of metal blocking the road and suck up those lovely diesel fumes because most people are too lazy to walk the last few hundred metres to work. Clearly, motor vehicles have superior rights because they pay ‘road tax’ even though it’s actually called motor tax and is based on the amount of carbon the vehicle spews into the atmosphere.

      Thanks for the reality check my friend. It’s the slap in the face I needed to get me back in my car and join the rest of you twats blocking the roads.

        1. MyloD

          You’re right of course. Totally the same as any other road vehicle except a bike doesn’t have an engine, or a roof, or a heater to keep you cozy. But don’t worry, we’ll totally stand there like knobs breathing fumes while all the lazy gits in cars block the road. Realistic plan you got there. Ever thought of urban planning as a career?

    3. pissedasanewt

      You can’t undertake the bus because some bloody cyclist has left their bike hanging out onto the road…

  2. Stoolio Iglesias

    The new layout there is a disaster. Or amazing if you like increased delays in both directions at peak times. But mostly terrible.

      1. 3stella

        Heading out from town up Clanbrassil street a great example, a two line dual carriageway goes into one lane with predicable results at rush hour so people can be allowed to park outside the kebab shops.

    1. Jordofthejungle

      Not only is it badly designed but really poorly built. Cheap and nasty realignment. Certainly agree it has increased delays especially around the Bleeding Horse.

    2. Ding

      It’s chugged up things on the rathmines rd going towards town badly. 20 minutes to get from Blackbird to portobello bridge most morning.

  3. Reegore

    This isn’t the only place they’ve done a botch job. The new road surface on Hatch st is appalling in places. Roads in Lucan and Blackrock have been getting pointless cosmetic work done, most of which is actually dangerous. Councils just blowing their money on any old nonsense I’m guessing

    1. Jordofthejungle

      Ironically the works in Blackrock are mostly to add a (wide) cycle lane on the bypass after the death of a cyclist due to a turning truck at the Carysfort junction. Lots of other roads around the area need resurfacing desperately, esp. Avoca Avenue – a real mess for a premium street.

        1. Jordofthejungle

          Yes, unfortunate motor cyclist died after crashing into parked cars on Carysfort Avenue. Always plenty of people using this Avenue as a free park and ride causing danger for both drivers and cyclists pushed out over the white line, forced to overtake a long row of parked cars. No doubt this will change as a result of the tragedy. Again, is this what it takes?

  4. notlucas

    As a former cyclist myself, you don’t have a God given right to pass on the inside. Unless there’s a separate lane, you, like all the other road users, should queue in lane. I suggest right in the middle behind the bus to stop other ignorant people pushing you off the road.

    Or y’know, up on the path if the rules of the road don’t actually apply to you.

    1. Brian S

      +1 common sense comment

      if there is a cycle lane on the inside. use it. if not. sit in traffic like all other road users are required to do by law.
      also if you are not a bus (or taxi) the bus lane is not for you, cyclists, motorcyclists, people turning left “in a few yards”

      1. Vote Rep #1

        Actually, unless specified as a bus only lane, if a taxi can use it, so can a cyclist. I know this because it is in the rules of the road.

      2. paps

        If there’s no cycle lane, you can most certainly use the bus lane.. Also even if there is a cycle lane there aren’t any laws saying you have to use it.

        1. andyourpointiswhatexactly

          I get irrationally angry (wearing my driver’s hat) when there’s a cycle lane and some gobsh*te cyclist isn’t using it. Makes me dream about opening the passenger door and clotheslining them. Or, you know, something less homicidal.

          1. Mister Mister

            There’s no legal requirement for a cyclist to use a cycle lane if there is one.

            You’ve obviously haven’t cycled a bike since you were a kid, if even at that, as you’d realise the the vat majority of cycle lanes in this country are in shite and a danger.

      3. bob

        You sure about that? If bikes can’t go in the bus lane, what? You want them in the car lane with cars overtaking on one side and buses and taxis overtaking on the inside? Sounds like a death trap!

          1. andyourpointiswhatexactly

            “even where there is a parallel cycle track”. You know, in Hopeless Romantic’s response which I was replying to.
            Gimpfinity, dude.

          2. Bingo Slimz

            Fupping? You’re clearly the gimp.

            Secondly, there’s a bus lane I cycle in every day that runs beside a perfectly good cycle lane. Why, you ask?

            Because at the top of the road, I’m turning right. So using common sense, rather than having to jump down a kerb and cross the bus lane that cars turning left ahead tend to occupy very prematurely, I use the bus lane, then signal that I’m crossing it from left to right, which leaves me in the correct position to make my right turn.

            But you, in your infinite wisdom, don’t understand logical thought. There is no option ‘c’ for you. You see a cycle track and you get all worked up and annoyed that a cyclist isn’t using it, and is using the bus lane instead. Even though you’re not a bus. Even though you’re not a taxi. Even though a cyclist is not obliged to use a cycle lane.

            You are a fool.

          3. andyourpointiswhatexactly

            So the cycle lane doesn’t suit you as you need to do a bit of manoeuvring at the top of it, so you slow down buses by cycling in the bus lane instead. Am I reading that correctly?

          4. Bingo Slimz


            Nah, mate. Try reading it as ‘road user getting in correct lane shock-horror’. And then continue moaning about it.

    2. Clampers Outside!

      I love cycling right behind the bus. I need a good lung full of carbon monoxide every morning just before I get to work.

      Best place ever, stuck behind a bus breathing in all that the bus has to offer…. hmmmmmm, poisons. Sets me right up!

      1. notlucas

        Yeah Clamps, but if you get in the sweet spot you get carried along by the bus’s drag and save you having to pedal your guts out. Until he stops suddenly and you faceplant into the back of the bus. Right up until then it’s class and nearly worth the woosey poison. Makes you feel like you’ve pulled off some aerodynamic voodoo.

  5. jojjo

    Dublin needs an inner freeflow ring road,no question. It would free up city streets from cars and actually allow buses to move.
    And proposing a ban on cars is just ridiculous without allowing free passage through the city. The m50 cant take any more strain as is. It essentially does the job of 3 roads

  6. Dhaughton99

    Camden St is one of the places that I am most likely to die at. Other is James’s St, full of double parked taxi’s, p*ssheads walking like lemmings into traffic and those fecking art students who stand out in the road after getting coffee in the morning because the bus lanes are car parks and a place to sell fruit and toilet rolls.

  7. wearnicehats

    it may cause an intial delay but isn’t this new arrangement better for cyclists? It means they can avoid that fairly mental one way chicane they would otherwise have to use to head up to the canal.

    1. Jordofthejungle

      That was the theory behind the new arrangement. The reality though is the increased frequency of traffic jams have impeded not improved the street for cyclists.

      1. andyourpointiswhatexactly

        Apart from that, the change in route of all the 15 buses is a pain in my hoop. Bloody Luas.

  8. Khanfred

    These are the applicable bits from the Rules of the Road –

    P. 48 – Make sure you drive your vehicle far enough to the left to allow traffic to safely pass or overtake on the right but not so far to the left that you are driving on a cycle lane or blocking or endangering cyclists or pedestrians. (This is sometimes difficult as the road markings in some places seem designed for very skinny cars indeed e.g. coming up to Vincent’s on the Merrion Road)

    p.189 – When cycling alongside traffic stopped in line, be aware of gaps in the traffic to allow other vehicles to turn across the stationary lane. The view of the car that is turning may be blocked due to the traffic build-up.

    p. 189 – Do not take up a position on the ‘inside’ of a large vehicle out of view of the driver. Instead, stay behind if the large vehicle has stopped at a junction with the intention of turning left.

    The upshot is that cyclists are permitted to cycle to the left of stationary traffic (and such traffic must keep far enough to the right that it isn’t blocking cyclists). However, a cyclist should not try and sidle up alongside a large stationary vehicle turning left. Given the dangers if the vehicle veers a bit to the left, maybe this should be changed to not cycling up on the left of any vehicle where it is not safe to do so (instead, dismount and go along footpath).

  9. Elaine

    Cyclists are permitted in bus lanes, in fact a lot of bus lanes have a bicycle symbol on them. Cyclists also don’t have to cycle in cycle lanes thanks to legislation passed in 2011. Anyone who thinks they should needs to take a quick cycle around and see how many times they’ve to veer out into traffic thanks to parked cars/pulled over taxis. Cyclists are also permitted to undertake on the left provided; 1: the traffic on their right is slower, 2: no one is alighting from the car, 3: the car isn’t turning left.

    The picture above is irritating and could cause some cyclists to take silly risks but, when I come across this issue in heavy traffic, I get off my bike & walk it on the footpath to a clear, safe spot in the road and just get back on. Until road layouts are intelligently designed for all road users that’s the kind of action I’ll take.

  10. Omar Sarhan

    You just need to cycle aggressively and own the road just like cars, cycle in the lane not at the side. It’s not like you are committing a war crime or the traffic is going too fast.
    The drivers on here seem to get all huffy and self righteous, but they’ll calm down after a few minutes, they just think it’s cool to be all narky and angry.

    1. JimmytheHead


      Get some safety gear and plenty of visibility (front n back lights and a glow in the dark jacket) and some kevlar gloves to knock out anyone who thinks paying road tax entitles them to murder people who use a bicycle.

  11. Elrond Hubbard

    To be fair, it was a bit dodgy previously heading south. That route around the block at the bleeding horse was always dangerous. I don’t understand how the traffic has gotten worse, so I’ll take your word for it. In general the principle seems sound though. I’d be more worried about the cars constantly parked on wexford street though, both directions. Death trap after Devitts.

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