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Irish Cycling Campaign unveils the Strong, Mediocre and Weak Parties in Active Travel as per the #GE2024 Manifestos

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Irish Cycling Campaign unveils the Strong, Mediocre and Weak Parties in Active Travel as per the Manifestos for General Election 2024

PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – MON 25 NOV 2024

In the lead up to Friday’s election, Irish Cycling Campaign has evaluated the manifestos of the main political parties against their priorities for cycling. The Campaign is calling for increased investment in cycling, walking and public transport to accelerate the shift to sustainable transport and to help fulfill our climate responsibilities.

As shown in our analysis below, parties can be divided into three groups:

  • Those receiving good grades – Green Party, Labour, Social Democrats – were clear in their prioritisation of active & sustainable transport and had detailed targets for funding and resources to support this. 
  • In the middle were Sinn Féin and PBP who had many positive policies but lacked policy specifics.
  • Those with a weaker commitment – Fianna Fáil & Fine Gael – showed a poorer commitment to prioritise active and sustainable transport and had few specific targets.

The Campaign notes that there has been significant progress over the last five years, but the main political parties are now showing a worrying lack of commitment to continued investment. The Campaign says that much more remains to be done to connect the completed individual projects so as to create connected and safer networks countrywide.

Examples of new cycle routes in Dublin include Sandycove to Booterstown, North Strand to Clontarf, Royal Canal greenway and Dodder Greenway. Transformative projects in other regional cities, such as Waterford’s new pedestrian and cycle bridge and Limerick’s East-West links via Childers Road, show how arterial routes are delivering modal shift and transport decarbonisation. 

The Campaign notes that many more people want to make the switch to active travel modes, but are dissuaded by the lack of safe, segregated cycle routes. For example, the Dublin Metropolitan Region Walking and Cycling Index [1] shows that up to 50% of adults want to switch to cycling, if the cycling network was made safer, while currently only 11% of adults cycle daily. For school kids, between 1991 and 2016 walking and cycling to school in Dublin fell from 64% to 46%, while the percentage being driven to school more than doubled, increasing from 17% to 41%. The #1 reason for not cycling is fear of mixing with general traffic, hence the need for high quality segregated routes. 

Irish Cycling Campaign is calling on the next government to:

  • Increase Investment in Sustainable / Public Transport to the tune of
    – 20% of transport capital budget allocated for walking+cycling
    – 5:1 ratio of spend of new public transport to new roads
  • Rapidly deliver High Quality Cycling Infrastructure
  • Prioritise Safe Routes to School
  • Enhance Cyclists Safety
  • Broaden access to bikes
  • Expand Bike Parking and bike sharing schemes
  • Legislate to enable best practice cycle infrastructure designs
  • Address motor vehicle overuse and oversize.

Results, Analysis and Commentary
The results are presented here in tabular and graphic forms.

Neasa Bheilbigh, Chairperson of Irish Cycling Campaign, said “While cycling advocacy in Ireland is 40 years old, it is in the past few years where we have made real progress in re-building a cycling culture in Ireland. The government funding over the past 4.5 years has been instrumental to that progress. That funding needs to continue and grow, to develop segregated cycle ways, greenways and safe routes to school to allow this generation and the next to feel safe enough to choose to use the bike for their daily activities. We need to adapt our private car use to achieve the critical goals of an improved and safer public realm, lower emissions and more efficient movement of people around our towns, cities and rural areas“.

Research from the National Transport Authority shows that 11% of adults cycle daily in Dublin but 46% would like to cycle or cycle more if they felt safer [2]. Irish Cycling Campaign’s Damien Ó Tuama says that we know from research and from the cycle traffic on the Grand Canal,  Dun Laoghaire & Seapoint and the newly opened North Strand cycle tracks that segregated routes increases the number of cyclists and enables people of all ages and abilities to cycle.”

Only 1 in 4 adults and 1 in 10 teenagers who cycle in Dublin are female. Mairead Forsythe from the Campaign says that “the figures show a major gender gap in cycling and while the barriers to more women and girls cycling are varied, the #1 barrier is fear of mixing with motor traffic, hence the need for investment in segregated routes and traffic calming.”

From a healthcare perspective, a transport system that builds in exercise, whether that is a short walk at either end of a bus journey or a cycle to work or school, to a healthcare appointment or to a sporting event, may be the easiest way of achieving the increased physical activity that our health professionals advise.  Behavioural and “nudge” initiatives will only have a limited effect without the infrastructure alongside it. 

Therefore, Irish Cycling Campaign calls on all parties to accelerate the move to sustainable and active travel, and show international leadership in this domain. 

We look forward to continuing to work with representatives from all parties during the next government term.

Notes and References:

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