I am also curious as to what he means by an "integrated" cycle way. That could mean many things, or several of them at once, assuming it's not just a buzzword being thrown out.
The benefit of using terms that can mean any number of things with no specific meanings is a politician can both say "thats exactly what I meant" and "sorry you took me up wrong" about the same statement to different people.
I think you are mistaken in your 'cycling groups' here. Whilst any cyclist I know would be supportive of the idea of a safe cycleway, I wouldn't be using it in my 'lycra mode' as you might term it. The most vocal groups of people that I noticed campaigning were parents with kids, families, students and commuters who want to cycle to work/ school safely. You know, the kids who don't drive?? But your journey takes precedence over theirs, and your right to park wherever you want supersedes their wish just to get from A to B safely?
As has been pointed out, the 'Lycra Brigade' you refer too, generally wouldn't be cycling in the city, except to get out if to the country roads. But carry on there on the soap box!
I think he was referring the 'Lycra brigade' as the pro Cycling lobby... It is derogatory and I would use the term myself but lets not forget the shouts from the cycling lobbyists calling the Councillors as 'Cowards', this wasn't particularly nice either..
What I do find funny is some (and not all) of the people on this forum who were for this cycle lane don't really get why it was so unpopular with some many other people...
Until you acknowledge that you won't really understand what works and what doesn't... Sorry until you understand that your closed view on the world is quite limited and thus your view lacks balance and looses it validity...
This was not seen as a trial... Trials have success and failure criteria... You don't spend a million quid on a trail and then dump it (well not in Galway)... Treating people as stupid doesn't work and not listening to their actual concerns really pisses them off...
Lets be clear how unpopular this was... the only councillor from the West side to vote for this was from the Green Party (he didn't really have a choice)... Did one directly affected residence committee support the cycle lane because a number of them were preparing to retain legal council and have an injunction...
What ‘closed views’ of the world do I have exactly?
I am quite open to all views, it’s yourself who’s quite worked up, with a myopic vision, and it’s either your way or the highway ( yes, the pun was intended!)
And that's the attitude that brought the numbers out to kill the cycleway.
Do carry on.
You're barking up the wrong tree if you think MrsoB is a cycling advocate. You couldn't really come up with someone more anti bike really, maybe Nox but he's no longer available for hilarity.
Sorry, I did listen and offered solutions but I said it was in the wrong place unless we build a sea wall... I find it hard to understand considering i offered an alternative route which offered wider appeal with probably higher usage, more integrated with our present structure... But that must be myopic, I have a view in actually increasing cycling adoption...
I didn't say my way or the highway but I did say it was always going to happen... But hey, keep thinking you are all right and that everyone else is wrong. That's the attitude that will get you nowhere..
No one was going to be using the Salthill Prom cycleway to get to school, there are NO schools on it.
I think someone pointed out it was "temporary" as opposed to "trial" so it had a fixed duration attached. It doesn't have the same requirement for criteria since the criteria is the duration and data gathering. Success is it running for the duration, failure is if it has to be disbanded early due to some unforeseen issue.
Out of interest (and on a tangent), how do you feel about the figures attached to the ring road plans? I'd have to dig them out but they're very poor. The predictions are that building the road would cause an increase in car usage and negligible changes to PT, walking and cycling. Do you feel it's right to continue with a project, despite the planning effectively predicting it's not going to achieve what it's supposed to?
The Ring Road is stopping Development in the City?
"
Speaking to the Galway City Tribune, Diligent’s Site Lead, Ruairí Conroy, said fitters would be on site within weeks to provide the finishing touches ahead of the arrival of the company’s staff of over 200.
Side note. The Bonham Quay footpaths are a real mess at the minute on the corner of Queen Street / Dock Road.
People are already using the Prom to cycle from Knocknacarra to city centre schools with their kids. It is a slightly longer route (by about 2 minutes) than going up Kingston and down Taylor's Hill but it is significantly safer and it is also much flatter so it wins out on two separate counts.
So we are going to spend a million Euro on something temporary with no defined method of data capture... What data we intend to capture and how are going to capture it... But we were going to start in March regardless...
New reason not to do it... Waste of money... We are going to pay a million euros for a 6 month change to the roads and we have no clear view of what purpose it is serving... I think the data collection could be on who shouts the loudest or are we going on how many insults each side are going to hurl at each other...
Think about what you are asking for seriously... A million euro could almost buy the driving range and and create a land swap to give a cycling corridor down almost the whole length of Kingston but could link to St Johns NS across the fields... And that would be permeant...
The temporary/trial thing will just cause more division... I will not support more division...
It's fair to say now the case has been settled on so-called temporary and trial measures. They are a fallacy, a red herring, they do not exist. And any public servant worthy of the name, who would authorise a million quid be spent on something temporary, when that same money could design and make ready a permanent solution with change to spare, should be shown the door.
Much is spoken about the Coastal Mobility Route in Dun Laoghaire and the comparison made with Salthill, but really the geography of both are so different, the list of similarities overall is far shorter than what differs.
But on to my reason for bringing it up. The CMR was brought in specifically as a Covid mobility measure, under the Government's ultimately bogus directive to do so. In its case, it wasn't billed as a trial, but as a temporary measure, of indeterminate length.
20 months after it arrived, Covid is over, but its still there. Its consequences on the surrounding neighbourhoods are still felt. I know a fella in Dun Laoghaire who has been agitating both Councillors and the Executive in DLR to get on with a statutory process to either approve it for permanency, tweak it, or remove it. The answer he finally got, is that an interim study by some unit in TUD was only published end of last summer, and so a final recommendation to be put to public consultation now, would be premature!
A temporary measure, brought in for a public health emergency now over, still there, still in planning limbo, still divisive, still open ended....
I know the Salthill saga long predates Covid, but that momentum was gained for the options that ultimately fell last week, because of Covid. Those agitating for it saw the other temporary works around the Country and pushed hard.
What I would say to those who opposed to the Salthill temporary proposals, but are fully behind a high quality off-road solution, as part of a wider Greenway and flood defence engineering, is don't stop fighting. Don't ever be fooled by this 'trial' nonsense. There are lobbies who would close that lane of traffic for temporary reasons then kill their own granny to ensure it was never taken out again, no matter the actual impact it had had.
Well done this week on not accepting a poor imitation of a solution. Keep fighting for standards, for the win-win, for proper high quality investment. For the carrot, not the stick.
On the topic of trials, legislation is on the way to allow them to proceed specifically without the need for planning permission
Legislation for trials hasn't passed yet. I wouldn't be betting the house on its arrival. Much resistance being seen in FF and FG over the public backlash to recent debacles.
"It's fair to say now the case has been settled on so-called temporary and trial measures. They are a fallacy, a red herring, they do not exist."
Yes, that's why Woodquay, Upper Dominick Street, William Street West and the Small Crane are all still blocked to traffic. And why lanes are still blocked on Eglinton Street and Forster Street. They promised it would be a temporary measure and then, when the time came to open them up again, they just said no. 🤪
Whats that got to do with anything I said about targets? Did you reply to the wrong person or are you just in your own world?
And everything would be cheaper to build if we didn't have those pesky regulations making them fit for purpose. A lot of regulations only exist because of people taking the piss in the past, building to suit themselves and screwing over the larger population so they could make a bit more money or be a bit more convenienced. This country is literally littered with examples of this
Where did I mention cost of anything??? I asked if he thought it was worth building something that, based on their own predictions, won't improve congestion. Even if it cost nothing it's not going to change that
I wonder could the cycling enthusiasts organise a series of cycles akin to the Salthill Sundays organised by modified car enthusiasts.
Several hours of hundreds of people cycling slowly up and down the prom (road) every Sunday would probably focus the minds of those in power.
Speaking on RTÉ’s This Week programme, councillor Higgins said the “toxic” calls and emails began, when she made it public that she would not support the plans presented for the proposed cycleway.
“I got a number of toxic emails and phone calls. They weren’t nice.
“I was called a snake and I was called a pig and I was called a female dog… I also received similar calls in relation to my position and how they felt I wasn’t a suitable parent. They questioned my whole parenting.”
- From independent.ie
On the above suggestion of a weekly go-slow, I feel that in the circumstances, the last thing the pro-campaign needs now is to attract any further negative publicity for itself. Not if they don't want the whole concept to be just shelved as politically toxic.
Think it's a bit too late for that now. I don't think any councillor will want to touch any plan for the next few years at least.
Those in favour of cycle lanes would be advised to target the part of the prom that is wide enough to take them, and that has car parking spaces - i.e. from the Dalysfort Road junction eastwards.
Please give us the exact report that says that...
By the way, we see building Cycle Lanes doesn't necessarily mean there is increased cycling too...
I'll have to go looking but if you've read the main reports for the road you'll have seen it.
You could just answer the question instead of trying to drag it off on tangents and looking for facts in a relatively hypothetical question. If the plans predict that building the infrastructure won't result in changes needed for traffic to improve, is it one that you think should continue?
Who is the "we"? You have shown ZERO evidence for these statements in a Galway context.
I don't know were you are going to get it either because the Council don't have any counters on the very small network of lanes that they do have which are piecemeal and not joined up.
If you are talking about the "building of a bike path" on the N6 service ducts beside the footpath that were given blue "bike path" signs after 20yrs of them originally been built. Yes I don't think there is much anecdotal evidence that throwing up a few blue signs along this route has much effect. Spend on that is probably a couple of hundred euros for the poles and signs.
Why would you really want to be cycling beside a fast 4 lane RING ROAD which was intersected by multi-lane roundabouts which in the main have been converted into large traffic controlled junctions it is pretty plain to see why its NOT attractive for many stretches of the N6.
If Galway City Council were run by serious people, one of the first Multilane Roundabouts they should have targeted on the N6 was the one closest to NUIG and UHG and SQR (one of a handful example of a purpose built cycle path that exists in the City - built a decade ago). It is going to be the very last one that is to be converted. That really says it all about what Galway City Council are about.
Galway City Council do not count people walking either. Galway City Council do count cars every year for a 2 week window in November alright on a small number of roads on approach to the City.
I think that would be a terrible idea - it has done nothing for the car enthusiasts. Why would that approach work here ?
A cycle once a month Sunday morning for about 1h for kids at the minute seems to work just fine and numbers keep increasing for these each time one is hosted. One could see 500/600 children and adults doing it by May 2022
Indeed, for better or for worse, the culture in the various bike advocacy groups leans towards wanting to bring people with them rather than being confrontational. It doesn't always work out like that, especially when you have a Council Executive seemingly out to deliberately make things adversarial for their own ends, but I don't think cycling groups are going to move from favouring the carrot approach to favouring the stick approach anytime soon.
Ya. I wasn't being serious. T'was lost in translation obviously.
I was actually quite critical of the Salthill Sunday antagonistas.
True - extol the benefits, which are much wider than just for people who would be cycling along the prom.
The Councillors in the County Council, in an effort to not be outshone by the City Councillors, are keen to show that they too, have motor traffic as their main priority.
I thought Gort was bypassed? Did that not free up sufficient space for one Zebra crossing?
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