Outside Lusk, road changes and a new cycle lane trigger debate around safety and space

On the outskirts of Lusk on the morning of 26 January, more than 50 people stood to protest along a wine-coloured cycle lane that ran up the R132.

They were gathered around a green and white combine harvester and a red self-propelled harvester.

It was just after 10am. A chilly wind blew and the winter sun whitened the tarmac on the regional road.

Just north of the crowd, about a dozen articulated lorries, vans and farm machinery were parked, with their engines rumbling loudly.

Coming from the south, traffic was starting to build on the busy road. Cars and buses slowed as they passed by.

Then a lorry approached a slight bend which many of the protestors had congregated beside.

It wasn’t going to be able to stay within the vehicle lane, said Vincent Dockrell, a local truck driver. “The design’s so bad that a normal truck will not fit.”

What Dockrell predicted came to pass. The lorry’s hind wheels veered across a buffer zone, half a metre wide, into the cycle lane.

Inside the painted white buffer, there were two flexible bollards on small concrete islands, which marked out a pedestrian crossing.

The vehicle’s rear narrowly avoided the bollards.

In September, contractors for Fingal County Council began to add these bollards, at 150 metre intervals, and cycle lanes on a 2.7 kilometre stretch of the R132 between Blake’s Cross and Minister’s Road, to help those using more sustainable ways to get around.

But some local residents feel the layout isn’t right yet. The cycle lanes are too wide, while the vehicle lanes are now too narrow for the agricultural machinery and trucks that rely on this route, they say.

And at the centre of the complaint are the new bollards, intended to protect vulnerable road users. Local farmers and truckers argue that they have made the route unsafe.

A council spokesperson said that Fingal County Council has reached out to representatives of protestors “so that a solution can be found”.

Improving connectivity

Fingal County Council’s Department of Environment, Climate Action and Active Travel first proposed adding protected cycling lanes along both sides of the R132 outside Lusk in October 2022.

It was one of its active-travel projects funded by the National Transport Authority.

Its outline said that building out 2.7 km of cycle lanes in existing hard shoulders would foster closer connections between Lusk and the surrounding area.

It would also link more people into local public transport, it said, as Bus Eireann’s 101 service stops along the route.

Another of the aims of the project is to provide safer cycle access from local areas around Lusk to Corduff National School, which is situated on the R132.

The scheme’s plans included measures to slow traffic down, add more crossing points for pedestrians, more bus stops and traffic islands – with these built along the hard shoulder every 150 metres.

A council spokesperson said it carried out extensive consultation, receiving 50 submissions, including some contributions questioning whether it was a good idea to focus on developing a cycle lane on this thoroughfare.

Local councillors saw the plans in 2022, and the council held webinars, leafleted homes and businesses and held face-to-face meetings with key players like the local school in Corduff, said the spokesperson.

As part of the changes, traffic islands were put in the middle of the road but removed while works were still ongoing, the council spokesperson says. “These concrete islands proved difficult for some larger agricultural vehicles to manoeuvre through.”

But the flexible bollards between the painted cycle lanes and the road were always a part of the plan, they say.

In a 2022 council webinar about the plan, senior executive engineer Breen Doris explained that they had considered various cycle-lane designs, including a raised cycle track, and a cycle track with a kerb.

But they settled on this design in part because they felt it would be suitable “considering large agricultural vehicles and machinery along the route”.

Asked about the issue later in the webinar, Breen said that they believed the design would accommodate wide vehicles, which could move towards the centre of the road as needed.

“We can understand if a fella’s coming down there with a combine harvester, it’s an awful lot wider than a normal” car, he said. “So that will be facilitated and is facilitated within the design.”

A question of safety

The protesters on 26 January, though, don’t share this view.

Eoghan Dockrell, a Fine Gael local area representative in Swords, says the new side bollards are what prompted the protest in late January.

“A lot of people got in touch saying these things are dangerous. They become less visible the dirtier they get, and they are hard to see at night,” he said.

Nuala Hartford, a local mother of five, has been driving her kids to school on the R132 since 2006, she says. “Thank God this is my last year doing that.”

The new bollards on the raised concrete islands are difficult to see when she is driving, she says. “What they’ve done is absolutely not safe for me on my journey to school.”

Buses used to be able to pull in at the hard shoulders on the road, she says. “That’s now the cycle lane and the buses now can’t pull in. They have to stop in the middle of the road to have passengers get on and off.”

A council spokesperson said on Tuesday that where there is available road space, pull-in areas are created for bus stops, but this isn’t a requirement.

Michael Hoey, co-founder of Country Crest, a local farming business, said farmers were concerned about the coming harvesting season this autumn. “We have a major grain intake here, and at harvest time this road is crazy busy.”

Trucks used to be able to pull in at the hard shoulder to let vehicles pass, he says. “But we can’t do that any more.”

Fine Gael Councillor Tom O’Leary said the cycle lane is too wide and the carriageway just too narrow for lorries. “There have been burst tyres, broken wheels and also hitting the bollards.”

A council spokesperson said the bollards are in line with national design standards and are needed to control traffic speed.

“It provides separation between motor traffic and vulnerable road users for maximum safety,” they said.

The lanes don’t need to go but getting rid of the bollards would help, says Hoey. “We’re not looking for the world. We don’t mind markers on the road. We just want these concrete bollards removed.”

The council is reviewing the inclusion of traffic islands with the designers at present, a council spokesperson said on Tuesday. “We will establish the best solution to manage traffic speeds while maintaining accessibility for all vehicles.”

Space or not

As the crowd of protestors slowly thinned, Dermot Bentley of Bentley Bros, a local haulage business, decided to measure the widths of the cycle and vehicle lanes.

He got an approximate length using his feet, counting out eight small steps for cyclists. Then, he did the same for motorists.

“That’s ten,” he said. “A lorry has two more feet than a bicycle has.”

Thomas Murphy, the farm manager at Country Crest Farming which is north of Lusk, said he worried about where big vehicles: “They’re forcing big machines onto smaller roads, narrower back roads, which is more dangerous.”

Stephen Byrne, the chairperson of the Lusk Freewheelers Cycling Club says the cycling lanes are surprisingly spacious. “You could almost fit the agricultural equipment down those. It’s pretty crazy.”

This route, before the lanes went in, was relatively safe for cyclists, he says. “It was very, very wide.”

A drawing in the 2022 council webinar on the scheme shows the designs include a buffer zone. It shows a 2m wide cycle track, a 0.5m wide “buffer zone” and a 3.25m wide vehicle lane, and the same going the other way.

Later in the webinar, Breen says, “This is a combined walking and cycling path.”

Linking up

The protected bike lanes are there to help connect Lusk with its neighbouring areas, and to help support a cleaner climate, said the original proposal from Fingal County Council.

This scheme, a council spokesperson said on Tuesday, forms part of the Greater Dublin Area Cycle Network, which identified the R132 as a primary route for vulnerable road users.

Byrne of the Lusk Freewheelers Cycling Club says if improving connectivity is the objective, then putting the lanes on the R132 seems an odd choice. “It starts in the middle of nowhere and pretty much ends in the middle of nowhere.”

Getting from Lusk village to the lanes on the R132 isn’t safe, he says. “You have to cycle the dangerous roads to get onto it.”

The lanes should have been put on that route instead, he says.

Ultimately, Byrne says as a cyclist he is happy that there is this route. “It’s nice to cycle along, the surface is good. But it was never an issue to begin with.”

A National Transport Authority map from 2022 detailing what is planned in the Greater Dublin Area Cycle Network shows that the R132 lanes are to link in with Lusk and Rush via Minister’s Road.

The council has flagged the R132 as a primary route for vulnerable road users.

At the protest, Thomas Murphy said it’s not a particularly busy stretch for cyclists. “I’ve been here since half nine, and I haven’t seen one.”

From about 20 metres away came the voice of Dermot Bentley. “There’s one,” he bellowed.

“How’d you like your new lane?” he said to the man cycling along in a hi-vis jacket.

“It’s great,” the man replied, and continued on.