Dublin has a Problem with Parking on Footpaths

Once you see it, it cannot be unseen. They hide in plain sight. Disguised by their ubiquity. Vans, cars, motorbikes, even trucks. Two wheels, four wheels. All up on the footpath. It is contagious. Once one driver does it, the next takes their cue and soon a whole street has its footpaths taken over, narrowed or blocked.

Try counting the number of vehicles parked on footpaths on your next walk around Dublin. It is endemic. There is little enforcement of this issue. An Garda Síochána are not interested. They are repeat offenders themselves. Just look at the footpath outside any Garda Station. Our authorities turn a blind eye.

Dublin City Council contract out their on-street parking enforcement to Dublin Street Parking Services (DSPS). The 2019 renewal of the tender for this contract included the objectives of maintaining a high level of compliance with on-street parking controls in the City Council area, and ensuring that the probability of enforcement action being taken is sufficiently high to deter illegal parking.

DSPS clamped 23,383 vehicles in the first six months of 2019. Of these, just 1400 were for parking on footpaths. This is a city-wide average of 8 per day of the total average of 129 vehicles clamped per day. This level of enforcement is just not sufficient.

This lack of enforcement allows delivery drivers, builders, lazy people to all use the same excuses.

“Just two minutes.”

“There’s nowhere else to park.”

“You can still get by”

“You can just go around.”

There is no excuse. It is always illegal. It always reduces the safety of footpaths. It always hammers home the message, convenient access to my vehicle is more important than your right, as a pedestrian, to a space free from vehicles. This encroachment into the realm of the pedestrian reinforces their message — streets are for vehicles, not people. Children should not be on the street except as passengers in cars. Games should not be played. Scooting should be slow and defensive. Even running or skipping is dangerous as, at any moment, a vehicle can ramp up onto the footpath in front of you.

Don’t have a car? Well then, you’ll just have to squeeze by my truck.

Often, there is no good reason for parking on the footpath. It is a learned behaviour, uninterrogated as to its utility. Notice how traffic must still give way to go around the vehicle parked two wheels up on the footpath. The driver only succeeds in blocking the footpath as well as the road. Stay on the road. Park legally. Drive with care and consideration. Don’t call it an accident if someone is knocked down as they try to go around the vehicle.

Permitting this illegal and anti-social behaviour normalises it. Delivery drivers use footpaths with impunity, saving time and money, and giving their employers a financial advantage over law-abiding competitors. Building companies must factor legal parking into tenders and estimates. Planning permissions often dictate that illegal parking should not be a feature of the build. By parking illegally, unscrupulous builders and contractors can then either undercut rivals or increase their profit by skimming the cost of parking from the contract price.

There is no incentive for companies to minimise their vehicular footprint. If parking is free, they may as well use two vehicles instead of one, giving added flexibility and convenience. Unnecessary packaging is used because space in the delivery vehicles is not at a premium. A cycle courier cannot compete with the volume of a van if the van can park anywhere with no consequences. After all, each drop-off will only take a minute so why wouldn’t the van park on the footpath?

The practice is lazy. It is selfish. It is born of entitlement and the privilege to act illegally with no consequence. Well, there is a cost, even if it cannot be seen from behind a steering wheel.

The cost is deducted from our enjoyment of our environment. It is taken, unasked, unconsulted, at the end of a smoking exhaust. The cost is in thousands of broken conversations as two abreast are forced into single file. Thousands of children warned not to run ahead. Thousands more driven to school so as not to run the risk. Thousands of our disabled or elderly neighbours and family stay home, fed up with having to go around, step down, hurry by.

Repairs to footpaths and street furniture after repeated infractions cost money. This money could be spent elsewhere making roads safer for all. Preventative measures, bollards and railings, are a further expense and are a blight on the streetscape, hemming traffic out and people in. Children, those with disabilities and those who are unsteady on their feet all find their world a little smaller, a little more closed in.

So, get your vehicle off our footpaths. I don’t care if you are just popping into the shop. I don’t care that you are too lazy or too cheap to take the time and effort to do your job safely and legally. I don’t care for your excuses and your entitlement. The Gardaí may not issue a fine nor a judge pass sentence. But I see you.

If you’re comfortable enough to challenge these drivers, tell them off. Be polite. Because they may not be. Take photos, report them to the Gardaí, to the DSPS (1890 205 805) and e-mail the company if the van has a logo. Don’t accept it, because they have no right to our footpaths.