The Dublin Mayor has said cyclists need to stop leaving illegally parked bicycles around the city or face having them confiscated.
Dublin Mayor considers confiscating illegally parked bicycles
Dublin Mayor Brendan Carr has urged cyclists to refrain from leaving their illegally parked bicycles, including chained to lampposts, or the council would begin confiscating them.
Mr Carr said the bikes, and other obstacles such as business sandwich boards, were a hazard to wheelchair users. Others were also impacted such as the blind, people wheeling buggies and other pedestrians and road users.
And if cyclists did not act on the warning, the council may take the illegally parked bicycles away.
"It is illegal to park a bike just at any pole around, you do need to park the bike at a proper parking bay,” he said, adding he was now urging cyclist to desist.
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“And if we find that this approach isn't working well then we will take the next step and start removing bicycles or sandwich boards if they are an obstacle".
Cyclists returning to find their bicycles gone would need to somehow establish whether it had been taken by council workers or stolen.
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If impounded or confiscated by the council, the cyclist would then need to make arrangements to collect it.
News the plan is being considered, despite the scant cycle parking facilities provided by the council, will cause concern.
Mr Carr yesterday released a press statement suggesting that those in wheelchairs should be able to use cycle lanes.
He later said the press release was a deliberate hoax to highlight how hard it was for disabled people to move around in Dublin due to all of the obstacles on footpaths; from bins to bikes and parked cars.
“The public themselves often put obstacles in front of people with disabilities without realising it and that was the key thing here, that it wasn't being done on purpose,” he said.
Cycling Ireland has said the debate promoted by the Dublin Mayor represented a good opportunity to highlight how poor many cycle lanes are in Dublin.
“While we welcome any developments that offer greater inclusion and better freedom of movement for all citizens of Dublin, we would be more welcoming of measures being introduced to improve the conditions of the cycle lanes that exist, to make them more user-friendly," Cycling Ireland said.
"There are a number of new cycle paths in the city which are of good standard, but in many places around the city and the country the cycle lanes are not fit for purpose, the surface is eroding, the markings are not clear and debris and glass cover them.
“More thought and focus needs to be placed into the design and upkeep of the cycle lanes to make them compatible with cyclists, and anybody who is deemed entitled to use them.
"Once this is addressed we would welcome discussions around the most appropriate use of cycle lanes, with a view to differentiating between the various modes of transport that are used by people."
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