Galway traffic

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...

And that's the attitude that brought the numbers out to kill the cycleway.

Do carry on.

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..

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

Ya. I wasn't being serious. T'was lost in translation obviously.

I was actually quite critical of the Salthill Sunday antagonistas.