I share my sympathies and condolences with everybody involved in the terrible accident this morning on North Earl Street. I am contacted regularly by my constituents in Dublin Rathdown about road safety issues. I will focus my comments today on cycling. There are so many topics I want to talk about but this is to get the best use out of my time. People contact me about things like the need for pedestrian crossings, new developments in Carrickmines, the need for traffic calming measures near schools in Churchtown, and concerns about the speed of traffic in particular residential areas in Ballinteer and Stillorgan, but the reality is that people overwhelmingly want to opt for active travel like walking and cycling. As we seek to encourage active travel as a viable alternative to driving, it is imperative that we address persistent safety issues. The safety of pedestrians and cyclists must be factored into our shared use of the roads. Funding for active travel has not been increased with inflation and we are seeing the cracks and shortcomings as a result of this. As a mode of transport, we have seen huge uptake of cycling over the last number of years. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has overseen transformative cycle infrastructure implementation. I commend it on its leadership in this space. On weekends in my local areas, I see families with cargo bikes travelling to places like Marlay Park, to sports training, and to visit friends and families by bike, which is all great, but this usage is curtailed by hazards and sometimes by real risk. A lack of segregated cycling infrastructure in areas with sections that are not connected creates unstable, unusable routes. A lack of education on the rights of cyclists for other road users and sometimes the rights of pedestrians is particularly prevalent. As has been raised by the Dublin Cycling Campaign and the Love 30 campaign, speed restrictions due to council-by-council assessment create inconsistency that also proves dangerous for cyclists on our roads. If we are serious about road safety and active travel, then co-ordinated planning and connected infrastructure funding and education on the rights of different categories of road users are all imperative. There is a lot to be positive about with the current road safety strategy, but to see further progress in this area, we must listen to pedestrians and cyclists.

Sentiment score: 0.34