UPDATE: The cycle lane on Limerick’s O’Connell Street has been reopened.
Limerick City and County Council, after this article was published, tweeted this morning: “Thank you for this message Dave. That lane is open now. It was closed off at time of your picture so that the final preparation works could be completed.”
As events unfolded quickly, the headline and opening of this article were edited, the original article is below:
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Cycle lane cancelled for Christmas tree: Limerick council forces cyclists into incoming traffic
— Campaigners are calling on the council to urgently address the danger.
Barriers and a yet-to-be-unfolded Christmas tree were yesterday placed in a contra-flow cycle lane on O’Connell Street in Limerick — forcing people cycling out into oncoming traffic.
Contra-flow cycle lanes are lanes which go in the opposite direction than the general flow of traffic and there is a low wall to the left edge of the cycle lane.
Dave Tobin, the vice-chair of the national cycling campaign group Cyclist.ie and a member of the Limerick Cycling Campaign, said: “This is really outrageous and needs to be rectified ASAP.”
Tobin said: “It’s placing inbound cycle traffic onto the motor lane against oncoming traffic. It doesn’t meet any safety standards and leaves Limerick City and County Council open to significant liability if/when an accident occurs as a result.”
Images of the barriers in the cycle lane were posted yesterday on Twitter by David Tidswell.
He said: “It says a lot about our city that the only way to put up a Christmas tree is to completely block a cycle lane – after a 2 million year redesign of O’Connell Street. Not enough public realm space in our city?”
In reply, Cllr Elisa O’Donovan (SocDems) said: “This is quite unbelievable Dave! Thank you for pointing this out. Absolutely not acceptable to be blocking the cycle lane like this.”
Without knowing the location exactly it looks like a lot of room taken for the tree I also would never have guessed it was a cycle lane as no markings at all . How much of the footpath has also been removed to the left. But overall looks badly designed and thought out