Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Thank you Senator. I wish to follow up on Deputy Shortall's comment on cycling. There is real concern among the cycling community who are starting to look at some of the details. Their fear is that they will be forgotten about. I will give examples. The cycle route from Malahide Road into town, the Clongriffin and the Santry detours are all benefits but when one is coming to the key point and heading down hill into Fairview on to the main road, the cyclists have to divert off the main road and cross a multilane highway and take a detour route. I do not think cyclists will do that and I do not think they should have to. The solution to tight pinch points is always to remove the cyclist.

I will give a second more local example from my constituency, an area I know well, the Rathmines main street. As was revealed yesterday from the latest draft drawings we have seen, when one is coming into town, near the Tesco store and the Garda station, it is expected that cyclists would literally go around the houses, around the schools and take a 2.1 km detour to get to the George Bernard Shaw pub, which people might know. We always go by pub directions. I measured it this morning on Google Earth. The direct route is 1 km. If anyone knows the Rathmines main street, it is the cycling super highway in this city. The thought that we would remove cyclists from Rathmines main street beggars belief. That has been mentioned at various stages of the consultation process. I cannot believe the approach that is being taken.

There are numerous others examples of concerns from cyclists. We did a good design on the existing Clontarf cycle route in terms of how we dealt with it and issues such as bus shelters and junctions and there seems to be different solutions in each of the four designs in those regards. That is one concern I want to raise.

My last point relates to the general level of urban design. I am very supportive of the BusConnects project. The NTA say there will be an opportunity to improve urban design, tree plantation and the greening of streets but none of the designs that have emerged to date has that element within the design. This should be an opportunity to create beautiful streets, not multi-lane highways, which I fear is the direction in which the NTA is going. It is all about having as many lanes as one can in either direction but that does not necessarily make for good streets. I am concerned that has not been identified in the design so far.