Ms Grace Kavanagh:

I would like to talk to the committee about prioritising people in Carlow town. We went for walks and cycles around our town as part of this project. Our school is on the edge of town, on the side of the old sugar factory. We noticed on our walks that we found it quite difficult to get around, both walking and cycling. When we say "prioritising people", we mean that we think the town council should give more thought to how young people get around and where and how they spend their time in the town centre. I think making it a more people-friendly town would benefit everyone, not only young people. We believe everyone should be safe and happy in Carlow.

In the presentation, we refer to the Carlow county development plan for 2023. What happened to the 2016 plan? We are aware there are plans to try to improve things for Carlow. This image in the presentation is from the Carlow county development plan for 2023. It says that pedestrians will be considered first and cars last, but at the moment, and in our experience, it is completely the opposite. In fact, in one of our walks we saw cars mount the narrow footpath we were walking on. A huge bus blocking the footpath forced us to walk out on the road. There was a huge argument between two drivers trying to overtake each other on a small street.

Carlow County Council had plans from 2016 that also said it would prioritise walking and cycling. It very obviously has not done this. We welcome the new cycle lanes in parts of the town. However, when we tried to cycle around Carlow, it was incredibly dangerous in many places. When we were cycling near Éire Óg, which is a football club in our town, we were passing an entrance to a housing estate when a car came speeding past and almost hit one of our classmates. Almost every big junction we cycled through had no safe way for cyclists to cross.

We noticed that the reason the cars were mounting the pavement on Dublin Street was that it was too narrow for the cars to pass each other safely. This is partly due to the fact that there is parking all along the street. There are lots of car parks in the town. We do not need parking on every street as well. What changes could we make? There could be less on-street parking in the town centre, more walkways and pedestrian crossings and, most importantly, we could give the people of Carlow back their streets.

An image in the presentation is of Oliver Plunkett Street in Cork. It is a good example of what we are looking for: safer pedestrians - young and old - and lots of shops and restaurants. Streets like this would be good because there is no fear of getting hit by a car while walking. The street could have shops, which would be good for small businesses, and it would be good for people just sitting and socialising with their friends. You could also put in jewellery shops, cafés, clothes shops etc.

As part of this project, we looked at pedestrianised areas in cities around Europe. They all looked really busy, like fun places to be. We think something like the image in the presentation would be really nice for Carlow, like Princes Street in Cork and Capel Street in Dublin.

We found the following photo online when searching for Carlow town plans. It looks really cool, but the plan to do this was scrapped. Might it be possible to pedestrianise The Potato Market or Tullow Street, even at the weekends? There is a nice atmosphere in the town centre on Saturdays when the farmers' market is on. This could be made better by making the whole area safe to wander around. We found this image online. There were plans for The Potato Market to look like this in 2018 and they were scrapped. We want to know why.

We also looked at the idea of sharing roads with pedestrians and cyclists. The cycle lane shown on the screen is in Dún Laoghaire. It shows how we can leave room for cars but prioritise cyclists and pedestrians to move safely around where they live and go to school. I recognise that some people need to drive. For nearly all of us, our family members have cars. We are just saying that people do not need to drive everywhere all the time. It is not necessary to park right outside the shop every time.

Carlow needs to add more pedestrian crossings in order that older people and families can be safer. If committee members ask any of our parents, they will say that the traffic is the main reason we are not allowed to walk to places. When we go on school walks, there are no pedestrian crossings on the N80 ring road to get into the town. Thirty children have to cross roads on which there are two lanes of traffic, with the teachers having to stand on the road to stop the cars. It does not feel safe. If more pedestrian crossings were added, people would feel safer and would walk more often.

I thank the committee members for listening to us. We hope our ideas can make Carlow a safer and more pleasant place in which to live and spend time.