An 8% year-on-year increase in cycling was recorded by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council’s electronic bicycle counters.
The data relates to the May, June, July and August in 2018 when compared to the same months in 2017 and was recorded from counters on three routes in the council’s area.
In a statement the council said: “The biggest increase was along the Rock Road with a 10% increase in the number of people cycling on the route over the 4 month period followed by an 8% increase on the Stillorgan Road and a 6% increase on Clonskeagh Road.”
The statement said that “The heatwave over the Summer months has contributed to more people cycling on roads in the County,” but the level of increase is lower than some previous years.
Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council said that the cycle counter data shows that the Rock Road corridor is the busiest in the County with an average of about 1,200 weekday cycle trips on the route heading towards the city followed by Clonskeagh Road which has about 1,000 weekday one-way cycle trips and the Stillorgan Road which has about 700 weekday cycle trips.
Cllr Oisin Smyth, the council’s mayor said: “I welcome the increase in the number of people cycling on key routes around the County. Overall, the increase in the number of people cycling highlights the work being done by the Council in improving facilities for cyclists.”
He added: “In addition, the introduction of initiatives to encourage more people to cycle such as the introduction of a pilot bike sharing scheme with Bleeperbike, the installation of more cycle parking and assisting the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport with the roll out of school cycle training has encouraged more people to cycle in the County.”
Increase in cycling figures are to be welcomed. The figures are under-represented though. I had reason to cycle the Merrion Road from Blackrock to Merrion Gates every morning, Monday to Friday, at 8.30 am during August. I noted that if two bicycles passed the counter at Booterstown side by side, neither was counted! Neither were any bikes that were outside the dotted cycle lane. Neither is my Cycling Without Age trishaw counted, and this may apply also to cargo bikes? Thus, numbers are higher than recorded, which is good!
considering that Clonskeagh road is one of the main entry points in to UCD the figure is pretty disappointing.
we already accept that the Dublin city side of the UCD on the N11 is in brutal condition especially compared to the DLRCoCo N11 (the FLY over is the county border)
Both UCD and UCD Students union should really tackle the various councils on the poor access routes and promote cycling to its students.
DLRCoCo recently fixed most the potholes on the rock road and its safer as we don’t have to swerve to avoid them, this is reflected in its increase usage. hope they keep up the repairs on other routes. it’d be great to see them tackle the bottle neck along the lane at blackrock station.