Report Paul Murphy
A planned cycle scheme for Dunboyne Road in the Ratoath Municipal District is meeting with tough opposition and councillors warned that it will not go forward unless the views and feelings of local residents are taken into account and not before a “walkabout” of the proposed route is undertaken by elected representatives.
That was the outcome of a meeting of the Ratoath MD attended by Cathaoirleach Nick Killian and Cllrs Fionnan Blake, Yvonne Everard, Brian Fitzgerald, Maria Murphy and Gerry O’Connor. During a lengthy debate following a presentation on the scheme by council official David O’Reilly, Cllr Killian asked if any analysis had been done on the usage of cycle lanes. He said “This is a Green thing put forward by Eamon Ryan. He was mad on these cycle lanes but nobody has ever said ‘yes but’…”.
“To be fair, in Ratoath, cycle usage to the college has gone up a little but generally people are not using the cycle lanes. They’re cycling on the road in Ashbourne, not on the cycle lanes. Before this is fully agreed there should be an analysis done on usage”.
COUNCILLORS COMMENTS
Independent Cllr Yvonne Everard said that the cycle lane idea had all gone back to the Green Party and she felt the lanes were a waste of
money, a waste of time “and in years to come it’ll be all dug up because there’ll be no one on them”. It was also a fact, she said, that we did not have the climate for cycle lanes.
The Cathaoirleach said he didn’t want to sound sarcastic “but you can’t fund the scheme in Ratoath and I don’t know where the council is going to find the money for this one”.
Fine Gael Cllr Maria Murphy said she had told the council recently that the conversation between Active Travel and the councillors was not sufficient. This particular scheme was bigger than the one in Ashbourne. When people had gone up to Dunboyne Castle for public consultation on the scheme they really had their eyes opened and they were asking questions. Some of the routes were not provided with any extra connectivity or value because they were coming along the main routes anyway. “They were only, in my opinion, making the scheme more expensive. They (consultants) had one of the routes was going across the green space in Beechdale where the kids play on. One of them goes across my own green in Luttrell Hall and it opens the one into the Dunboyne Industrial Estate which to be is a recipe for antisocial behaviour. When I said to one of the consultants that you’re cutting across the green he said ‘the kids can play football on the other half’”.
She added that a council official had said that nothing had been agreed, nothing had been sealed, none of the options had been nailed down, that it was “all open”. But that was not what was being said to her on the ground, she said. The cllr said she was getting an adverse reaction from Station Road. She advised officials to be cautious about the way they addressed local residents, that the residents might pick up the tone of the language in a different way. What the residents were saying to her was that there was anxiety that “this is happening regardless and they better go and get a valuation on their property because their gardens will go anyway”. This was not ideal and she could
see where the residents were coming from. The last time they had done a traffic survey on Station Road – five or six years ago – there were 10,000 traffic movements. “That’s what they have to hear every day with the speed of vehicles coming into the village”.
Independent Cllr Brian Fitzgerald suggested that when the Part 8 proposal was put to the councillors, they should be taken on a walkaround in Dunboyne to see exactly what was being proposed (a proposal that was agreed by the councillors).
Fine Gael Cllr Gerry O’Connor felt that the scheme would cause “absolute havoc”. Most of the estates in Dunboyne only had one entry into them so people were happy that only local, in-and-out traffic was coming into their areas. He said a relative lived in Tallaght and South County Dublin council had gone in and knocked down walls around estates and caused “absolute havoc” . Before the Part 8 was
presented to them he wanted to know where the funding stream was going to come from. “We need to walk the route to see what impact it is going to have and to listen to the people living there”.
Independent Cllr Yvonne Everard said the problem in putting in cycle lanes in small towns and villages was that they affected small businesses and it put people off going there because of lack of proper parking.
Sinn Fein Cllr Fionnan Blake said that he was pro-active travel. However, public communication was very important. There were dangers for children walking to school and he would be in favour of seeing traffic moving slower. He was worried about reduction of road space on main streets. He did not think the scheme in Ashbourne had “made the place any better – some of the main streets are being made very tight”. He thought that, overall, the plan was a good one and he hoped they good deliver on the parts that would cause trouble.
Fianna Fail Cllr Caroline O’Reilly said that 292 submissions had been made to the council on the scheme. Some of them were made on behalf of residents’ associations and she thought this figure would be much higher than it appeared. She was there for a lot of the submissions “and the stress and anxiety it causes people and the idea of Compulsory Purchase Orders for people who have been living here for 50 years and who feel the gardens they have developed over a lifetime might be taken away from them without them having a say in it – to me I wouldn’t like that myself to put it mildly.”
Official said they would take up the councillors’ suggestion for a walkabout as a next step in the process.
