Cycling in Ireland- An architect’s perspective

In Part 2 of our “Cycling in Ireland” video series, Dr Lara Dungan meets with Ian Noel Smyth to hear an architect’s perspective on the current cycling infrastructure in Ireland.
They meet at the site where cyclist Donna Fox, was fatally injured when she was hit by a truck in 2016.

I and how are you great to meet you thank you so much for comin i’ts chat to us tell me I’m a bit about the significance of why we’re meeting here well a girl was killed here last year Thank You Lera bike-to-work intersection she was caught in the blind spot of a

Truck since the accident and all these bollards have been hurrying along the road there you know improved disjunction again you can even see like the damage that has been done to the railings and to this fall out here like since then they’re only in less than a year

Improvements can be made and it should be more of this but it shouldn’t be just done after the fact so Ian as an architect do you think there’s anything we could be doing in the city to create more of boundaries perhaps like this or to make it safer for cyclists definitely

Every Junction needs to be looked at certainly anywhere it has been an accident in the past there is are some physical things that we can done in the short term and but I think longer-term you have to look at segregation as much as possible you know make it safe so

That younger people are encouraged to take up cycling avoid obesity and then obviously all the health benefits that come with it with us like families should be allowed to be able to cycle in the city so you think if we had segregated cycle lanes you think that we

Can increase the uptake of sites well a lot more of them and certainly where they can be put in initially you’ve got a mixture of like a very older system of guarding that was more created for pedestrians to prevent them actually entering onto the road rather than the

Cyclists who’s on the other side of the railings because DS in a sense these these railings can hand the cyclist in which is not a good idea that’s why you need to separate them via an actual edge so that it’s very unlikely that a truck or a car can marry

To curb to actually get at the cyclist you need to be really aware of what you’re doing on a bike but a truck driver is driving the vehicle which can kill you it needs to have the proper mirrors that has to know that a cyclist could be right there and not

Smartphone at the same time trying to figure out where to go in the city can you tell me a little bit about your own accidents yeah well they actually have it on video another cyclist was across the road at the on the intersection and actually caught the whole thing you can

Understand II and why people would be nervous to put their kids on bikes and send them to school when this kind of stuff does happen yeah again but if you had proper our segregated safe lanes it wouldn’t happen yeah because to be a barrier between the the vulnerable road user under heavy

Truck sounds lately it’s totally doable have to have the will political will to change things put money into us get it done yeah yeah