A crash course in Stockholm

3,500 pairs of shoes representing those who die in crashes every day

‘The day the knock on the door came'.

This phrase came up time and again in the three days I spent in Stockholm at a Road Safety Conference. For many at the conference that knock represented the day their lives changed utterly when someone called to their door with the news that one of their loved ones had died in a road crash. For others in attendance giving that news was part of their job description. Every one of the 1,700 people in attendance wanted to reduce the toll. Over a million die every year on the world's roads, and many more suffer life-altering injuries. I was there representing the European Parliament at the Global Network for Road Safety Legislators, and to speak at a session examining how we can use procurement rules to reduce the carnage. The outcome of the Conference - the Stockholm Declaration ties road safety in to the Sustainable Development Goals and will hopefully reduce fatalities and injuries in the coming decade. Hats off to the Swedish Government and the World Health Organisation for bringing us all together.

Road deaths are increasing around the world with increased motorisation. The developing world is struggling to keep up with a flood of new and second-hand vehicles that are often sub-standard. A heart-stopping display of 3,700 pairs of shoes in Stockholm’s Central Railway Station reminded us that this number of lives are lost each day on our roads. Nearby was a display of two pick-up trucks, crashed into each other. They illustrated the disparity between safety standards in Europe and Africa. The new vehicle for sale in South Africa had crumpled, the older European vehicle was relatively intact.

There is some good news. In Europe, deaths have dropped from the staggering level of 75,000 per year in 1990 to around 25,000 per year today. The European Commission have a ‘Vision Zero’ plan that takes its title from a Swedish initiative adopted in 1997 with the principle that ‘life and health can never be exchanged for other benefits within the society’. Dr. Matts-Åke Belin developed the Vision Zero Academy to spread the message. He advises road safety bodies on how they can reduce road deaths and injuries. Every September it holds an intensive one-week course to show how this can be achieved. Designing roads for safety over speed helps achieve this, as well as installing barriers to separate lanes of traffic travelling in opposite directions. Such barriers - made from steel or concrete can improve safety by 90% compared to roads without separation. In cities lowering speeds improves safety. Vision Zero works. In Oslo only one person was killed on their roads last year. In Dublin city around ten lives are lost annually, and around twenty in Greater Dublin. We have a lot to learn from our Nordic colleagues.

Of course, it is not just about the road: drivers and vehicles also have a crucial role to play. Young male drivers are particularly vulnerable, and initiatives to work with youth groups on designated driver programs can change hearts and minds, and save lives. Designated driver programmes can lead to less drunk driving. Vehicles are getting safer, thanks to new European laws that mandate air bags, and other safety features such as alerting emergency authorities when sensors indicate that a vehicle has been in a crash. In recent years it seems that ‘distracted driving’ -looking at screens rather than the road is also taking a toll and contributing to a flat-lining of safety improvements in Europe.

At the conference, I met with Barry Sheerman MP, a UK campaigner from Huddersfield and chair of the Global Legislators' Group on roaf safety. When I Googled him to spell his name correctly the first result was ‘Is Barry Sheerman still an MP?’ Well he certainly is! First elected in 1979, he campaigned in 1981 to make seat belt wearing a legal requirement, an initiative that has saved countless lives. However, there is always the danger that benefits of new safety measures are gobbled up by more risk-taking. John Adams, author of ‘Risk’ suggests that one of the best ways to cut down on speeding would be to get rid of seat belts, and place a large spike in the middle of the steering wheel facing the driver! Such a feature might reduce speeds, and save lives, but might be hard to get past lawmakers! I also caught up with Bronwen Thornton from Walk21, an NGO that does sterling work in advocating for walkable communities and improvements in the public realm.

We should not just focus on people inside the vehicles. We need to ensure those outside of the vehicle are protected, and not prevented from going about their daily lives in safety. We shouldn’t have to dress up children up like construction workers in Hi-Viz just so they can walk safely to school. I’d be critical of our own Road Safety Authority for putting too much pressure on pedestrians and cyclists to be ultra-visible, and not placing enough emphasis on reducing dangerous driving and speeding which claim so many lives each year. Being overweight or obese is one of the biggest causes of premature death in Europe, and we need to ensure that people get sufficient exercise and aren’t driven, or drive everywhere. We must ensure active travel such as walking and cycling is normalised, and encouraged:  not seen as an adventure-sport with clothing to match. In the space of a generation, many children have seen their independent spatial mobility dramatically reduced, and it is crucial that we reclaim the street and our roads as a place for all, and not just cars.

It was good to see representatives from Transport Infrastructure Ireland and the Road Safety Authority (RSA) in attendance, I even had a good old argy-bargy about the Galway Ring Road with a senior Department of Transport official who argued that a new road is needed there so that there’s space for a better bus service! I told him that I had been hearing arguments like that since the last century, and quite frankly we needed to move with the times and stop putting investments in public transport on the long finger. I also met Chair of the RSA Liz O’Donnell who told me that the post to replace Moya Murdoch as CEO is currently advertised. Even Acting Minister Ross turned up, and I wished him well in his future endeavours. The main outcome of the Conference was the approval of a StockholmDeclaration on Road Safety. It neatly aligns road safety objectives with the Sustainable Development Goals, and seeks enhanced action.

In my contribution to the Global Legislators Forum, I made five points:

1. Vision Zero has to be at the heart of all we do. We need more good laws at a European level, and I received a useful briefing on this from Elizabeth Werner who works in the European Commission. We need to ensure consistency on driver licenses across the EU; more measures on cross-border enforcement (that speeding ticket you got in Italy!), and move forward with the Infrastructure Safety Management Directive which will audit major roads to ensure that pedestrians and cyclists, as well as motorists are safe.

2. We need smarter vehicles. By smart I don't simply mean more electronic wizardry. Sometimes it means getting rid of SUVs in cities whose bonnets are higher than a child’s head. It can also mean phasing out polluting vehicles whose manufacturers lied to us about emissions, and which contribute to premature deaths from air pollution. Autonomous vehicles may help, but many at the Conference argued that they should be required to sit a driving test! Some expressed concern at the rise of eScooters and other microbility solutions. Others suggested that they might put pressure on local authorities to make roads safer for all.

3. Travelling less can also play a role. That can mean working from home one day a week. It can also mean mixed-use planning so that people do not have to travel long distances for work, or if they do ensuring that there is public transport and active travel options available. Getting around by bus and rail are so much safer than driving, and putting in place SUMPs (Sustainable Mobility Plans) can help make this happen.

4. Safe speeds are crucial. Rod King, the guru behind ‘20’s Plenty’ was at the conference. He is a passionate advocate for 20 mph speed limits in residential areas in the UK, and 30 km/h limits in other countries. Lower speeds save lives, and in Ireland many if not most drivers in areas with low speed limits break the law. An Garda Síochána needs to treat speeding seriously. If similar numbers died due to Gangland crime Governments would fall. Some Government enthusiasm for speed enforcement using traffic cameras would also be useful. Hopefully Intelligence Speed Assistance will help in the years to come. We also need to reduce speed limits from 50 km/h to 40 km/h on urban arterial roads, and consider 20 km/h limits where children may be present in significant numbers. I have even seen 10 km/h speed limits on public roads in German cities beside children’s playgrounds. Sounds good to me.

5. My last plea was for less victim blaming. All too often, we allow statements like ‘I couldn’t see you’ or ‘The sun was in my eyes’ go unchallenged. We need to remember the title of Ralph Nader’s book ‘Unsafe at any speed’ and take more decisive action to make our roads safer. Mayer Hillman, one of my heroes co-authored a report ‘One False Move’ that took its title from a UK government pamphlet that seemed to shift blame to young pedestrians for bad driving by others. Another co-author John Whitelegg was also there, and we swopped notes.

In a session entitled ‘Producing and Consuming Responsibly’, I spoke about the rule of the European Union saving lives on our roads. We can do this by incentivising modal shift to combined mobility and public transport. Recent Commission guidance on Green Public Procurement mentions other initiatives such as promoting the use of speed limiters in vehicles. Prioritising measures such as these in procurement can save lives.  The EU needs to take a more active role in pushing for a whole systems approach that would tackle road safety along with promoting mode shifts, active travel, and improving air quality.

What did I learn from the Conference? Governments must redouble their efforts to reduce speeds on our roads. We should (with thanks to Teresa Mannion) avoid unnecessary journeys. Where possible, prioritise buses and trains over cars. We must normalise and encourage walking and cycling as the benefits go far beyond road safety. At a European Union level we must stop exporting second-rate vehicles to the rest of the world.  Finally we must strive for the Vision Zero approach pioneered in Sweden, and embed this into all our thinking.

I have no doubt that if we do this properly, we would have more people leading safer, and healthier longer lives, and a reduction in carbon emissions as well. What’s not to like!

An update on Dublin's water

Took a trip to Wicklow yesterday for the opening of a water pipe, a €30m water pipe at Roundwood Reservoir. 

One of my heroes in the world of water is Sir John Grey. He has a statue on O'Connell Street, and this one here at Roundwood. 

He chaired Dublin Corporation's Drainage Committee in the 1860s, and knowing a reservoir would be needed in Wicklow he bought the lands in advance, and then sold them back to the city at cost to avoid speculation, a man of honour.

He also owned the Freeman's Journal, trained as a physician and was a Protestant Nationalist who sought the repeal of the Act of Union.

Fun Fact: his grandson Edmund John Chisholm Dwyer-Gray was 29th Premier of Tasmania in the 1930s.

Prior to Roundwood Reservoir's completion the Blessington Basin supplied water from 1814 to Dubliners, as well as the Jameson Distillery, but as Dublin expanded more water was needed.

Here's a picture at the Blessington Basin in Dublin's North Inner City with my @WeAreTUDublin students of environment and planning

In James Joyce’s Ulysses Leopold Bloom turns the tap to prepare a cup of cocoa for Stephan Dedalus. He makes the mistake of asking “Did it flow?” Bloom describes the entire Vartry scheme in his reply. 

Members of the Dublin Corporation enjoyed a picnic during their inspection of the Vartry waterworks in 1892. £51 16s 8d was spent, including luncheon and refreshments: a dozen bottles of Chateau Margaux, a dozen bottles of fine old Dublin whiskey and a box of cigars. 

Thankfully the local government auditor disallowed this expenditure and the Lord Chief Justice affirmed his decision. (on yesterday's trip Irish Water gave us tea and scones.)

In 1923 Alderman Staines and his colleagues from the Corporation headed down to Roundwood for an extension of the waterworks. This wonderful black and white Pathé film shows Dublin's flag being raised at the dam.

Yesterday marked the opening of a new €30m pipe and pumping station to replace the Vartry to Callowhill Link tunnel which was in danger of collapse after 150 years of use. Hopefully the old tunnel can now be rehabilitated to spare us the cost of pumping. 

There's other works in progress at Roundwood, including new slow filter beds where the water is cleaned by trickling down through fine layers of sand. 

Climate change may be reducing output as Summer droughts mean less water, and alga growth that reduce the filter capacity.

We've also got to ensure we maintain flow to the River Vartry that keeps Mount Usher gardens and farms supplied with water.

If you're interested in finding out more look out for Michael Corcoran's book 'Our Good Health' which maps out the 100 year history of Dublin's water supply. Here's a paper he gave a few years ago to Engineers Ireland.

I welcomed the launch, but said we must focus more efforts on water harvesting and conservation, as a new water supply from the Shannon will cost over a billion Euro , and use a lot of energy for pumping. Here's my few words...

Here's a link to Irish Water's information on yesterday's launch. 

And finally thanks to Ned Fleming, the engineer and waterworks superintendent who gave me a fantastic tour of the waterworks and the old valve rooms at Roundwood. Much appreciated!

Quality Housing? Let's look to Vienna

Quality housing? Dublin can learn a lot from Vienna in  providing decent well-designed housing at rents people can afford. They’ve being doing this well since 1919 and before, and they’re proud of what they do. That’s why earlier this month they invited decision-makers from around the world to find out more about the ‘Viennese Model’ at the ‘Housing for All’ Conference in Austria.

You'll hear more about housing in Vienna in 2019. Dublin City Council's Head of Housing Policy Research and Development Daithí Downey has ensured that  an exhibition that featured as a side-event at the conference will come to Dublin this Spring. It will showcase good examples from Vienna of new and refurbished public housing. Most of Vienna’s inhabitants live in subsidised dwellings, and the city itself owns 220,000 homes.

Kathrin Gaál, Chair of Vienna`s Housing Committee said at the conference: "We in Vienna view housing as a fundamental right and regard it as a public task."

Before I went to Vienna I worked out that the average rent for a two-bed house in Stoneybatter is around €1,700 a month. An equivalent apartment in Vienna would be around €330 per month, or one fifth the price. In Austria affordable rental housing isn't just for the least well-off, it is available to most residents. 

Most people in Vienna rent, and most rent from the city itself, or the equivalent of our Approved Housing Bodies, similar to the Iveagh Trust or Respond Housing. During the 'Red Vienna' period from 1918 to 1934 the city built more than 60,000 homes. Back in Dublin Herbert Simms as Dublin Corporation's Housing Architect ensured that 17,000 homes were built between 1932 to 1948, not an inconsiderable achievement a few years after Vienna had kicked things off.

The difference in Austria is that political leaders believe in public housing, and they are building well-designed mixed-income public housing in significant numbers today. I was blown away by the quality of the housing stock, the attention given to detail and the good management of what they have. There is enormous civic pride in a city that goes out of its way to use housing policy to bring society together, rather than create divisions. They're not afraid to build high density public housing, but at the same time the quality of exterior landscaping, the planting and the generous balconies were something that you don't see too often in Dublin. 

Since 1919 they've had a 1% tax on employment, split between employee and employer, and this helps fund ongoing investment in housing. They've also had a luxury tax, originally imposed on riding-horses, large private cars, servants in private households, and hotel rooms, but still in use today to provide decent housing for all.

The conference was linked in to the New Urban Agenda, which came out of the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, and is all about sustainable urban development. It will hopefully lead to more pressure on the European Union to help tackle housing challenges, and that's something that I intend doing if elected to the European Parliament for Dublin next May. I took the opportunity while in Vienna to meet up with my European Green party colleague Maria Vassilakou who is Deputy-Mayor of Vienna. The Greens share power with the Social Democratic Party in Vienna, and she is working to ensure that the bulk of housing on larger sites will be either city housing, or provided at affordable rents.

I travelled to Austria with colleagues from our City Council in Dublin, as well as some of Dublin City Council's senior housing officials. Most of the housing I saw in Vienna was well-designed, properly managed and mixed in tenure. The Austrians having been doing this well for a hundred years. Cost-rental housing provides the opportunity to do this in Dublin and is worth supporting. Hopefully Minister Eoghan Murphy TD and his senior staff will pick up on this and apply some of the lessons from Vienna to Dublin's housing crisis.

Signs for Improvement

Signs are something we tend to take for granted in the city. 

In Dublin City for some time we've gone for a fairly conventional blue-coloured bilingual street sign that tells you where you are. They're fairly inoffensive, but pretty damn dull. We've moved back to cast iron after a long period of cheap as chips aluminium signs that faded to illegibility after twenty years, but there's still a lot that could be done to improve them.

Last week at Dublin City Council's Transportation Strategic Policy Committee which I chair we considered a report on the issue. I wasn't altogether happy with what was presented and I put a wording to the floor as follows which we agreed:

“That this committee notes the report on Street Nameplates and furthermore:

- recognises the attractiveness of design of early twentieth century Street nameplates in Dublin City and suburbs;

- understands that the ‘Transport Medium’ typeface was developed in the UK for use on their motorway network rather than on city streets;

-commends the inherent beauty of both traditional and contemporary Irish typefaces;

-expresses concern at the use of bold lettering, and recommends that alternative typographical combinations be considered, such as  a combination of upper case and lower case lettering;

and requests that the manager seek the advice of the Institute of Designers in Ireland on this and alternative approaches, and shall revert to this committee again within six months with a further report on the issue.” 

These ideas seemed to go down well and Joe.ie did a little write-up on the issues.

I've nothing against Transport Medium, designed apparently by  Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert in the late 1950s but it sort of screams third motorway exit after Birmingham rather than Stoneybatter or Sandymount. There's certainly room for improvement. These signs for Eblana Avenue and Charlemont Avenue are from Dún Laoghaire. I guess they date from the early or mid twentieth century but they really have a strong sense of style and distinction to them. I'm not a fan of using Upper case all the way through; it is a bit like sending SCREAMING ALL CAPS text messages to someone, best avoided. Besides we recognise the shape of words better when they contain mostly lower case letters. 

I've tweeted a bit about this over the last week or so, and have come to realise that there's a lot of people out there interested in typography. I've met David Wall from Workgroup.ie who suggested that the Institute of Designers in Ireland  might be able to help us out. I also received a nice note from John  Harrington whose firm designed the modern Irish font bilingual typeface Martello used in the 1916 Witness History centenary exhibition which opened last year in the GPO. Rob Munnelly sent me a slide deck with some great advice, and Dave Foley asked how he could support any new initiative. There's a lot of people who would like to see improvements.

I'm in awe of Finland though. They recently commissioned the Finlandica typeface and it gives a fantastic crisp clean identity for that country. I suspect we don't need to go that far, certainly not in Dublin, but we could consider some contemporary Irish typeface for use on street nameplates in the city.

One last gripe about the current proposal is that it makes no distinction between Irish and English other than putting the Irish wording ahead of the English text. This seems to be a response to regulations brought in by Éamon Ó Cuív in 2008. Those regulations however don't insist on the same font. They state that the text in the Irish language shall not be "less prominent, visible, or legible than the text in the English language". It seems to me that the door is open to using a contemporary Irish font for at least the original Irish names on street signs. 

Street signs are a huge part of our city's identity. Think of the wonderful street signs in Paris and elsewhere. I think we can do better than this in Dublin, and I'm hoping that our engineers will step up to the mark on this one.

Too many students?

There's been a lot of Planning Applications for student housing in recent years, particularly in the north inner city. The map above shows some of those planning application that I've noted in the last year or so, and if you click on the link you can zoom in or out. I've counted planning applications for 6,000 bed spaces in the North Inner City alone, and that's just in the last three years. Local residents are apprehensive about the impact of such development, and we need to get it right.

Across the River Liffey in the Liberties, on Bonham Street almost 500 bed spaces have been provided in an impressive development designed by O'Mahony Pike Architects. It seems to fit in well, and provides a nice way to walk from Usher's Island up to James's Street through the Digital Hub past the remnants of the old St. Patrick's Windmill. The first residents moved in six months ago, and I  haven't heard any complaints so far about the impact, and it seems to me to be a good addition to the neighbourhood. Years ago I remember a packed-out meeting of residents when Trinity Hall was being proposed in Dartry. Listening to the nearby residents it seemed like an Armageddon of drunkenness, relocated traffic cones and bus stop signs was about to descend on that fairly well-heeled neighbourhood. It seemed not to have occurred.

It is important that this type of accommodation is really well managed, and that the everyday issues such as waste bins and construction traffic are well taken care of. Some of these proposals are a bit over-scaled for their surroundings, and there are concerns about over-looking and over-shadowing. In addition there is a very real fear that an over-concentration of students in one area might make life difficult for existing residents. 

On the plus side they will take some of the pressure off existing housing, where rents and prices have sky-rocketed again in recent years. The real solution to a housing shortage is to build more housing! In addition, with a large construction phase of the new Dublin Institute of Technology campus at Grangegorman, these new developments will attract students to live near their campus which makes sense.

One of the interesting things has been that the developers aren't looking for vast amounts of car parking, and the planners haven't looked for it either. Some of them have no car parking whatsoever. This makes sense, as journeys in the inner city are more likely to be made by foot or bike or public transport. If we can't get students to travel using sustainable means, then what hope do we have in persuading others to do so? It will put pressure though on nearby areas that don't have a residential disc parking scheme in place, but that's inevitable as the city copes with a growing population.

I've made my own views known on several of these applications over the last few months, and you can see my observations on Prussia Street, the North Circular Road and Stoneybatter at these links. I've invited in our senior planning staff to make a presentation to Dublin City Council's Central Area Committee next month. We'll see what they have to say. One issue that's been on mind is as follows: We set lower space standards for students in our Development Plan (under pressure from the then Minister for Housing Alan Kelly). If the demand for student housing doesn't materialise, will we be easily able to convert these lower-specified units into regular housing for others?

Tackling decades of dereliction

What an extraordinary story!

Just a day after my rant about the new Vacant Sites Levy I get an email from someone in Phibsborough, upset about the continued dereliction of buildings on his street.

"I wonder if you can help. Myself & other residents of Connaught St, Phibsboro have been engaged with Dublin City Council for almost a decade regarding three derelict addresses, Numbers 7, 19 & 21 – the only three vacant on our thriving strip of ~150 family homes. But we are now stuck.
               
"These three properties are under three different ownerships, and each has been left unoccupied since the 1980s. In 2012 the state of dereliction became so awful, that Dublin City Council had to buttress, and make emergency repairs to prevent the terrace coming down. At that point, all three properties were on the Register of Derelict Sites. Dublin City Council made emergency repairs to the roofs & outer brickwork, and boarded up all accesses as shown in the images below.
                Locals were under the impression thereafter that the sites were in the process of being acquired by Dublin City Council. In December 2016, after inquiry, we find that there is no process ... in train, and that the sites are no longer on the Register of Derelict Sites.
                
"The impossible aspect of the problem as we see it is this:
·         In 2012 when there was no Housing Crisis, but the sites were derelict. Dublin City Council Boarded them up.
·         In 2017 when the Council’s Housing Development unit is actively looking to acquire such properties to meet the housing crisis, they cannot – as the houses are boarded up too neatly, and thus are not derelict."


 Ironically the new Vacant Site Levy won't apply as the houses between them only amount to 400 square metres, including the back garden and the threshold for inclusion is 500 square metres.

I've replied to the resident saying that I'll submit the following Question for written reply by Owen Keegan next month.

“That the Chief Executive present a report on actions that Dublin City has  taken to render 19 & 21 Connaught Street, Phibsborough, Dublin 7 non-derelict, and to present any opinion that he may have (including advice from the Law Agent) indicating that the properties are no longer derelict given that they are boarded up, have Buddleia bushes growing out of the roofs, and decaying masonry, and are located in a Residential Conservation Area, and could he outline what action he now intends to take to ensure that these homes are made available to assist in the tackling of Dublin’s housing crisis. Furthermore would he agree that the empty state of these homes for more than a decade necessitates a more proactive approach by the Council?”

From my perspective as a councillor it seems that we need to broaden the definition of what constitutes a derelict or vacant site, and lobby Minister Simon Coveney to set the minimum threshold at 100 sq. m. rather than the current 500 sq. m. in the 2015 Urban Regeneration and Housing Act. We also need to get the Vacant Sites Register up and running as soon as possible, and I've already written to Owen Keegan asking him to do so. 

I'll keep you posted. 

Councillors insist on having cake and eating it

Dublin City Council met last night and dropped Local Property Tax by 15% against the CEO Owen Keegan’s recommendation.

That means less money for libraries, pedestrian crossings, senior citizen services, opening locked parks, fixing footpaths and roads, tackling dog dirt and street cleaning, public realm improvements etc. Interestingly in the light of the Web Summit moving to Lisbon it also would have funded CoderDojo and city WiFi. Oh, and housing, and homelessness services will feel the pinch as well.

You’ll save €60 if you own a house and it is worth €250,000 or €1,000 if you live on Shrewsbury Road. No tax is perfect, but the Green Party felt this was fairer than most and voted against decreasing this tax in Dublin City.

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.