Category Archives: Irish Posts

Ireland, see also NI

Irish Posts

Cycle City Active City Leicester Conference

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Cyclist.ie keeps a close eye on developments across the water in how British cities are changing to accommodate more cycling. As Irish campaigners we regularly travel across to cycling planning / advocacy events and enjoy meeting our cycle campaigning colleagues and swapping notes.

The latest trip was to Leicester to attend the Cycle City Active City conference. Leicester is undergoing a rapid transformation in recent years. Not only does the city boast the largest area of pedestrianised streets of any UK city (with cycle access and no record of serious collisions!), it has also been dismantling some of its gigantic flyovers – classic symbols of 1960s motorised automobility – and promoting urban regeneration. The nurturing of an everyday cycling culture is very much part of this mix. All of this has been helped along by a directly elected Mayor of the City Council (Peter Soulsby) and one of the most dynamic Local Authority Cycling Officers in the UK (Andy Salkeld).

We also heard the latest news from New York (Jon Orcutt) in which cycling is growing through a combination of high quality (protected) bike lanes and a large bike-share scheme, and from London where top notch cycle campaigning (by London Cycling Campaign and others) has prompted a series of directly elected mayors to treat the bicycle as a serious mode to alleviate congestion and help turn London into a more people friendly city. LCC’s latest success is getting a commitment from London’s new Mayor Sadiq Khan to triple the cycle superhighways, enable ‘Mini-Hollands’ in every borough and take dangerous lorries off streets.

Other excellent contributions came from Rachel Aldred, Senior Lecturer in Transport at Westminster University, who is studying how exactly reducing the volumes as well as the speeds of motorised traffic improves the environment for those not wearing a full body metal shell (her blog) and Philip Darnton, Executive Director of the Bicycle Association. Philip’s main argument is that £20M will enable every single school child in the UK to be trained in how to cycle in trafficked environments and every child deserves this training. Meanwhile, cycling journalist and author Carlton Reid recommended that we treat every outrageous / irrational anti-cyclist comment from various celebrities / notice boxes (such as ex- UK Chancellor Nigel Lawson’s as an indication that we are winning the battle: cycling is growing.

All in all, the Leicester conference was excellent. There were over 500 delegates / speakers plus another 300 cycle training instructors in attendance, and the quality of the presentations was really very good. There is an undoubted buzz generated by the more radical interventions on the streets of London to create safe cycling conditions for all – the question and feeling on everyone’s lips was: why should it just be on a handful of London’s streets that safe cycling conditions are created!? Hear hear!

Dr. Damien Ó Tuama is the National Cycling Coordinator for Cyclist.ie. He presented at the Leicester conference on “The (Slow) Progress in Implementing Ireland’s National Cycle Policy Framework”.

Irish Posts

HGV Permits for Dublin

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On behalf of Cyclist.ie, Deputy Tommy Broughan (Ind) kindly asked Parliamentary Questions (PQ) – directed at Minister Frances Fitzgerald (Justice) concerning the An Garda detection & enforcement of the Dublin City Council HGV permit system

  1. PQ68: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the status of the Heavy Goods Vehicle permit system for Dublin City including the number of permits issued in 2014 to 2016 to date; and if she will make a statement on the matter.
  2. PQ69: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number and results of discrete Heavy Goods Vehicles stopping and checking operations An Garda Síochána has carried out to detect the permit status of Heavy Goods Vehicles requiring a permit in each of the years 2014 to 2016 to date; the number of multi-agency check-point stoppings conducted with An Garda Síochána, the Health and Safety Authority and the Road Safety Authority; and if she will make a statement on the matter

Response:

I am informed by the Garda authorities that the Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) permit system, which is administered by Dublin City Council under its HGV Management Strategy, continues to operate within Dublin City Centre from Monday to Friday, during the hours 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. The system requires HGVs utilising 5-axles to obtain a permit to travel inside a designated cordon area to conduct business or make deliveries. HGVs using 4-axles do not require a permit to enter the cordon area. Details of the number of permits issued are a matter for Dublin City Council.

I am further informed by the Garda authorities that Garda checkpoints cover all areas of road traffic legislation and roads policing, including HGV requirements. However, specific details on the number of such checkpoints are not available, with the exception of Mandatory Alcohol Testing Checkpoints and Truck/HGV Checkpoints, which are recorded on PULSE. In the period 2014 – 19 May 2016, An Garda Síochána has conducted 3,763 Truck / HGV Checkpoints. I am advised by An Garda Síochána that these figures are provisional, operational and subject to change. An Garda Síochána has further advised that multi-agency checkpoints with other agencies, including the Road Safety Authority, are not separately recorded on the Garda PULSE System

Irish Posts

Get on your bike and feel like a newly independent kid again

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 Róisín Ingle: I’ve been freewheeling around Dublin town since the red letter day aged eight or nine when I inherited a thoroughly banjaxed third-hand bike that once had belonged to several older brothers or sisters. It was blue and bockety, the saddle leather battered and worn, the chain creaky and in need of a good dose of 3-in-1 oil, but it was mine, all mine. Read article

More on cycling in today’s Irish Times

Irish Posts

Waterford Greenway – Public Information Meetings

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Waterford City and County Council is currently developing the Waterford Greenway along a 45km section of the old disused railway line from Dungarvan to Waterford. It is anticipated that this amenity will officially open to the public in the second half of 2016. It is envisaged that the development and completion of the Greenway will have a hugely significant cultural, social and economic impact on the people of Waterford in the years to come. Read article

Irish Posts

Cork’s Public Bike Schemes – Continuing the Journey

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One year after the official launch of CokeZeroBikes (Cork), the Transport and Mobility Forum Cork (TMF) hosted a half-day seminar on 8th March 2016 on the scheme. The event saw a packed conference room in the Metropole Hotel with about 50 delegates with professional transport / bicycle planning backgrounds attending. Presentations were given on the public bike schemes by the NTA and a group of Master’s students from the UCC Centre for Planning, while the smaller scale Clonakilty Community Bike Scheme received lots of praise too. Planners for Cork City Council reported on their infrastructure improvement projects as did those from County Hall (i.e. Cork County Council) and Cork University Hospital. Delegates learned that there are a number of major employers yet not with the reach of the public bikes.

In the lively discussion, many attendees expressed the hope that the NTA would soon expand the scheme, building on its overwhelming success. This was echoed by the NTA’s Michael Aherne, although he had to try hard to keep expectations low. The NTA would first need to help the two other schemes (Limerick and Galway) up on their feet, although officials in Dublin were more than surprised about the rocket start of the Cork scheme. He pointed out that “in Dublin, we had to wait five years to see how the [Dublin Bikes] system developed and to understand usage patterns. In Cork, however, the emergence of a cycling culture appears to be happening on a fast track.“ Coordinated promotion from various sides and bodies, many of them part of the TMF, such as Cork Cycling Campaign, the Cork Councils, UCC and others, are making a valuable contribution to that success.
For more information visit: Transport & Mobility Forum (Cork) and Cork Cycling Campaign