Press Release on 30 kph Zone

Press Release - 30 January 2010
For immediate use:

Dublin Cycling Campaign strongly welcome the introduction of the Dublin City Centre 30 kmph zone in Dublin City Centre.
Traffic congestion and childrens' safety is set to improve in Dublin's city centre when a new measure by Dublin City Council goes ahead. The Council are to introduce 30km/h speed limits in the inner core of the city.

The areas affected by the new Council limits are small and rich in pedestrians, shoppers, children and, at night, revellers. It includes the Henry Street-O'Connell Street junction, where pedestrians often well outnumber motorists. These areas are also residential, with huge numbers of apartments and City Council dwellings; many children live along these streets.

The measure is based on international best practice and real-life implementation in such cities as Munich, London, Freiburg, and throughout New Zealand. In the Netherlands, the goal is to have 70% of urban roads limited to 30km/h in coming years.
Indeed, on London streets, imposing 20mph (32km/h) speed limits has cut road injuries by 40%, and was particularly useful in saving young children from death and injury, according to researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Likewise the Grundy study, published in the British Medical Journal recently, found a reduction to a 20mph (32km/h) limit led to a 40 per cent fall in casualties and collisions over a 20-year period to 2006.

International research has shown that the probability of death for a pedestrian hit by a car travelling at 30km/h is about 5%. At 50km/h, however, it is 40% approximately. This is simply because the human body has evolved to cope with impacts at a maximum of fast running speed. At 60km/h or above, death is virtually certain.

The measure will be particularly beneficial at night, when vulnerable road users feel threatened by the high speeds of cars in the busy city centre environment.

Cyclists claim the measure will, in addition, reduce congestion: by making roads feel safer it will be a huge incentive for people to get out of their cars and onto their bike. A major reason people are fearful of cycling is the feeling of being overtaken by larger vehicles at speed, and reduced speed limits are the answer. Numbers of cyclists are already rising rapidly in Dublin, partly due to the phenomenal success of the Dublinbikes rental scheme, but serious injuries are reducing at the same time. This trend can only be good for our capital.

While many cyclists look for cycle lanes and off-road tracks, the centre of any mediaeval town is a place where cyclists must share the roadway with cars, trucks and buses, so keeping speeds low is crucial. A bicycle is defined as a vehicle in Irish law, and recent cycle lanes and tracks have been laid out in Dublin without proper design guidance, so are often of poor quality. Thus, cyclists feel that making the road itself safer is their most pressing need.

Dublin Cycling Campaign chair Will Andrews said, 'Treating inner-city streets, which are places to shop, chat, enjoy a coffee or just soak up the atmosphere, as high-speed through-routes for motor vehicles is a thing of the past. To be competitive against cities like London, Amsterdam or Copenhagen, Dublin must move into the 21st century and start making the most of the beautiful spaces it has, rather than let them be used as conduits for cars'.

Increased cycling can help fight rising congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, and the obesity epidemic among Irish children. Thus, one of the Government's 'Smarter Travel' policies is to increase cycling five-fold in coming years. It is estimated that, as part of achieving this, the number of trips taken by cyclists in Dublin must increase -from 6% of all trips to 20%. This would mean a massive increase in the number of bikes on the street.

The Dublin Cycling Campaign reiterated its call for better enforcement on speeding -not as a revenue-generating measure, but in order to change attitudes- issuing a reminder that figures from a motorists' lobby group issued in 2009  showed 70% of car drivers admitting to speeding themselves in the preceding year. As of 2001, the Netherlands had an estimated 1,500 speed/red-light camera installations, and Ireland must match this effort if its toll of injuries and death is to be reduced. Better training of cyclists to cycle defensively and obey traffic law, to back-up the 30km/h measure, was also sought.

'Cyclists love getting from A to B quickly as much as motorists,' said Andrews, 'but an irrational lust for speed for its own sake is no basis for planning a city'.

Finally, the measure may even prove to be beneficial to motorists' hard-pressed vehicles. When 30 kmh zones were introduced in Germany, car drivers on average had to change gear 12% less often, use their brakes 14% less often and require 12% less fuel.

ENDS

Background:
The Dublin Cycling Campaign has been working since the early 1990s to encourage cycling and to represent the interests of everyday commuting cyclists. We want to make the streets safer for cyclists and to increase public awareness of the benefits of cycling. We want to see a quantum increase in the use of the bike for commuting to school, college and workplace, recognising that a 'critical mass' of cyclists in traffic leads inevitably to safer streets. We are not anti-car, but feel that a radical shift in the modes of Dubliners' transport would lead to a healthier, happier city.

See www.dublincycling.ie for further general information.
'for safer, quieter, greener, more sociable streets'

Ashton & Mackay, 1979 published the research into probability of death in pedestrian-car front impact collisions. Referenced at http://www.ecf.com/files/2/12/16/070228_Vulnerable_road_users_NL.pdf
Government policy is expressed in the Smarter Travel Policy, and in the National Cycling Policy Framework:
smartertravel.ie

Will Andrews, Chair, Dublin Cycling Campaign: 086 6088843