Galway traffic

The whole concept of laneways is rapezone-creepy. They should either be turned into roads with houses overlooking, or closed totally.

It's owned by Higgins's from what I can gather and they're working with the Council to get it renovated and attract more usage. Fair play to them. A lot of others would have tried to monetize it somehow or just block it off from the community

If only there was some way to effectively manage and deter illegal parking, such as ticketing, clamping or towing.

And where do you expect people to park instead in this case?

site not sights!

The Red Lane is sight to behold though as I was passing along on Shantalla Road today in the sunshine.

If people know parking laws are going to be enforced, and they are likely to be hit with an €80 fine if they park illegally, they find other alternatives. If I'm going to Dublin by car, to go to Croke Park or 3Arena, I either pre-book parking in the city centre or arrange with friends in Lucan to leave my car at their house and get the bus in.

I was talking to a Belgian family last week who live a few km from the site of a major annual music festival there. When the festival is on they and their neighbours get requests from friends and acquaintances, who are travelling to the festival, wanting to leave cars at their houses so they can cycle the rest of the way. They know that if they leave their cars at the side of the road at random they will pay dearly, so they don't do it.

That's not actually true. Cycle lanes bring many benefits to wider society.

1) the more safe cycling infrastructure you have the more people who don't currently cycle feel confident enough to give it a try.

2) if cycle lanes are safe, more kids can cycle to school/sports/etc. themselves and don't need to be chauffeured.

3) by making local journeys by bike more attractive than getting into a car, bike lanes have been demonstrated to increase spending in local businesses.

4) the more useable bike lanes you have the more separation there is between people on bikes and motor vehicles. Resulting in fewer conflicts, fewer overtaking manoeuvres, and freer flowing motor traffic.

5) all of the above promotes displacement of shorter journeys from cars to bikes, meaning those who still need to drive experience less congestion.

6) safer cycle lanes also means that those who find drivers too intimidating on the roads, so that they use the footpath instead, will leave the footpath to those actually walking if they have safe cycle lanes to use.

7) bike rides replacing some car journeys also means less pollution, less road maintenance expenditure, improved health outcomes leading to less pressure on health services, even improved educational outcomes (kids who walk or cycle to school perform measurably better than those who are driven).

When cycling infrastructure is safe and extensive, the majority of people become cyclists for at least some of their journeys, and this also has many indirect benefits for the minority who never cycle.

Well done on (yet again) conjuring up a strawman argument to rebut when something is posted that you don't like but you can't legitimately argue against.

My 'sermon' was a response to a very specific statement only: "Cycle lanes are only of use to cyclists."

It made no mention of Renmore, nor did it make a claim that design doesn't need to "cater for both modes". I actually did the opposite as two of the points I listed were specifically about how bike lanes can improve travel for those driving motor vehicles.

As for your claim that cars will not just evaporate; in reality traffic evaporation is a well understood phenomenon and has been for decades. If road capacity drops the number of car journeys also drops and usage patterns flatten as those drivers who have the flexibility drive at quieter times or consolidate journeys, do so. The number of cars on the road can reduce too. I know quite a number of families in Galway, including my own, who have already migrated from being two car families to one car plus bikes.

If you want to post a reasoned disagreement to anything I've written I'll happily engage. But if all you've got is snide comments then I guess you should look closer to home to find out who is really relying on dogma rather than evidence.

I think most people are just sick of spending their lives sitting in traffic. It would be nice to try things that have been shown to help for once instead of just continually trying the same things that got us in this mess in the first place.