Live in Fingal and wish you could push your kids out to play on the street?

Fingal County Council is ready to push ahead with more “quiet streets” in its area after a successful first pilot, councillors were told on Wednesday.

Quiet streets are those with small interventions to block cut-through motor traffic and open up roads for wheelers, walkers, and play, said Emma Court, the council’s walking and cycling officer, at a meeting of the Howth-Malahide Area Committee.

For almost a year, the council has trialled one street in Drynam in Kinsealy, she said. “It has had a huge impact on safety.”

Now, the council feels confident to go back out to Fingallians and ask who wants their street to be up next, she said. 

They plan to put that call out in early March, said Court – and scale up the programme across the council area.

The pilot

Residents had nominated Drynam Heath because of concerns about safety, from speeding and rat-running, said Court. 

After consultations, the council put in signs, temporary bollards and planters, blocking the cut-through for motor vehicles, while still allowing cyclists and pedestrians, and local residents to drive to their homes.

Court ran through slides showing what happened next. They’ve used drones and sensors to monitor and collect data, she said.

Motor vehicle traffic fell by 70 percent, she said, while the percentage of vehicles speeding dropped from 26 percent to 2 percent, and pedestrian activity increased by 114 percent. 

“There was minimal non-local traffic remaining,” she says. 

Community feedback has been great and the pilot seems to have been successful, she said – although the final write-up will happen in June and then a decision about its permanency. 

But it does already show the value of lower-cost data-led changes, she said. 

And now, they hope to scale up the “quiet streets” project, said Court. They plan to open up nominations for more streets from early March.

Engineers will assess sites that are put forward, they’ll do piles of community engagement, and any selected sites with support will be subject to a 12-month trial, she said.

Measures are reversible if they don’t work and permanent if successful, said Court.

Getting going

Fianna Fáil Councillor Eoghan O’Brien said that his only criticism of quiet streets had been that it wasn’t ambitious. 

He remembered more than 50 suggestions flowing in for the single call-out ahead of the pilot, he said – including some from outside Fingal. “Which obviously we can’t do anything with.”

The council can now really start to make major improvements to safety for areas where there is cut-through traffic, he says. “Like that, quality of life.”

Court, the walking and cycling officer, had spoken about the growing confidence among parents in Drynam to let their kids out to play freer range. 

O’Brien reminisced. 

Most councillors would have grown up playing out on the road during holidays from dawn to dusk but that doesn’t happen much now, said O’Brien. “And the number one reason is the proliferation of cars using our estates.”

Independent Councillor Jimmy Guerin said he thought it was fantastic. 

There can be opposition to measures such as safe school zones and the like, he said, but that does seem to soften as people see the success of different programmes. 

It shows how important it is for area councillors collectively to support changes, he said.  “So keep it up.”

David Healy, the Green Party councillor, said some areas are going to take more discussion than Drynam and be more complicated. But all the data will help loads with that, he said.

Sinéad Murphy, a senior engineer in the Active Travel Department, said that the layers of consultation were important in this, and that the ideas come from residents. “We’re not imposing our ideas on the community.”

At the meeting, O’Brien began to throw out ideas already for where should be next. Burrowfield Road in Sutton, he said – and the roads within Drynam Hall.