Reclaim the City - Moving Dublin’s Cycling Plans Forward

Reclaim the City - Moving Dublin’s Cycling Plans Forward - Time for a Radical Rethink?

Dublin Cycling Campaign Annual Lecture 2014. Ciarán Cuffe, Dublin City Councillor, ex Minister of State, and Chair of Dublin City Council Transportation SPC

Introduction

Thanks to Dublin Cycling Campaign and particularly Colm Ryder and Mike McKillen. Thank Dublin City Council for the use of the hall. It is European Mobility Week and the theme is “Our Streets, Our Choice”.

History

I love the city. I like the mix of life; the contrasts the sunlight, the noise and the silence. I like the bell of the Luas, the smell of hops, the sun on the Spire on a winter’s morning. I like the street life, the chance encounters, and the buzz of activity.

All of this takes place in public, in public space, and the way we make, shape and manage this public space is an intensely political act. Public spaces in cities are contested spaces. My politicisation came out of that debate.

In the 1980’s the Council that I now represent was systematically destroying that city in order to save it. I don’t want to dwell on the demolition of communities in order to build dual carriageways, but we must always remember and never forget. It will take generations to undo the damage that was caused to communities in Summerhill, on Clanbrassil Street and elsewhere by Dublin City Council. The transformation of economic hubs into wide roads to facilitate car-based commuters was wrong from the start.

It’s important to realise that the battle over the streets of Dublin was not an isolated one. Around the world the same debates played out in city halls and public meetings over much of the late twentieth century. In New York Robert Moses:

“When you operate in an overbuilt metropolis, you have to hack your way with a meat axe.”  

In doing this he displaced hundreds of thousands of residents in New York City.

While he was doing this Jane Jacobs was arguing for a more sensitive approach to renewal and transportation:

 “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”

She wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities in 1961, and it never ceases to amaze me how long it took for her ideas to permeate through the corridors of power. Of course we still have urban planning heroes like Jacobs. Jan Gehl the great Danish urbanist was in town a few weeks ago. He said improvements in some areas, such as the much wider footpaths on O’Connell Street, but Dublin was still “dominated” by British traffic planning ideas that gave priority to cars.

NORMALISING CYCLING

The take-away from this evenings talk is that cycling needs to be normalised in all aspects of the city’s life. Little things make a difference. On being elected last June I was given a plethora of forms and instructions, and as I leafed through them I realised that the current narrative is to normalise driving. What’s your registration number? Here’s your car park pass; the Civic Offices car park is open for half an hour after the meeting ends. All these messages reinforce the message that driving is normal, and cycling is, different. That’s where we need to start, we need to normalise cycling.

Why cycle

That’s the urban interest that makes me see cycling as important, but there are lots of other reasons why we should be doing this:

Exercise

There’s been a huge increase in obesity in recent years. 79% of people over the age of fifty are overweight or obese. Cycling regularly can help keep you fit and reduce the risks of obesity, heart disease and mental ill-health for both adults and children.

Climate Change

Cycling has a strong role to play in reducing emissions. The embodied energy in a bike is low compared to a car, and it is a highly efficient way of getting around over short and medium distances.

Poverty

The costs of running a car featured in the media in recent days. The low entry level and running costs of bikes can help tackle poverty. However there are challenges. The €150 guarantee required for DublinBikes is impeding take up in marginalised communities, and needs to be reviewed.

GOOD NEWS

The news is good.  The number of bicycle journeys in Dublin city increased dramatically from 2006 – 2011. The number of bicycle journeys rose by 82 per cent during the five-year period, jumping from 10 million journeys in 2006 to 18 million journeys in 2011. The number of cycling journeys increased from 2.2 per cent to 3.9 per cent of total passenger journeys.  However the national target set down by the National Cycle Policy Framework is for 10 per cent of all trips to be made by bicycle by 2020, and to do that we’ll need 20% of Dublin journeys to be made by bike. That means we have to do more, a lot more. That’s the statistics, the drier side to my talk, but the more interesting issue is the vision, the vision thing as George Bush Senior put it.

Bike to Work Scheme

The Bike to Work Scheme has helped. If tax incentives for buildings were the major surgery approach to urban renewal than tax incentives for bikes are a form of urban acupuncture that relieves stress and makes good things happen. I like the way it has got a lot of middle-aged people back on their bikes that had stopped cycling twenty years previously. The explosion of bike shops nationwide has certainly been prompted by these measures that we introduced in the last Government, but I suspect the last Government will be remembered for other initiatives, as well as this.

Dublin Port Tunnel

This major piece of infrastructure opened in 2007 and made an appreciable difference to traffic safety by taking heavy trucks of city centre streets.

M50

Free flow tolling on the M50 and the addition of an extra lane improved the bypass function of this road infrastructure. However I am concerned that the provision of extra road capacity will encourage car driving, and more worryingly lead to more development further away from Dublin in the periphery.

Recession

I want to be careful how I phrase this one, lest I be accused of favouring prolonged recessions, I don’t, but I do note that the bike is a great way of getting around if you’re strapped for cash, and I suspect the last seven years have encouraged cycling.

30 kph speed limit

We all know about the dramatic improvement in safety resulting from lower speed limits, but just imagine the increased safety if the existing speed limits were enforced. I’ll come back this issue later on, because I don’t feel that the city council can pass this on the Guards as a responsibility. We too have a role to play.

Dublin Bikes

I’m delighted at the success of this municipal bike scheme. Some of you may know that I gave the idea of a Free Bikes scheme a shot back in 1997, but the then City manager said it would never catch on. I applaud the City Council and Cllr. Montague in particular for making this a success. But, I am critical of the reliance on advertising hoardings and sugar drink companies to subsidise the project, it is the equivalent of running cake sales to pay for the running costs of Motorway network, and it is wrong to have to rely on consumerism and sugar to get people around in a health fashion. The sooner we can wean ourselves of these funding sources and receive direct funding from Central Government the better.

Plans, Programmes, Manuals

Finally, we have the guidance, the plans, policies and manuals to make the good stuff happen.  I’m not saying that they’re perfect, but I certainly feel that for many years there was view that more guidance was needed before we could put top quality cycling infrastructure in place. The downside of all of this is that we now realise the weaknesses of much of what was provided in the last twenty years and we have to now go back and revisit them. It’s the painting the ‘Firth of Forth’ Bridge problem. We have the National Cycle Policy Framework, the National Cycling Manual; we have Smarter Travel, and national transport policy that commits us to improving cycling. We also have the Dublin City Council Cycling Action Plan 2010-2015.

BAD NEWS / CHALLENGES

Mission Statements

The Mission Statements reveal a lot about an organisation. I am concerned that the environment has slipped down the priority list on the mission statements from the Department of Transport. I am also concerned about the objectives of the National Roads Authority, and I don’t believe that they mainstream environmental concerns, nor are they referenced in their primary legislation. I’m showing my age here, but I did express concern back in 1993 when the legislation was being debated. It is still a concern.

Plans and decisions of other organisations

I said that we have the plans and programs to deliver sustainable solutions. The problem is that we also have a lot of other plans in the back drawer for unsustainable solutions. These tend to emanate from the NRA, and are approved by An Bord Pleanála

The plans for additional car capacity on the Naas Road are flawed, as is their approval by Bord Pleanála. This will lead to more car traffic from further and further away. The free flowing project at Newlands Cross will drive car commuters from beyond the River Shannon. This is unsustainable and wrong. Why is this an issue for cyclists? Well it is an issue because it will drive demand for car parking and road space in Dublin City. It will increase congestion and the demand for car parking will lead to further urban decay in the city centre and in the North Inner City which I represent.

Does Free-Flowing Car Traffic Reduce Fuel Consumption and Air Pollution? 
In  Cities and Automobile Dependence (1989) Kenworthy and Newman,argue from their worldwide survey of cities that the goal of “free-flowing” traffic (through such strategies as road widening) actually results in MORE fuel consumption and air pollution.

Michael Phillips has said “Whatever transport future the city has will not involve more cars” and yet the City Council in 2010 granted permission for the Dublin Central Development with 700 car parking spaces, right beside a proposed Luas stop. In recent years the Bord recently granted permission to the Kerry Group for a large car based campus on a greenfield site beyond the M50. That may not affect cyclists directly in Dublin’s city centre, but it may affect the choices that parents make in Celbridge on whether or not to let their children cycle to school. We need to plan for consolidation of our cities and towns, and a reduction in car journeys. In many instances this is not happening.

We need joined up policy making and decisions.

The highlighter problem

The gun Lobby in the USA tends to blame shooting sprees on criminals, not on guns. The Road Safety Authority over-emphasises the dangers of cycling and walking, and want us all to wear bright clothing, hi-viz vests and helmets. They appear to be blaming cycle accidents on cyclist and don’t sufficiently acknowledge the role of car and other vehicle drivers. As an organisation it needs to focus on driver behaviour rather than on making cyclists look like a highlighter pen. In commenting on a spike in pedestrian deaths they neglected to place sufficient emphasis on car driver behaviour, particularly as we know that in some instances a majority of car drivers are breaking the speed limit. If we want to encourage people to cycle on country roads they shouldn’t have to look like a lit-up Christmas tree. There is a blind spot to cycling and environmental concerns.

An Garda Síochána

Greater attention needs to be paid to enforcing speed limits and bike theft. Neither are being treated with the attention that they deserve. I have also spoken in the past about Garda Vehicles parking illegally, on bus lanes. This appears to have improved and I welcome this.

City Council

This is where it gets interesting, and I am aware of my responsibilities as the incoming chair of the Transport Strategic Policy Committee on the City Council.  I am also aware that I can’t go it alone and have to gain consensus with both my council colleagues and the officials within the Council to effect change.

I still believe that we focus unduly on the need of car-based commuters in the city. I believe that the introduction of bus and or cycle lanes on the South Quays has been delayed by a perceived need to flush the city of these cars every evening. I question this.

I believe multi-lane one-way streets are city killers. They prioritise the movement of vehicles at the expense of the economic and social life of the city. I believe cyclists should also be allowed travel both ways on way streets as they can in Brussels and other cities.

I believe left turn filter lanes are an abomination in the city centre. They are problematic for cyclists and pedestrians alike and need to be reconsidered and removed wherever possible.

Our traffic signalling needs to be reconsidered. Signals are programmed using SCATS Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System. It tries to find the best phasing (i.e. cycle times, phase splits and offsets) for the current traffic situation (for individual intersections as well as for the whole network). However in doing so it tends to priorities the movement of convoys of cars through the city, a bit like a freight train. This needs to be reconsidered. The length of cycle time is in many cases too long and encourages law-breaking. This needs to be reconsidered.

THE SOLUTIONS

Big Projects and modest interventions

Bruce Katz from Washington’s Brookings Institute stated recently in a talk that he gave at the Dalkey Arts Festival that ‘walkability, cyclability and liveability are the future’.  Walking and cycling certainly make better economic use of valuable city space and should be encouraged for this alone.

To this correctly we need to have the big picture, but we also need to get the small stuff right such as the cycle lanes on the Rosie Hackett Bridge. Whatever happened to the northbound cycle lane on that new bridge? We also need the contra-flow cycle lane that has been planned for upper Camden Street for many years. Contra-flow cycle lanes are important.

A Liffey Boulevard from the Phoenix Park to Dublin bay is long overdue and will be an attraction for Dubliners and tourists alike. Look at how the rejuvenation of the riverside in Bordeaux has transformed that city.

Vision and Ambition

I want to see more civic officials on bikes and less parking underneath this building here on Wood Quay. Let’s have more bikes stands at the civic offices and city hall.

Cycling officer

I want to bring back a Cycling Officer for Dublin. Ciaran Fallon did Trojan work and we need someone who can fly the flag for cycling. That job may include walking, Communication and Education, and if it needs ministerial sanction I will write to Ministers Kelly and Donohoe.

Trialing

Twenty years ago we had a row about giving over one of the two lanes on a two lane road to a Quality Bus Corridor. Today we’re having the same debate about giving one lane of a two lane road to cycling. I suspect history will be on our side. If we’re scared silly of making these changes then let’s do it on a temporary basis. That’s what was done with the Pedestrianisation of Grafton Street back in the 1980s. It was trialled for 6 months and the feedback was good so it was made permanent.

Cost benefit analyses (CBA) attest to the fact that investments in cycling outweigh the costs to a far greater extent than investment in other modes.

We’ve also got to think of the needs vulnerable cyclists such as women, children and migrants, and listen to their concerns when it comes to cycling infrastructure

Conclusions

So, The Radical Re-think?

Interesting times lie ahead and we need to build on the achievements to date. On Dublin City Council I intend reconstituting the public transport and the cycling fora, but I will add pedestrian facilities to terms of reference of the cycling forum.

I will work closely with my colleague Andrew Montague and like-minded elected representatives on all sides of the political divide.

Let your city councillors and officials know how you feel. Don’t forget the Department of Transport consultation on ‘Investing in our transport future” You have four weeks to make a submission. Read the issue papers and get involved.

Let’s choose a city that’s More Jan Gehl and Jane Jacobs,   and less Robert Moses.

Thank You.