Are Kerry’s million euro bike lanes being used?
The KerrymanKerry County Council has revealed the usage of Killarney’s new cycle lanes as active travel investment continues to flow into the county.
On the busiest route, up to 3,500 trips were made every month, but the number of cyclists remains unclear due to technological constraints.
Active travel investment has remained high in Kerry, with around €3m allocated to Kerry County Council every year since 2024.
A significant portion of the funding has been spent on new bike lanes in Killarney which some local representatives feel are not in extensive use.
Counters installed along the new stretches of cycle way fail to reveal any commuter pattern and show a far greater number of trips leaving town than entering.
One of the active travel schemes is along Park Road, which shows a daily average inbound traffic volume of 103 through the summer months last year, while outbound recorded 460, over four times the inbound traffic.
This may be due to visitors traveling via bus or taxi into town, before walking home.
While Killarney is a tourist hotspot, on neither inbound or outbound data was a commuter pattern visible, with inbound peaking around 7pm and outbound also peaking at 7pm.
The Rock Road scheme shows a similar trend, with a daily average of 292 inbound and 497 outbound. Again, no commuter pattern is visible, with inbound traffic peaking at 5pm and outbound at 3pm.
Due to the type of sensors used in the counting the traffic, Kerry County Council are unable to distinguish between pedestrians and cyclists at the scheme.
Killarney councillor Maura Healy-Rae previously claimed that she hadn’t seen the town’s new cycle lanes in extensive use and said she felt they had no ‘real idea’ whether travel habits would change.
Cllr Healy-Rae said she felt authorities didn’t know whether the strategy would work in rural Ireland, where travel needs are different to those in a European city.
“I’m kind of bewildered a small bit…the street scape might be more pleasing, but I don’t see it in full use or in extensive use to equate to what has been spent there,” she had said.
The lack of concrete data for Killarney’s new active travel schemes raises questions about similar initiatives in other counties where the €290 million that has been given to local authorities for active travel this year alone, is now being spent.
Cork City, Wicklow, Wexford, Cavan and Fingal councils are all mentioned on the website of the counter seller.
Despite the uncertainty, the Transport Minister, Darragh O’Brien, defended the Killarney projects and safe routes to school schemes during his visit to the county last month.
He claimed recent studies supported ‘active travel’ measures and said that rural towns had seen a 50pc increase in walking and cycling to school following their introduction.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s urban or rural or county towns like Killarney or Tralee…where you provide good active travel facilities, people will use them,” said Minister O’Brien.