The Green Party’s removal from Government will likely mean fewer “ridiculous” cycle lanes, Conor Faughnan has predicted.
In the last Dáil term, the Government was committed to spending at least twice as much on public transport as it did on roads.
At the time, the Greens said it would “transform how we travel” and “provide more people with better access to cleaner, quieter modes of transport.”
The current Programme for Government makes no such promise and instead commits Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to “increase funding for new roads” in the years ahead.
On The Pat Kenny Show, transport expert Conor Faughnan described the as a “bad policy” that he was happy to see the end of.
“[It] distorted spending with some ridiculous, unnecessary, over-engineered cycle lanes being built in various places just to comply with that ratio,” he said.
“It’s artificial and it’s silly and I’m glad that it’s gone.”
Mr Faughnan gave South Dublin as an example of where some “absolutely ludicrous” cycle lanes have been built.
“On the Firhouse Road, they installed a lovely cycle lane which they didn’t need,” he said.
“They dug up the road to do it a few years ago and they’re now digging up the road again to put in a cycle lane that looks like something out of Star Trek.
“Ridiculously over engineered with a superduper surface and street furniture and this, that and the other.”
A woman riding a bicycle in Dublin. Picture by: Alamy.com.In November, the Green Party saw their vote share plummet by 4% and they lost all but one of their seats.
However, Mr Faughnan does not believe that cycle lanes played a pivotal role in the defeat of so many Green candidates.
“They’re a small party that was in Government for five-years and, to their credit, they stuck to a full term.
“We know that smaller parties tend to get punished for that.
“There were policies in there that affected the last Government in a very good way in many, many things.
“I wouldn’t be critical of the Green approach per se but that artificial, forced ratio was doing more harm than good.”
According to the CSO, 4% of Irish people cycle at least five times a week.
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Main image: A bike lane in Dublin. Picture by: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie
