A plan to pedestrianise certain streets in Dún Laoghaire will divert traffic and put children “at risk”, a local councillor has claimed.
Yesterday, Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council voted in favour of a ‘Living Streets’ scheme that will ban traffic on certain streets and oversee the installation of ‘modal filters’ to deter cars on other roads.
Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast, Fianna Fáil Councillor Michael Clark said the scheme will not lead to the desired reduction in traffic.
“One school is now potentially safer,” he said.
“But the pedestrianisation plan for Dún Laoghaire puts other children at risk on Convent Road in Dún Laoghaire because of extra heavy goods traffic that will inevitably come because of the pedestrianisation of Dún Laoghaire.
“So, some schools seem to be more ringfenced than others.”
Cllr Clark said the scheme will “inevitably displace that traffic elsewhere” and that it does not think it represents value for money.
“There are no extra cycle lanes provided by this project,” he said.
“There’s not a single metre of extra segregated cycling infrastructure that’s provided by this project
“[It’s] simply a closure of a road to vehicular traffic… I would argue that any plan that’s an environmental pathfinder project costing €9.8 million in Dún Laoghaire infrastructure that doesn’t provide any extra cycling infrastructure and makes it harder for any people to access a hospital via public transport, isn’t the best use of Government’s money.”
'A quiet neighbourhood'
Fine Gael councillor Lorraine Hall voted in favour of the plan and said she welcomed it as a “major investment” in the area.
“What we’re trying to do here is to incentivise families headed to the schools - and indeed other people - to opt for cycling and active travel,” she said.
“That’ll take a lot of cars off the road and it is about creating a quiet neighbourhood, promoting active travel and you can’t achieve that if you remove the model filter.”
Cllr Hall said given the population of Dún Laoghaire is due to increase “very significantly”, the council needed to incentivise not to travel by car as much as possible.
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Main image: Dún Laoghaire. Photo: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie
