Dublin City Council’s Women’s Committee have launched a new poster campaign titled “Don’t force them into traffic” which is aimed at motorists parking illegally on footpaths.
The posters have currently been placed as a pilot in the Cabra/Glasnevin area. It’s part of the work the committee is doing which looking at factors that makes people feel less safe in the city, including conducting safety audits.
Cllr Cat O’Driscoll (SocDems) said: “Footpath parking is illegal for a reason, it reduces access for people who move around the city on foot, using buggies and using wheelchairs. It’s really important that we stamp out this bad habit.”
She said: “Between the high cost of repair and the danger it puts people in, this illegal behaviour must stop.”
Cllr Darcy Lonergan (Greens) said: “Footpaths are not built for cars, when cars park on footpaths it damages them and cracks them and makes them a lot more hazardous for people with buggies and walking.”
The councillors are looking for suggestions for locations for further footpaths.
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Unfortunately I have to say its needed on every footpath in the city
The posters look great! Would love them everywhere in city. Would be great if there were similar posters for bike lanes and children. It’s so hard when your children are cycling ahead of you in bike lane and they come across a parked car and you are trying to negotiate multiple children on bikes around it.
Brilliant!
While very welcome the poster doesn’t mention that it is illegal to drive up/along a footpath and that there is a fine for it.
There are many motorist behaviours that are illegal and subject to fines. The culture has developed, supported by a lack of enforcement, that this is all okay. It is only through influencing the culture to show that this is not a victimless crime that there may be a chance of change.
As a country, we have regulations and laws coming out of our ears, what we don’t have is enforcement or even respect for these laws.
Perhaps the signs could be rotated around different areas, e.g. 1 month in D1/3, 1 month in D2/4 such that they are there every 12 months as a reminder?
Cian’s also written before about the construction practice of wobbly footpaths, where large slices of footpath are turned from a flat surface to a sloped one to enable drivers to seamlessly pull out from their private car parks (formerly front gardens) onto the road. I live in an area of Dublin where increasingly people are converting front gardens/green spaces into car parks – some of the footpaths are crazy-wobbly, wouldn’t like to be wheeling a buggy or using a chair along them. Interesting that these aren’t subject to the same restrictions as the bike lockers.
These posters won’t physically prevent cars and trucks being parked on the pavements and bike lanes! They need bollards, similar to what you’d see in Paris, placed at 5m intervals along 90% of roads to get drivers to stop this, as the only thing they’re worried about is damaging their car.
Unfortunately as far as I can tell, most motorists think so long as they leave enough room for people to squeeze by (in their judgement of course) they aren’t doing anything wrong.
Would love this in Swords – but means nothing without the enforcement, of which there currently is none.