Status: EXPLORING
CHALLENGE:
Kissing gates are used in some locations to deter certain users such as people on scrambler and quad bikes and prevent access by horses. This is done primarily with park users safety in mind. Heavy mechanised bikes and horses can cause severe injury to other park users and damage the fabric of the park itself with ease.
However they very often cause problems, or prevent access entirely, for others - including people with prams, able-bodied people with standard bicycles and cargobikes, disabled people with non-standard cycles, wheelchair users and mobility scooter users.
A survey by the Irish Wheelchair Association has found that the majority of its members face difficulties navigating pavements, parking and pedestrian crossings. | https://t.co/SdUYbUjyiU pic.twitter.com/9QYOWVrfsM
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) November 10, 2020
For some users, they present some friction (some able-bodied users with standard bicycles are able to get past, albeit with a lot of effort and hassle), whereas for others they will fully sever them off entirely from using a park or cycle path.
This is us on our first family cycle after purchasing a wheelchair bike trailer for our Daughter. Inaccessible bollards & kissing gates are barriers to where we now can go for a cycle. Unfortunately disability rights are rarely considered #disibilityequality https://t.co/EV3xdKz6uZ pic.twitter.com/7C4gVh0ZDk
— A Daly (@aarondalydub) April 5, 2021
#KissingGates We just fit, others don't. One of the most beautiful #Cork city trails, inaccessible to many. @cyclistie pic.twitter.com/3cUWODDgp8
— Orla de Búrca (@OrlaBurkeCork) August 9, 2020
They also often do not work to prevent the issue that they were installed to do. For example, if you watch this short video you will see kissing gates affecting multiple people cycling, but (at 1.30 minutes) still do not prevent the scrambler bikes from entering the space like they were intended to do.
To somewhat address the issue, Dublin City Council will often leave one of the park gates open whenever the grounds staff are onsite during the day. However, this does not help with evenings or weekends when they will not usually be working, and also it may limit access to a single gate.
Is there a better way to solve this issue?
PROPOSITION:
One potential solution would be to entirely remove all obstructions, as some local authorities have been doing.
Delighted to see the kissing gates are being removed from Loreto park! Well done @dlrcc @robertburns73 . This will make the park so much more accessible for all. #KissTheGatesGoodbye pic.twitter.com/uD6v0Ra6Me
— Colin Boyle (@col_boyle) March 24, 2021
Of course, removing the gates entirely relies on policing to solve the problem, and new powers for the Gardaí may certainly begin to support this approach.
This is a solution to #kissthegatesgoodbye more of this please. https://t.co/eLdQf4lwGx
— Alfred E. Neuman (@Peteer) March 5, 2021
Well this is better than installing 'kissing gates' - New powers would allow gardaí clamp down on scrambler and quad use https://t.co/oRUlxtYxdz
— Ciarán Ferrie (@ccferrie) February 16, 2021
However solutions relying on policing are retrospective (the issue has generally already occurred), rely on a finite number of Gardaí resources, and some local communities may likely resist removal of existing kissing gates from their local park.
So it would be worth also exploring whether there are any proactive solutions which may exist (and which could be supplemented also by enforcement solutions). These would need to be careful to be inclusive for all users within society and to be tested by those who they most affect. Of course, the two aspects may very well be mutually exclusive.
Whatever proposal is adopted it must be disability proofed. Managing antisocial behaviour should never come at the expense of disabled people’s autonomy. Time for change. Time for progress. Time for inclusion. Time for equality of access.
— Mary Caulfield (@SusanTheSilent) January 11, 2021
I wish @DCCbeta good luck.
We'd love to hear your thoughts below, or about any potential solutions that you've perhaps seen somewhere!
TRIAL DESCRIPTION:
[This trial is currently being developed, and we'll add more information as it develops.]
As a concept stage project, any trial will be fully reversed back to the current scenario following the trial period.
OUTCOMES:
[We are not yet at this stage.]
DECISION:
[We are not yet at this stage.]
NEXT STEPS:
[We are not yet at this stage.]
RELATED PROJECTS:
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Get involved in the conversation below.
Tara , posted on 2021.04.16
Interested in the solutions tested.
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Gary Kearney, posted on 2022.03.30
I have done a lot of research and am vailaboe to discuss it with you.
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R, posted on 2021.04.16
I have chronic shoulder pain. I have to carry my heavy touring bike in order to pass through these gates on a regular basis, which exacerbates the pain.
They’re unable to accommodate wheelchair and mobility scooter users. I don’t believe we should be discriminated against because a minority use scramblers. The solution is complete removal followed by actual police enforcement.
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R., posted on 2021.04.19
Had to carry my bike over one on Saturday. Shoulder pain is flaring up today. I can take a detour but that means using a road without cycle paths and extending my journey considerably. They really are a massive nuisance.
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andrew, posted on 2021.04.17
there is no infa solution that can provide access to all yet restrict access to some. please remove all kissing gates and tackle anti social issues by other means.
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Richard Christie, posted on 2021.04.17
I believe these Kissing Gates should be removed. They don’t serve their purpose while at the same time making areas inaccessible to law abiding members of the public with disabilities, prams, bike owners etc…
They where never going to solve all societal problems but they don’t even solve the one problem they were designed to solve i.e. scramblers, quads, horses.
I understand it’s hard to find the numbers of Gardai to police parks but confiscating the bikes/quads would go a long way to reducing these annoyances.
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Owen, posted on 2021.04.21
The kissing gates (KG) featured in the YouTube video above are on the Royal Canal, firstly near Ashtown Station, and the latter set near where the new Pelletstown Station will be. The KG near Ashtown Station gets huge pedestrian traffic of all sorts, including prams, bicycles, etc. The video perfectly illustrates the absurdity of KG, they create an unnecessary bottleneck and hindrance to all path users (especially wheelchair users) but do precisely nothing to prevent scramblers. They should be removed. Some neat bollards might serve some purpose to block larger vehicles. I would accessibility and vulnerable users prioritised.
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Lucille Redmond, posted on 2021.04.23
ANYTHING that will get rid of the hated kissing gates is good.
Some of the solutions, while doable with some lifting and shoving on an ordinary bike or with a buggy, are impossible for wheelchairs, disabled bikes, bikes with trailers and cargo bikes - for instance the bollards that replaced the kissing gates at Londonbridge Road on the Dodder walkway.
Perhaps this should additionally be a project looking at how to make entrances and exits to parks user-friendly - for example, there’s an entrance that is unsafely narrow when you cross over from the part of Milltown Park below the Nine Arches across a motor road (I think maybe called Dundrum Road) into the next section of park, to head through the park towards Clonskeagh. Strangely, there is a wider entrance farther up, but it’s unsafe for bikes because it leads onto grass.
And perhaps also the problem the gates look to solve - people bringing in sulkies and scrambler bikes - could be solved by providing training areas for these that are actually suitable. A Department vet told me that running horses on tarmac (ie public roads or the roads through parks) does terrible and irreversible damage to their stifles (ankles). If a suitable sulky track could be provided, with advice and help on care of horses, and a separate track for scramblers, the parks would be less tempting.
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Ann Marie, posted on 2021.07.16
Could I suggest conducting a survey at the kissing gate on the Royal Canal near the Lock-keeper Bar/Ashtown Train Station. This part of the towpath has huge numbers of pedestrian footfall as it is close to a transport hub and a densely populated area. Everyday I see hundreds of pedestrians of all ages, bicycles, prams, buggies, scooters and people using mobility aids of different types struggle to manoeuvre through the kissing gate. The natural surveillance provided by the pedestrian traffic means that you rarely see any scramblers as it is so congested. The KG just creates a pointless bottleneck and a hindrance to less mobile users. Please get rid of the KG.
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Ann Marie Kehoe, posted on 2021.10.19
Crosbie Gates and Milton Keynes Gates could be suitable alternatives that are less of a hindrance to vulnerable canal users. The Irish Wheelchair Association has details. https://www.iwa.ie/access-guidelines/great-outdoors-access-guidelines/4-trails-greenways-public-parks/
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martin hoey, posted on 2021.11.04
whilst kissing gates annoy me if they are removed then dublin city council needs to employ park rangers for every park in the city 24 hours a day otherwise it will beunsafe to bring my children to the parks any more or wiull the council be responsible for pedestrians run over by quads scramblers and bicycles which are all banned under council bye laws
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Killian O'Sullivan, posted on 2021.12.06
It is entirely inappropriate for DCC to be undertaking the removal of kissing gates as a ‘Beta Project’ in the first place. Discriminatory kissing gates urgently need to be removed immediately and permanently as this is for DCC to comply with accessibility requirements, open public space for the disabled, elderly and parents of young children, and promote active travel including cycling. Pursuing this as a ‘Beta Project’ adds unnecessary delay and caution to this process. It also raises the utterly absurd scenario of DCC actually reinstalling kissing gates when the “reversible trial” is complete - actually taking away access to public spaces that had been opened up for disabled people, the elderly, cyclists, parents etc. This would be completely unacceptable for a public body to enact and would plainly contravene Council policy.
This “project” wrongly assumes there is some sort of technical fix or “innovative solution” to kissing gates, when what is actually required is local political agreement to their removal and overcoming a culture of excessive caution regarding ‘anti-social behaviour.’ I note as well that nothing public has come of this “project” in some eight months since its launch, suggesting to me that the ‘Beta Project’ route is an unnecessarily slow way of removing kissing gates. I’d therefore urge Dublin City Council to undertake the removal of kissing gates as an urgent part of its normal decision-making process, rather than as a time-consuming ‘Beta Project’.
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