Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am a fully enthused Deputy now. I monitored the streets in Bray where I lived. I looked at the cars that were driving, their speeds, the vulnerable users and the design of those roads. I drove those roads at 30 km/h. I always had cars behind me with frustrated drivers. If you try to drive along an urban street of 800 m at 30 km/h, it is hard to do unless there are signals not to speed up. I monitored those streets. I got a map done that showed a 1 km radius from the centre of the town, as well as a 3 km radius and a 5 km radius. Then I tweaked it so it would correspond with junctions, schools etc. I presented it to the Bray councillors. They said we should go to the district engineer with it. The district engineer had a look at it and he tweaked it as well. We then gave it to the local gardaí, who came back and said they would support it. The councillors in Bray supported it. It was then sent to Wicklow County Council. That was in 2017. It is still sitting there, waiting for a decision to be made.

That is my concern. It is simple to draw a 3 km radius around town, make it a 30 km zone, put up the signage, the signals and whatever is required and say to drivers it is a 30 km zone. That is the starting point. I do not want us to spend years and years talking about this. There are simple measures.

Tell me why I am wrong. Tell me why it is not simple to look at that and adapt it to each town. In small villages and towns, there may only be a 200 m main street, with 50 m off that. They can be made into 30 km/h zones, where people are walking and cycling to schools. Bray, which is a bigger town, is 4 km wide. A 2 km radius around the town would pick up most of the urban housing estates where people want to walk and cycle. Let us face it: parents are afraid to let their children walk and cycle because of the dominance of the car. Why do we not address this quickly? Tell me when we are going to have mandatory 30 km zones, according to the Road Safety Authority strategy. What is the time limit on it?