Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The official title for this session is active travel and public transport. I was a member Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, which I think has been quite topical recently. In 2010, I was elected the cycling champion of the county council. That did not mean I was any good at cycling, it just meant I was supposed to promote cycling, which was far less fashionable then than it is now. Also, I was chair of the council's transport strategic policy committee, SPC, before I was elected to the Seanad in 2016. Therefore, I bring a certain amount of experience and knowledge to this debate. I can talk a lot about transport, and probably not from the same perspective as Senator Dooley and other members who are based in more rural areas. I am based in Dublin and I cycled here today. I passed by the offices of the Department on Leeson Street, which is part of the most treacherous stretch of my journey. I had to weave my way across Leeson Street and St. Stephen's Green before getting onto Kildare Street. The journey in question is not for the faint-hearted, but I did it and managed to get here.

I support all of the improvements to cycling infrastructure, but I have reservations about some of them. There was a pilot project on the road with which I am most familiar - Goatstown Road - where wands were installed and concrete strips. A number of people have told me that they have tripped or fell over those strips or that they nearly fell over them.. Somebody was injured as a result of their being there. I know people who been distracted or injured by the wands, which are very narrow. They serve a purpose in parts and are very useful, particularly at traffic lights, but I am not sure we need so many of them because cyclists end up being corralled into a very narrow space. If somebody in front of a cyclist is moving slower, then the latter is trapped and cannot get around that individual. It is unfortunate that some people are bad drivers because it is as a result of their behaviour on the roads that so many of these wands are needed.

We should think longer term and consider what has been done in London, where there are quiet greenways through residential areas and permeability through estates that are not connected by road but are connected by walkways. We should open up those kinds of areas and allow people who are less comfortable with bicycles to get cycling again. I had not cycled in 20 years until I got back on a bike in 2010. Now I cycle more often than I drive. My national car test, NCT, last year showed that I had driven only 1,000 miles during previous 12 months. Admittedly, there was a lockdown and I had lost my seat but I drove a very small amount and cycled far more.

In terms a modal shift, if somebody has paid €70,000 for a Land Rover or some other expensive car, it is hard to argue against the person using it. There is an element of using both the carrot and the stick here. The most efficient way to reach Leinster House within, at a minimum, a six-mile radius, is by cycling because it is quicker. I live in Goatstown. I can walk to the nearest Luas stop, get a tram and then walk to Leinster House, which takes approximately 45 minutes. Of coursed, that is if there are no delays with the Luas. However, I can make the same journey by bicycle in 17 to 19 minutes if I am lucky. An awful lot of people do not know that cycling is far quicker.

The bike-to-work scheme has been good, but it has meant that people have bought very expensive bikes.

In addition, only people within the PAYE system can use that mechanism. People need to be aware that the amount the Exchequer would need to spend to get people to move to bicycles is so much less than the cost of a Luas line, so much less than public transport and so much less than anything else. The more bikes we get onto the road, the more cars will be taken off the road in many cases.

I come from the constituency of Dublin Rathdown. That is where I live, it is where the Minister for Transport lives, it is the constituency he used to represent, it is the constituency the deputy leader of the Green Party represents and I see a downgrading of the Luas upgrade. The green line southbound is pretty much full already. Pre-pandemic it was full. We have Cherrywood coming on stream. We have increases in Sandyford, with high-density developments, at the Central Mental Hospital and in Goatstown, Sandyford, Carrickmines and Cherrywood. People getting on at Dundrum and going up to Sandyford had to cross over the track pre-pandemic. I would like to know where we are going on that.

We will have a second round of questioning. E-scooters are, in the context of the climate, not as efficient as pedal bikes but certainly much better in that they use much less road space and energy than a diesel or petrol car. What is the status of e-scooters? I have had representations from people saying the limits we are talking about are used only in Sweden and Portugal and are too low for the robust scooters that are required. We need a modal shift. We need people to realise that cycling is far better and far safer than they might think. However, we also need to provide the infrastructure to train people up, to get people used to cycling and to get them confident in cycling. We need to bring the public with us with public consultation if we are to do what was done on the coastal mobility route in Dún Laoghaire. The witnesses will have seen the controversy regarding what is going on in Deansgrange. Equally, there is the Strand Road issue. How do we convince people, planners and the courts that these are a good idea? In some cases they are not always a good idea. I have seen bus lanes proposed that were the worst in the world and were opposed by people who lived in my area and who were former chief executives of CIÉ and former Secretaries General of Departments involved with public transport because they just would not work. Sometimes a bus lane cannot fit into a particular area. The road is too narrow and it just will not work.

As for quality bus corridors, I am very familiar with the Stillorgan QBC. It was an amazing success. The Luas was an amazing success. People are willing to change. There was no traffic on the Luas pre-2004. It did not exist. There was no one on that corridor. It jammed every day bringing thousands of people in and out of Sandyford and all along that route, and I am very concerned about it. How do we get a modal shift? What is happening to the Luas green line upgrade, which is essential? The capacity that is needed is not available.. In a post-pandemic world the Luas green line will be full, before Cherrywood kicks off properly, Carrickmines and Sandyford expand significantly and all the developments on infill sites along that line, through Dundrum, Milltown and various other parts of the line. It is there, the people want to use it and they want to make the change. If, however, they cannot even get on the Luas, what do they do? They go back into their cars. I apologise for that long rant, but it is important we convince people of that modal shift.

The security of bikes is hugely problematic. I can cycle into Leinster House and leave my bike here. It is the safest place in Ireland to leave a bike, without a doubt. However, many people do not cycle because they do not know, when they come out of a restaurant or out of their workplace, if they will find their bike still there. It is a major problem and needs to be dealt with in many different ways. Employers such as restaurants and shops need to provide better facilities, for example, bike lockers and car parks, including supervised car parks where employees can register and store their bikes. Whatever it takes, it needs to be done because we need to get people out of their cars and into other forms of transport.