South Dublin Quietway objectors lobby cllrs ahead of Monday’s vote

— Residents hired consultants to write report against the route. 

Dublin’s South East area councillors are getting lobbied heavily by objectors to the South Dublin Quietway walking and cycling route ahead of a local area committee meeting on Monday afternoon.

The route is proposed to run from Terenure to Ballsbridge mainly on residential streets.

The main measures used in Quietways, and similar routes of different names in other countries, are traffic calming and bollards or planters to stop rat running motorists while allowing access for residents’ cars. Quietways only include small sections of cycle path usually where the routes intersect with larger roads to allow for safe crossing of such road.

The area meeting on Monday is due to discuss and vote on if funding will be allocated, so that the public consultation for the proposed route will proceed.

According to councillors and their colleagues, objectors have sent them a large volume of emails looking for the project to be halted before public consultation starts, while they have only received just one email so-far from supporters.

 

More on the consultant’s report soon.


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6 comments

  1. From The Netherlands you’ve got my support in favor of the Quietways. I don’t understand how people living along those streets can complain, because noise is a contributor to stress. Just read the Google Search results about the relation between noise and stress. https://www.google.nl/search?safe=off&source=hp&ei=cWn3WtO2FsrTwALj7Kxo&q=noise+stress&oq=noise+stress&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0i203k1l6j0i22i30k1l4.2424.5786.0.13066.13.11.0.1.1.0.148.734.10j1.11.0….0…1c.1.64.psy-ab..1.12.742.0..0j35i39k1j0i131k1j0i10k1j0i10i203k1.0.fKXzcX8WKaQ

    Reply
  2. It is surely difficult to rationally argue against a project that will improve the liveability of the area as well as providing a useful service to the wider city, but when you throw enough money at a problem, you can usually get the outcome you want. Let’s see what spurious reasons their shill consultants come up with for shooting this down, as they surely will.

    I would have thought that people in this area (highest cyclist throughput in canal cordon counts) would be generally cycling friendly, but the availability of rat-running must be more important for a significant number (or vociferous minority) of residents than cleaner air, reduced noise pollution, safer streets for their kids as well as safer routes for cyclists. Oh well.

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  3. I’m a resident on Ashdale Road – part of the proposed route – and strongly in favour of this proposal (one among many). I attended the original residents meeting (yes – that one), but the information on the ground and within the residents groups outside of Cowper & Garville is scarce to zero. I’m only reading about this on websites such as Irish Cycle. Get to the doors, get the support out and let people know about it. The objecting residents are well organised and it’s probably all they talk about. I don’t like to say it, but unfortunately it shouldn’t be a surprise if it gets defeated.

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  4. I also live on the route and would love to see this implemented. There is a huge amount of misinformation from the anti-side. There has been no balance to the discussion. We need a proper consultation to make sure all voices are heard, and to give residents an opportunity to understand what is being proposed.

    Honestly, I don’t get the thinking behind the opposition. This will improve neighborhoods, and make destinations along the route more accessible. It supports women, children and the elderly. There are a lot of schools on the route, we should be supporting school children to enable them to get to school by bike. This in turn will ease congestion on the roads.

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  5. The most telling words in this piece:
    The main measures used in Quietways, and similar routes of different names in other countries, are traffic calming and bollards or planters to stop rat running motorists while allowing access for residents’ cars. Quietways only include small sections of cycle path usually where the routes intersect with larger roads to allow for safe crossing of such road.

    It’s obvious why the residents don’t want the route – they don’t want a route opened between Kimmage, a traditionally working-class area (though rapidly gentrifying and a hive of the arts now), and the aspirationally bourgeois or settled bourgeois areas.

    They may, of course, also worry about being blocked off by bollards, but retractable bollards that can be raised and lowered with remote controls (which could be issued to residents) are cheap as chips.

    Crazy people, preferring rat-running and fly-parking to a quiet, peaceful neighbourhood!

    Reply
  6. @Crois — there might be some residents who don’t want gaps in walls opened, but the main reason is bollards.

    RE: “They may, of course, also worry about being blocked off by bollards, but retractable bollards that can be raised and lowered with remote controls (which could be issued to residents) are cheap as chips.”

    My understanding is that the norm internationally is to use non-retractable bollards for residential areas. There is far higher costs for retractable bollards at the outset and on-going.

    Retractable bollards are usually used in town and city centres to allow access to areas which are circled by such bollards (ie there’s no way around them, there is a way around the bollards they predisposed on the route).

    Reply

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