Salthill cycleway: Galway councillors latching on to any old excuse; can they be brave?

COMMENT & ANALYSIS: It’s come to IrishCycle.com attention that rather being brave and acting on road safety, health streets and climate action, some Galway City councillors are responding to residents by coming up with any old excuse not to implement the 6-month trial of the Salthill cycle path.

IrishCycle.com has already covered the emergency services issues separately in a news and comment article:

• Objecting to one “particular cycleway only” is not going against Government policy, says Gardai
• Isn’t it funny how people concerned with cycle paths blocking emergency access don’t see any problem with car-related congestion?

In response to the most recently published of those articles, even more examples of emergency services using cycle paths in London were given. Once the cycle route is designed right with the width maximised, there should be no issue with emergency services using the cycle path in Salthill:

Do it right, and it helps blue-light response times tremendously.

If it’s blocking emergency services, or you’re concerned that it might – what you’re really arguing is that it should be BIGGER. pic.twitter.com/4Ww0Ihii8G

— Heavy Metal Handcyclist (@CrippledCyclist) February 13, 2022

Clearly — like with most others — option 2 is the performed option. There are some issues but nothing that cannot be solved.

There is some suggestion of a need for more double yellow lines on Threadneedle Road — with a quick-build project, this is exactly that kind of thing which can be partly or fully done in advanced of the major work or it can wait until the cycle path and bus diversions are in place and then the extent of the issue can be looked at. This is the incremental and fit-it as needed approach taken by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council with its Coastal Mobility Route.

The main issue is listed on Bus Eireann submission is shown on slide 8 above — the right hand turn at the top of Threadneedle Road. Bus Eireann said:

“The ideal remedy to this issue would be to realignment of the kerb…. but I’m aware that hard engineering would incur increase planning and cost. Given that the proposed cycle lane is a temporary measure, the box junction might be a more fitting of option.

First, taking a very small strip of wide section of footpath is hard engineering, but it is minor in nature. It does not need major planning or huge costs. But, secondly, Bus Eireann gives a reasonable second solution.

Their solution is very similar the idea of setting back the stop link shown below in the Manual for Urban Roads and Street, as shown in the image below.

So, there’s solutions for buses and none of them is major. Yet, this is how one councillor is presenting it to people — the councillors (1) does not understand or (2) is just latching onto any issue:

This is a core point by Eoin Daly below — transport and how our streets are shaped is one of the areas that councils have power to change people’s live. Yet, some of them would prefer to pretend to be TDs rather than working on what they can change for the positive:

This position taken by Cllr Niall McNelis is the same taken by councillors in Dublin and DLRCC etc to avoid upsetting the status quo. It’s up to Cllr McNelis and fellow councillors to decide if they want to act on road safety, healthy streets and climate change:

We’ll know in a few hours if Galway councillors are brave or if they are the guardians of the status quo.