Ireland

Galway children face ‘cars travelling at 80km/h’ as walk-to-school week begins

Lack of footpaths at Crumlin National School in rural Ireland highlight challenge of getting more pupils to walk or cycle from home

National Walk to School Week begins on Monday with organisers Green-Schools saying 'speeding, idling engines, poor driving behaviour and footpath parking all impact the journey to school'. Photograph: Conor Healy
Cian O'Connell
Mon Oct 07 2024 - 06:05

To arrive at Crumlin National School in rural Co Galway, students have to travel 200 metres down a boreen running off a main road where cars drive up to 80km/h.

In the last three years, Crumlin’s principal Niamh Molloy has appealed to Government ministers and members of Galway County Council for improvements to be made to the school’s surrounding roadways. Specifically, parents have been seeking to lower the speed limit and introduce a pedestrian footpath.

“There are a number of families on the Láithreach Mór side that cycle or walk to school,” she says.

“It’s deadly because there are no paths. It’s a narrow country road. The flashing lights are there to say that the school is nearby, but the cars do move. They move quite speedily along that road. Then the side road that we’re on – they move there too.”

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Monday marks the beginning of Green-Schools’ National Walk to School Week, an initiative that encourages walking and active transport to combat traffic congestion. Schools like Crumlin, however, have found that most transport programmes fail to tackle the key deficiencies in their local infrastructure.

Given the side road to the school is so small and narrow, there is a major build-up of cars at drop-off and pick-up times. Galway County Council’s park and stride scheme also attempts to alleviate congestion by asking parents or guardians to park 10 minutes from the school gate and walk the last leg of the journey.

“The infrastructure isn’t there,” Ms Molloy says. “Even for the park and strides, there’s two areas that we would have done in the past. At the local shop, you can park up there but you have to have your hi vis on, you have to be clearly seen, and the cars are travelling along that main road at 80km/h plus. It’s dangerous enough.”

Students have to stand in the feet of driveways along the side road to avoid traffic. Four local farmers have agreed to allow their road frontage to be pushed back to make way for a footpath, but there is no sign of that project being authorised.

Last week, the principal was informed that Crumlin will be part of the next batch of schools working with the National Transport Authority’s Safe Routes to School programme. The process might take 18 months and will not meet the school’s requested improvements.

“Basically, there’ll be no footpaths installed,” Ms Molloy says. “It’ll be signage and promoting park and ride, and park and stride – and I said, we have done all those initiatives. We have all the initiatives done in the school.”

[ Traffic, weather, safety, laziness, fumes, distance, time. . . why more children are not walking to school ]

David Concannon has had two of his children attend Crumlin and has a third in sixth class. He has been campaigning for upgrades to road safety at the school for the last three years.

In that time, Minister of State Anne Rabbitte and Minister of Finance Jack Chambers visited Crumlin and agreed that the school needs to be made more accessible for students. Ultimately, Galway County Council suggested that a project to introduce a footpath is not feasible.

“We have a lot of kids that cycle and walk to school in Crumlin,” Mr Concannon says. “Had a lot. But the traffic is so bad that a lot of parents are pulling back, going ‘you can’t have kids out on the main road’. I don’t blame them because it’s quite dangerous to try and cross it.

“You look at every school in the city. If they don’t have a speed limit or pedestrian crossing, they’re allocated money for a lollipop person. So, are we overlooked? Completely and utterly overlooked.”

The National Walk to School Week runs until Friday – with the charity behind it, Green-Schools, pointing out that “speeding, idling engines, poor driving behaviour and footpath parking all impact the journey to school”.