It might be the fact that it was a Bank Holiday yesterday, but I was late setting off for my regular cycle commute to work.
I was perhaps about 30 minutes later than I normally set off, and was interested to see the difference that only half an hour can make.
The first thing that I noticed was the quantity of other bicycles. The cycle lanes were an awful lot more busy than when I normally ride. I’d say that I saw maybe three-to-four times as many cyclists as normal. In one way that’s great, as you can see that cycling is thriving in Dublin, and there’s always a “strength in numbers” in terms of motor traffic being more mindful of people on bikes.
However, I also had to content with a lot more congestion on the protected cycle lanes, and a lot of other cyclists shoaling me at the red lights. I don’t mind faster people going past me, but invariably there’s a few quite slow people who always feel they need to get to the front of the queue, and then hold up everyone behind!
The other thing that was quite noticeable this morning was the number of children on electric bikes. And while I can understand parents wanting to make their child’s journey to school quicker and easier, it’s also a fact that it’s against the law for under 16s to ride ebikes or electric scooters.
The effect of increased congestion
Normally, my commute time doesn’t vary by that much – perhaps a couple of minutes more or less each day. It doesn’t matter if the schools are back, or if it’s raining, or if there’s a load of farmers and haulage drivers protesting. My commute stays the same.
However this morning it took me longer than normal, as I was help up several times by congested roads. There are a number of pinch points on my route – often where the road gets narrower – where I was getting stuck behind a bus that was trying to merge with another traffic lane.
Other cyclists were riding along the footpath to get past the bus, but I don’t like doing that – especially when there are loads of pedestrians using the footpath. It just seems rude and a bit reckless. At least get off your bike and push it!
The traffic can also be bad where car and van drivers decide to drive in the bus lanes, and inevitably end up blocking junctions.
Back to my usual time
I think in future I’ll try to stick to my usual commute time. I quite like that there aren’t as many cyclists. There are enough around to ensure that motorists are watching out for them, but not so many as to get in my way.
And I think at my usual time the buses seem to move a bit more easily, and the bus lanes aren’t quite so full of cars.