Maynooth Cycling Campaign  – Public  Meeting 14th November 

Maynooth Cycling Campaign will be holding a PUBLIC MEETING on Thursday 14th November at 8:00pm in the ICA Hall. The Agenda will include Cycling without Age, the latest on the Maynooth Local Area Plan, and Campaign priorities for 2025. EVERYONE WELCOME!!!

Representative on KCC Transport Strategic Policy Committee 

The Public Participation Network (PPN) has invited volunteers to represent the PPN on various Strategic Policy Committees of Kildare County Council. After the council elections in 2019, our Chair was elected to the Transport SPC  but was forced to resign as the Council introduced a requirement to prevent a member of the Transport SPC from also sitting on the Sustainability Transport Forum which had replaced/incorporated the Kildare Cycle Forum. As the Maynooth Cycling representative was the only person who was forced to resign, we are seeking removal of this requirement.  Maynooth Cycling Campaign will be seeking election to the new Transport SPC and will be looking for the support of PPN groups.

Accidents KSIs

The Road Safety Authority has recently been criticised by politicians and the general public about the rise in road fatalities over the past two years. This comes after a long period of time when the number of road fatalities annually were decreasing.Elsewhere, other authorities do not assess the safety of roads on the basis of the number of fatalities but of a combination of road fatalities and the seriously injured. A recent report by Ciarán‏ Ferrie on IrishCycle.com website looked at the record of fatalities and seriously injured (KSI).  

IMAGE: Deaths and Serious Injuries 2004 to 2023 (Source: RSA Annual Collision Reports)

The report revealed that although the number of deaths fell after 2013, the number of serious injuries have risen significantly.

Local Area Plan – Deletion of Proposed Permeability Measures

Councillors have given their response to the September Report by the KCC Chief Executive on the LAP submissions. The main  outcome was that a representative from each of the four political parties proposed to delete several of the permeability proposals.  

The councillors and the number of deletions that they proposed are given below.

Councillor	No. of Proposed Permeability Links Deleted	Party	No. of Party Members in MD
Naoise Ó Cearúil	46	Fianna Fáil	3
Tim Durkan	15	Fine Gael	3
Angela Feeney	19	Labour	1
Peter Melrose/Aidan Farrelly	15	Soc Dems	2
Other Councillors		Independent	1
Total			10

Maynooth Cycling Campaign is disappointed that an overwhelming majority of councillors supported the deletion of more than ⅓ of the over 140 measures proposed to encourage walking and cycling. The action of councillors is hard to reconcile with their vote to recognise a climate (and biodiversity) emergency in June 2019 with the agreement of all members and with fifty one people currently missing in Spain after severe flooding.  

Irish Rail and Access for All

Anyone travelling regularly by train would notice that Irish Rail regularly gives updates on the location of “Out of Order” lifts at stations. In mid-October, four stations were listed –  Bayside, Tara, Grand Canal and  Park West. Out of order lifts are not a huge problem for able bodied people but can be a critical issue for some people with disabilities. We will be keeping on eye on what progress Irish Rail makes in repairing them 

Maynooth Cycling Campaign welcomes Irish Rail’s proposal to provide lifts at Maynooth railway station. Lifts will enable people with disabilities to purchase a ticket and then access both platforms rather than just the  platform adjacent to the ticket office.

Maynooth Cycling Campaign is a non-party independent local lobby group advocating for  better cycling infrastructure in Kildare. ​​