Love 30, the Campaign for 30 km/h Speed Limits, wholeheartedly welcomes Kildare County Council’s proposals to increase the number of roads within Kildare to which a 30 km/h speed limit applies. However, we are disappointed that the proposals apply to some residential roads only.

Love 30 recommends that 30 km/h should be the default urban speed limit in all urban areas throughout Kildare, with exceptions for specific roads, as required by the Stockholm Declaration of February 2020.

Should it not prove feasible to introduce a default 30 km/h immediately, Love 30 recommends that 30 km/h speed limits be introduced in all residential estates & other residential roads, in towns, villages & other neighbourhood centres, and that periodic 30 km/h zones be implemented around all schools and other places of assembly (cinemas, theatres, community centres, religious buildings, etc.), that have large numbers of people arriving and / or departing at the same time.

Love 30 is concerned that speed limits on many semi-rural and rural roads and on roads with “ribbon” development are excessive and recommends that they be reduced, or at least, not increased. While many roads on the Kildare regional and local road network are of higher quality than comparable roads in other council areas, they have been compromised by the amount of ribbon development. There is also an excess of 4-way crossroads, humpback bridges, open canal banks and sudden sharp turns, even on main roads with 80 km/h speed limits. Footways are often discontinuous and there is often no (continuous) footway to or at schools and many of those schools are on main roads. This makes the proposed speed limit increases inappropriate.

Our full submission is attached.