I fully support lower speed limits in urban areas, and especially around schools and parks, and where children live. However, there has been variation in how it 30kmh zones have been implemented, and also some dubious practices, which probably don’t make our city a safer place to live in.

I’m going to use pictures of Inchicore, taken this morning as examples:

In Britain recently a woman had her conviction for going down the wrong road overturned because there were too many signs, see Link to the story here. Irish law is similar to that in Britain, so it is reasonable to assume that if we have too many signs, and in particular, if they are in front of each other on different poles, they will be ignored.

Starting with Bulfin Court on Bulfin Road: this side road is less than 10m long. From the photo you can see the wall at the end: that’s all there is. however, it got a 30km/h sign.

Thankfully, in this case a lamp post was used and no new metal was drilled into the narrow footpath.

This was not the case 100m away at Bulfin Gardens where a new pole was installed just behind an existing lamp post which had a cul-de-sac sign.

Anner Road nearby has the 30kmh sign behind a tree!

While on Luby Road got a new pole behind the existing children at play warning sign.

On Connolly Avenue, depending on your angle, you won’t see the 30kmh sign because it’s behind the children at play sign:

While something similar can happen on Southern Cross Road:

All of the examples above are off Bulfin Road, which is a 50km/h road on which a pedestrian died recently. The road is very much residential and should not be considered a major artery at all. Close by, Kennelsfort Road in Palmerston carries more traffic, but as it is in South Dublin County Council it is a 30km/h zone.

Emmet Road could be considered a more major artery, being the Main Street through Inchicore and part of BusConnects CBC7. However, Camac close, which is not more than a back lane to part of the road, and the pedestrian entrance to Richmond Park gets this sign at one end (note the lane goes sharply downhill and then does a 90 degree bend behind the shop/cafe). At the other end of the lane, outside the Inchicore United Working Men’s Club where most vehicular traffic enters Camac close, there is no signage at all!

No shortage of signs at all on Vincent Street West either.

Turvey Avenue, off Emmet Road, also goes for a sign behind a sign, a few metres along the road.

Then we come to Inchicore Road. Despite this road having an unprotected contra-flow cycle lane the road is 50km along its whole length, even the paved area outside of Kilmainham Gaol. One side road, Camac Court, has been given 30kmh designation, this despite there only being 5 homes on the stretch of road, and it being only the length of 2 sides of the building with those 5 homes. again, there is a 90° bend after 10 metres, so achieving 30kmh would be ambitious:

It still gets two signs on two separate poles.

You might note that all of the above examples are from Inchicore east of an imaginary line at Tyrconnell Road. That is because the council decided not to designate any roads west of that line as 30kmh despite many narrow streets with period houses, both playgrounds and 2 of 3 Inchicore primary schools being in that area. There are also no less a density of children’s homes in this area compared with Bulfin.

I question whether the resources were used appropriately here. Were the decisions made based on evidence or was the absolute minimum done, based on a few lines on a map?

I will continue to look for 30kmh for more places in Inchicore. I just want to see things happening in an evidence based way that protects our children, without risking further clutter in the city, and more signs that are going to be ignored.