100% of parents who responded to a survey supported improving walking and cycling links to school.Fianna Fil Senator Paul Daly has questioned whose common good it is to have the Safe Routes to School project in his hometown of Kilbegganand of greenways generally. According to documents on Westmeath County Councils website, before implementing the Safe Routes to School project for Scoil an Chlochai, KilbegganNational School, it was documented how some parents were driving and parking on footpaths during the school run.The project, which complemented the design of the road outside the newly built Mercy Secondary School on the same road, included widening footpaths to make them into shared paths to serve the two schools. Bollards, trees and greening were added to discourage parents from driving up onto footpaths. Both schools have their own car pickup arrangements the secondary school within the school grounds and the national school in the church car park behind it. Google Maps Street View imagery suggests that some parents continue to try to ignore these and park on the shared path at driveways, etc. A scoument for the Safe Routes to School outlines that a survey was sent to all families of Scoil an Chlochair before the plans were drawn up. There was a 52.6% response rate to the survey with 71.4% of parents surveyed agreed that road safety is a problem around the school, 97.4% saying they would support works at the front of school that improve student safety, putting pedestrians and cyclists first.Of the respondents, 75 students (60.9%) start their journey within a 1km radius of the school, and 95 students (77.2%) within a 2km radius. But in a recent debate on greenways at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food, Senator Paul Daly questioned the good of the project even after he admitted that it slowed down traffic outside the two schools.In his comments, the Senator addressed Barry Kehoe, chief executive of Westmeath County Council and chairman of the County and City Management Associations transport infrastructure networks committee, who was appearing at the committee as a witness mainly on the issue of greenways. Senator Daly said: We can split hairs on who considers what to be the common good and whose common good is it. While it is not a greenway, Mr Kehoe would be aware of a town and village renewal active travel project in my town of Kilbeggan. The footpath up to the school was widened, and junctions were changed. It slowed down the traffic, and its aim was to have kids walk to the school.When I canvassed for both the local and general elections, at every second door, I was getting complaints about how much longer it was taking to do the school run in the town. Regarding the common good, the people were not looking for that active travel project because they were still going to the school in their cars, he claimed.Despite the survey of parents showing strong support for the project, from the majority who responded, Senator Daly said: Who decides what the common good is? These people did not have an input into that. They did not see this as the common good because they were still driving.The issue of greenways and the common good will be covered in a separate article.