I’m Roseanne Smith, a newly recruited blogger to the Dublin Community Blog. Actually I’m not that newly recruited having been moved to volunteer when Red Mum was collecting the blog’s award at the Irish Blog Awards in February and mentioned that they were looking for some actual Dubliners to blog. So I’m an actual Dubliner. You can find out more about me on my own blog because I’m here to talk about what’s going on in Dublin not in my head (as a general rule…). I’m hoping once I get into the swing of things and have lulled you into a false sense of security to contribute the odd blog in Irish. Enough of the intros, here goes!

I am a cyclist. I wouldn’t say avid or fanatical while I’m just sitting here at my laptop. Not at all.

But get me onto the saddle and I become something else. Half woman, half bike: melded with my machine, senses heightened, coordination controlled, I’m a dynamic dynamo and I’m getting there faster than all of you.

Well except for anyone who’s running. Really I’m a very average cyclist. I always stop at red lights. I wear nerdy hi-viz clothing on all my limbs and a helmet. I have front and rear lights and I move at a leisurely pace.

I do cycle everywhere. I cycle to and from work, the kids’ school and creche, to meetings, out at the weekend; come rain or shine. I even sometimes bring our bikes on holidays. I do lots of  thinking on the bike when I’m not avoiding potholes or pedestrians. I find it’s a great way to start the day.

Dublin is a grand place to cycle. Okay it’s no Amsterdam or even Groningen. It’s fairly flat, there are new bits of bike lane all the time. (I’m trying to accentuate the positive here, folks! It’s my first post – I don’t want to come across as crabby on Day 1) As you will see I live close to the canal and there’s nothing like zipping along the canal no matter what the weather.

One of the main reasons people often give for not cycling is the weather: they are worried that they will get drenched on their way to work. As another cyclist puts it on his blog “it’s the prospect of getting wet that puts people off.” Well I’ve been doing a little experiment since January. Everyday I get stopped on Sally’s Bridge on the canal on the way home. It’s just not possible to get from one set of traffic lights to the other at my pedestrian pace. So every day I take a snap and post it to my Flickr account. You can see the set here. Or better still:

Now I’ll admit straight off that due to the fact that I was in Santry for work recently I failed to take a photo between the 20 and 23 May when there was some torrential rain. This is also just snaps from weekdays and there’s some days when I’d be so deeply in thought that I would forget to take a photo.

So even adding in, say, about five wet days that I missed, that is not a lot of wet in nearly six months. And, as your mammy would say (and I am a mammy so I know about these things), there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad dressing. A good set of raingear will get you to and from work dry as a bone. Although I will admit to getting a bit cheesed off lugging my raingear around and unlike my other half I haven’t gone as far as gaiters so I keep dry footwear under my desk for days that I am caught on the hop.

So why have I chosen now to out myself as a wannabe fanatical cyclist? Next week is National Bike Week. Two years ago we took part in the Dublin City Cycle and it was a great day. As proof of my very average cycling, I was the very last back to the finish – I blame the youngest for my poor performance as he fell asleep which slowed me down something rotten! Here are a few of my snaps.

So I was delighted when I read that the activities have been extended to not only a full week but they have gone national. Among the events are free bike check-ups, charity cycles, cycling workshops and family fun days. I love the idea that Parnassus theatre company have: show your bike light at their production of Abigail’s Party in the Samuel Beckett Centre in TCD and you’ll get 33% off on the 16th, 17th and 16th June. Bargain! And it’s a very entertaining play so win-win!

This year the Dublin City Cycle takes place on Wednesday 17 June and while it may not be so family oriented it will draw more Dubliners’ attention to the cyclists in their midst. This was actually my biggest gripe with the Dublin City Cycle two years ago: it happened on a Sunday so there was no real impact on the rest of the citizens. I think a city cycle like this should remind other road users that cyclists are really there.

So keep an eye out for me at the Dublin City Cycle or taking pics on Sally’s Bridge of an evening!

Iarnród Eireann are starting an improvement project on the Kildare line out of Heuston station this weekend, with some cancellations and delays to and from Heuston on Saturday evening and Sunday morning as a result. Full details can be found here – the work is set to continue on selected weekends through to the end of March at least.

So much for Operation Freeflow! Nothing much flowed around the Point Depot this morning after a truck overturned. This happened at 5.30am, yet it took a full 6 hours for the truck to be removed and caused total gridlock out as far as the airport. How can one incident have such a drastic affect on city traffic?

More info here:
eircom.net
RTE

In case you are not already aware, but there are gonna be some serious disruptions to Dublin Bus services in the morning. I am copying the notice that was posted on Dublin Bus’s webpage earlier. So check and make sure if your bus service is affected that you have other means to get to work.

Due to industrial action by bus drivers in Harristown Bus Garage, services operating from this garage will be disrupted on Monday 12th November 2007.

Dublin Bus wish to apologise for this disruption.

Thankfully, I rarely have to endure Dublin traffic nowadays, and in fact, as I’m shooting up the motorway in the opposite direction to all the commuters, I regularly take (guilty) pleasure in listening to the traffic reports on the radio. But I would love to know what the deal is with the past two days. By all accounts it’s been completely manic out there, and I’m just wondering if any ideas what has led to traffic being so crazy around the city this week?

People often wonder why Dublin’s traffic is so bad. Usually, and rightly so, it’s blamed on the city’s completely inadequate public transport network. As an illustration of this, Dublin today received it’s first new train station in 116 years!! Yep, you heard that one right, it’s one hundred and sixteen years since Tara Street Station opened its doors. Ok ok, there have been various DART stations opened up through the years, but, we’re talking main line stations here.

But enough history, today saw the opening of the new Docklands Station in the IFSC. The new station serves commuters from Clonsilla, Coolmine, Castleknock, Ashtown and Broombridge, and has allowed for an additional four trains each direction per day already. Amazingly, Iarnród Éireann claim that this gives them a service frequency of about 10 minutes from West Dublin to the city centre between the hours of 07:10 and 09:00. It will be interesting to hear tales of whether or not this becomes reality for people along this route.

Also, to tie in with this, Dublin Bus are offering a range of services to and from Docklands Station. The new 151 route and new feeder bus 93 route will be available for Docklands Station commuters.

More details on all services can be found on the Irish Rail Website and the Dublin Bus Website

I’m a bit late but you may find this useful if you have to heave heavy shopping across the city like I did today, fair play to Clearwire for the Christmas shuttle:

The free Clearwire Christmas shuttle will be running between O’Connell Street and Grafton street on Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week to save the weary shopping feet of the people of Dublin.

The shuttle will be running tomorrow from 10am till 4pm and you can hop on outside Topshop at the top of Grafton Street or outside Cleary’s. You can hop off outside Penny’s on O’Connell Street, at the bottom of Grafton Street outside Trinity or outside Topshop. So if you are in town be sure to check it out!

 

During an article on yesterday’s traffic nightmare on Dublin’s M50 on RTE News last night, they referred to the fact that tolls at the M50 West Link Toll Bridge were going to be increased by EUR 0.10 from January 1st next. I have not been able to find any refrence to this on RTE, AA Roadwatch or the NRA’s website. Has anyone got any further word on this, or confirmation that this is the case?

EDIT: November 15 @11.08am -  An official opening date has been announced, December 20. (Spotted on TCAL)
Daragh wrote back in September that the Dublin Port Tunnel was to open in mid-November. It now appears that it will open before Christmas with an official date being made before the end of the month. (You would have thought getting it open in time for the Christmas rush would have been important particularly considering the crazy traffic on the quays yesterday evening which was made up of WWW wrestling fans (apparently there was a do in the Point Depot) and trucks and lorries making their way to the port for the evening sailing.
Before then there will be a 10km charity race through the tunnel on December 10. More information on that here and here. Sounds like a cool thing to do.
And back to tunnel news did you know 5,000 people worked 7.5million people hours constructing the €752m project. At 4.5km long it is the longest urban tunnel in Europe and should transport traffic from the M50 to Dublin Port in six minutes. (The site actually contradicts itself on this fact, on one page it says six minutes while on the map at the front it says 10.)
Check out the Dublin Port Tunnel website which has lots of really cool photographs, some of which I am reproducing here. Who knew Star Wars was going on underneath our feet…

Above pic by Mark Marshall

No accreditation for the above pic.

Above pic by Jason Clarke

The Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen, has just announced the route for the new Metro North line from Dublin City Centre, to Dublin Airport.

Metro North will run for 17 kilometres will take in both Ballymun and Drumcondra along the way.

There will be 15 stops starting at St Stephen’s Green, O’Connell Bridge, Parnell Square (possible stop), Mater Hospital, Drumcondra, Griffith Avenue, Dublin City University, Ballymun, Santry Demense, Metropark (!?), Dublin Airport, Nevinstown, Swords, Seatown and Lissenhall. A journey from the city centre to the airport is expected to take 17 minutes.

The full route map is available here

The project is expected to be finished in 2012 and will use underground, surface and elevated tracks. It is estimated 34 million passengers a year will travel on the service, with trains running every four minutes in each direction, increasing to every 90 seconds during peak periods.

If it happens as is being proposed, and happens on time and on budget (two very, very difficult targets to achieve in major Irish infrastructure projects) it will be a hugely benificial service.

Let us know your thoughts on the Metro in our latest poll over there >>>>