It would be “life-changing” if Dublin City Council introduced traffic calming measures on Richmond Road in Drumcondra, a resident says.
Emma Taaffe has lived on the road since December 2023. She says every morning she hears “frustrated” drivers who get “aggressive” as they beep their horns and mount the footpaths during peak periods, or speed when the road clears.
“Its six metres wide at its widest point and it’s residential; it’s not built for the amount of traffic that’s coming up and down it.”
Taaffe is just one of many residents taking part in a protest on Richmond Road early on Wednesday morning, calling for a filtered permeability trial that filters out through-traffic.
RM Block
As a mother of two young children, she says, “you have to be on high alert immediately because if somebody trips and falls in to the road, there’s a high chance that someone in a van or a car, or an SUV is going to fly up the road and not see them and just hit them. It’s terrifying.”
She has received verbal abuse from motorists, with one telling her: “I know where you live.” Someone drove a van straight at her husband and he had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit.
“The level of aggression is absolutely unreal. I’ve never experienced anything like it in my life. The fear is that someone is going to die or get seriously injured before the council are going to take it seriously. We don’t want that to be what makes them act.”
Residents say Dublin City Council has tried various measures, such as introducing a metered parking scheme in 2023 and putting planters on the footpaths to stop people mounting them.
Taaffe says these measures have not helped. “The parking has created pinch points, so you get people very frustrated because they get stuck. The planters aren’t secured so people get out of their cars and start pushing and drive up on to the pavement.”
Kate van der Merwe, who has lived on the road since 2017, says choosing to protest is a decision the residents do “not take lightly”.
She says residents had been verbally abused, physically intimidated and threatened, hooted and driven at. “It has a very oppressive effect and, of course, a real safety issue.”
Van der Merwe says communication between residents and the council has been continuing for many years.
“We had a site visit in January with the council, councillors and multiple residents popping out on to the street to engage and tell their personal stories. Dublin City Council put to us that the next step was a traffic survey.”
The group understood that the survey was due for release at the end of March.
However, for the past eight weeks, residents held footpath protests on Wednesday evenings as it had not yet been published.
On Friday, October 3rd, the survey was published, having been written on August 19th. Residents were left feeling “disappointed” and “insulted” that it did not recommend the introduction of filtered permeability. The survey found such a move would increase traffic on adjacent residential roads and have a negative effect on traffic on the adjoining roads.
Van der Merwe says the Richmond Road and Grace Park Avenue Residents Association “do not accept the findings”.
She describes a filtered permeability trial as the “only holistic solution residents can see”.
She explains filtered permeability as a system whereby “there would be a bollard of a type that would stop through-traffic and only allow residents with their vehicles to park. It doesn’t stop traffic but filters through-traffic.”
“We’ve been very hesitant to actually take over the road but we feel like we’ve just been essentially fobbed off and not really listened to or heard.”
Paul Harrington, a musician and former joint Eurovision Song Contest winner, has lived on the street since 2011.
“There’s always things that need to be done, but this is certainly something that could be improved relatively quickly,” he says.
He believes that filtered permeability would “calm the situation”.
“It would make a huge difference, I would like to see something other than what we have now because it is a free-for-all.”
Anja Friedrich, another resident at the protest, recalls when a car mounted the pavement and almost drove into her while she was pregnant with her son Mateo. “They don’t pay attention; you’re just terrified,” she says.
“You don’t want anything ever happening to your kids, and this road is not suitable for the traffic that comes down. It’s super narrow, it’s super small, and there’s nothing in place here to stop people just ploughing down it.”
Orlagh Manigo, another resident and protester, says the community has invested in a device by Belgian start-up Teleraam that can measure the flow of traffic on the street.
In the first week of September, she says, the device counted 33,000 cars, 9,000 heavy vehicles, 4,800 two-wheelers and 6,900 pedestrians.
Eilish O’Connor, who is also taking part in the protest and has lived on the street for 31 years, says: “We don’t want to transfer this problem on to anybody else, that’s not the point. But it’s become untenable. This problem is only going to escalate.”
At the protest, gardaí are present on the street at each end, protesters wear yellow hi-vis jackets and wave signs with statements such as “Design streets 4 life, not 4 speed”, “Kids live here” and “Meaningful consultation, not empty promises”.
Dublin City Council declined to comment.
