Mr. Kevin Baker:

The cycling community is not one group. We can try to encourage people as much as possible to light up their bikes. Dublin Cycling Campaign is running the Light up your Bike! campaign. We are distributing lights that were given to us by the RSA. Cyclists are required to have lights on their bikes after dark. The Garda can issue fines on the spot for a failure to do so and it should do more of that. There needs to be more enforcement of the road traffic laws across the board and the requirement to have lights on bikes after dark is one such law.

On the Senator's question as to whether roads are wide enough for cycle lanes, finding space on roads can be difficult. On many roads, particularly in Dublin, there is space and cycle lanes would not take space from other traffic. We see this in the BusConnects plans. The cycle facilities it is proposed to add to roads such as the Finglas Road and Malahide Road will not take space from pedestrians or motor traffic. There is space available which can be given to cyclists. In other areas, harder choices will have to made but we are seeing communities, particularly in Dublin, make these choices, including as part of BusConnects. Communities are opting to make certain roads one-way in order to find space to add more bus lanes or cycle infrastructure.