Latest Updates – Page 4 – Michael Pidgeon

Greens welcome 50+ extra staff to work on cycling and walking in the capital

Green Party councillors on Dublin City Council have welcomed plans to hire 55 new staff to advance cycling and walking projects in the city.

Player Wills: planning submission

Below is an observation I submitted on the proposals for the Player Wills site, a large site being developed by property developer Hines. As the plans are so large, it is going directly to An Bord Pleanála, bypassing the Council. You can see the full plans here.

This ties in with a similar submission I made on the adjacent Bailey Gibson site. Comments are welcome to michael@pidgeon.ie

College Green Plaza: the Green Party view

Dublin City has presented two options for how traffic should be managed in a future creation of a College Green Plaza. Option 3 allows 24 hour deliveries through the plaza – option 4 restricts them to before 11am (as with Grafton Street).

The ten Green Party councillors on Dublin City Council have made the below joint submission as part of the process. The inital answers respond to the direct questions on which option should be chosen.

Phoenix Park car reduction plans would be “transformational”

New plans to reduce the number of cars in the Phoenix Park could be transformational”, local Green Party Councillor Michael Pidgeon has said.

The initial study, released by the OPW today (Monday), calls for a series of changes to road access and gate opening, as part of a wider package to improve walking, cycling and public transport in the park.

Bus Connects: local thoughts for Dublin 8

Below is a draft submission for the third round of BusConnects consultation. This consultation is just on “corridors” – the physical road changes to improve bus journey times – not the actual network of routes themselves.

Pfandtastic: thoughts on the bottle and can deposit scheme

One of the things the Green Party got into the Programme for Government was to introduce “a deposit-and-return scheme for plastic bottles and aluminium cans.”

Greening the South West Inner City: upcoming projects

I recently put a question into the city council, asking for a list and updates on all the planned greening and public realm upgrade projects for the South West Inner City.

Column: Dublin City Council’s decision to cut Local Property Tax will only favour the wealthy

I’m in TheJournal.ie’s opinion section on the decision to lower local property taxes.

2020 should be a year for more public services and more solidarity – not just tax cuts.

You can read the full piece here: https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/dublin-city-council-property-tax-5211928-Sep2020

Speech: 2020 shouldn’t be Dublin’s year of the tax cut

Dublin City Council cut local property tax as much as they could this year. I think that’s a mistake and voted for a modest increase. Here’s my speech on the night:

Surely the lesson of 2020 is just how important public services are to our city.

This shouldn't be yet another year where Dublin City Council cuts taxes for the wealthy at the expense of public services, yet that's exactly how the vote tonight went: 34 to 21.

Here's my speech: pic.twitter.com/ncRXUgGnhV
— Michael Pidgeon (@Pidge) September 21, 2020

Idea: A Phoenix Park to Grand Canal Cycle Path

There’s nothing engineers hate more than politicians getting their crayons out to come up with a scheme. But I’ve had an idea all the same and would welcome thoughts! (I’m on michael@pidgeon.ie – or the Twitter discussion is here.)