Resident group makes false claims ahead of Fitzwilliam Cycle Route meeting this evening

Dublin City Council is to host a public meeting on its Fitzwilliam Cycle Route plans today, Thursday August 30, from 6pm to 8pm at the council’s Wood Quay Venue.

Despite significant planned improvements for both pedestrians and people cycling of all ages, a local residents group, the South Georgian Core Residents Association, is continuing to claim the improvements are bad for the young and old.

The latest leaflet in circulation from the South Georgian Core Residents Association contains a number of clearly false claims — including that the project will only benefit cyclists and that the council did not examine alternative design option. Council documents on the public record show these claims to have no bases in fact.

Below is the council’s leaflet on tonight’s meeting:

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6 comments

  1. One of Dublin’s great Georgian streets has an opportunity to revert to something closer to the original design concept and is attempted to be thwarted by an opposition group. This proposed scheme will particularly benefit pedestrians and cyclists in waht is a car dominated street, and will help to bring back some of the original Georgian street vists. SUPPORT!

    Reply
  2. The proposed layout is new to Ireland, and that is the challenge. People assume the worst when it’s unfamiliar. The assumptions of negative consequences have no evidence to back them up. By contract, there is lots of evidence in other countries, that this layout is good for communities and general safety.

    The parking issue is a distraction. When the study was carried out, they found that the new configuration, plus spare capacity in side roads, would be more than adequate to meet the current demand. In other words, the current layout is a waste of a public resource. It would be a disgrace to leave things as they are.

    Traffic flow in the area will improve for two reasons: 1) existing cyclists using the new segregated lane will be out of the way of cars; 2) commuters will make a switch from car to bike, given the improved safety. I have cycled this route and you have to take the lane, as the road conditions are so hostile for cyclists.

    As for deliveries, the current situation is terrible. Delivery vans are a constant cause of congestion given they are longer vehicles. Vans jut out into the road, obstructing all road users. If there is a suggestion of increased danger when crossing a cycle track to make a delivery, this is significantly easier than crossing a road, which must be a common occurrence every day. If the trade-off is to have cyclists out of the main carriageway, I expect delivery drivers will be delighted. If anything, I think deliveries will be easier.

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  3. I’d love to ask them what they’re doing to be supportive of the vision of a cycle-friendly city. I’m in work tonight so won’t be there, but if anyone identifies themselves as a representative of this veneer of a residents’ association, please call their bluff and ask them for examples of their cycle-friendliness.

    If they can’t supply any, ask why should anyone listen to their other blatant lies?

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  4. I worked as a “Safety Officer” for a large business in this area for the best part of the past 15 years. The plan is a much better solution that the current dangerous layout.
    On a road that is as wide as a dual carriageway the “Perpendicular Parking” as it currently exists is lethal. I have had many near misses and I am amazed that more pedestrians (adults & children) and cyclist haven’t been injured as a direct result of it.
    As for deliveries, can you imagine what happens when a driver in a box body delivery van tries to back out across both lanes of traffic? Or if they just parallel park outside a line of occupied “Perpendicular Parking” Spaces what the overall effect on Safety and traffic flow is? I have regularly seen both happen but fortunately the pedestrian traffic isn’t on a par with Grafton Street otherwise I fear the consequences would be more serious.
    The impact on traffic flow is a strange assertion given that most people travel from the suburbs to the centre of the city and not from this area the other way. If they think traffic flow would be seriously disrupted they should take a trip along the N11 or the Rock Road during “rush hour” to discover what traffic flow issues are. The more people that can cycle safely, the less Motor traffic there will be.
    Unfortunately I only found out about this to-day so I won’t be able to make the meeting but the NIMBY attitude in the Residence Associations submission needs to be called for what it is.

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  5. I was at the meeting last night and thanks to the facilitator for keeping things moving in a cordial way.
    I wanted to emphasise to the meeting that parking-segregated cycle tracks, as proposed here, are now the norm in modern cities across Europe where safer infrastructure needs to be provided for cyclists. What the City proposes for this short stretch of road is not radical or experimental. The road and traffic engineers (City and Aecom) have done study trips to other cities in EU and North America so they know what has to be done and how to do it.
    Remember we are the climate-laggards of the EU, principally because of our failure to de-carbonise our transport system. As a society we face fines of circa. €600/y from 2020 for this failure to grow the cycling modal-split above 2% nationally. Denis Naughten TD (Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Energy) was lamenting our failure yesterday, as reported in the press.
    It is time we ceased providing nose-in parking for vehicles. It is hazardous to all road users when the driver comes to reverse out with sight-lines seriously compromised and with constrained opportunity to make eye-contact with fellow road users. It is illegal to reverse onto a public road – for good reason.

    Reply

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