Cork Cycling Campaign (CCC) has been in existence for over 20 years, and was one of the founding member groups of Cyclist.ie back in 2008. CCC has been incredibly busy and vibrant over the recent years. With so much happening on the cycling and active travel fronts, its membership and levels of volunteering activity have grown steadily in terms of running events, making submissions and advocating effectively in the Cork region.

The fantastic work of this Cyclist.ie member group has been recognised by the publication of this article on the European Cyclists’ Federation website. This can only help to further boost its membership and give recognition to the achievements of CCC. Check it out, and if you live in the Cork area why not contact CCC at [email protected]?  

CCC is one of the 34 member groups of Cyclist.ie lobbying for increased funding and projects at central government as well as county level, and working to improve conditions for active travel countrywide. Why not become a member and support the work Cyclist.ie does? Check out the Individual Membership of Cyclist.ie and/or become a member of your own local group.

For more on Cork Cycling Campaign, visit their website here. 

Cyclist.ie is delighted to have Lime joining as our latest Business / Organisation member.

This membership type for Cyclist.ie is available for those businesses and organisations who support our aims to make the cities, towns, villages and roads of Ireland bicycle-friendly for their employees, customers and their community. 

Lime joins Dropbox and the Irish Heart Foundation (amongst others) who support the advocacy work of Cyclist.ie / Dublin Cycling Campaign as Business / Organisation members. Lime join as a “Gold” category member. 

Lime is the world’s largest shared electric vehicle company. Its mission is “to build a future where transportation is shared, affordable and carbon-free”. See here. 

More information on our Business / Organisation membership scheme at:

https://cyclist.ie/membership/join-cyclist-ie-business/
and
https://www.dublincycling.com/businessmembers

Cyclist.ie – the Irish Cycling Advocacy Network
The Tailors’ Hall
Back Lane
Dublin, D08 X2A3
www.cyclist.ie
RCN 20102029
Date – 14 Oct 2022
 

1 – Introduction

Cyclist.ie, the Irish Cycling Advocacy Network (ICAN), is the federation of cycling advocacy groups, greenway groups and bike festivals on the island of Ireland. We are the Irish member of the European Cyclists’ Federation.  Our vision is for an Ireland with a cycle friendly culture, where everyone has a real choice to cycle and is encouraged to experience the joy, convenience, health and environmental benefits of cycling. 

Cyclist.ie welcomes the opportunity to respond to the public consultation on NR2040. However, we are very disappointed in the limited options for submission of comments in this form – and with the word limit here which limits the ability to respond to the consultation. 

We welcome the broad “NIFTI approach” where the intervention hierarchy is (in this order):

Maintain > Optimise > Improve > New
And
Active Travel > Public Transport > Private Vehicles.

2 – Main Points

What the draft does not set out clearly enough is how exactly, with figures underpinning the strategy, NR2040 and investment priorities ensuing from it will align with the overarching aim of the Government’s Climate Action Plan, which sets a 51% reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and sets Ireland on a path to reach net-zero emissions by no later than 2050. The section on Decarbonisation (5.1), referencing the EPA Ireland’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Projections, 2021-2040 (June 2022), states the following:

“Emissions from the sector are estimated to reduce to 39% below 2018 levels by 2030 if additional measures in plans and policies are implemented, including significant EV share by 2030 and measures to support more sustainable transport.”

However, in the 2022 OECD report entitled Redesigning Ireland’s Transport for Net Zero: Towards Systems that Work for People and the Planet, (Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/b798a4c1-en), two of its key findings are as follows (pages 8 to 9):

“The Irish transport system fosters growing car use and emissions by design, and is thus unfit to enable the country to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals while improving well-being. Growing car use in Ireland is largely determined by car-dependent transport and urban systems, organised around increased mobility and characterised by three unsustainable dynamics: induced car demand, urban sprawl, and the sustainable modes low-attractiveness trap.”

and 

“Aiming at decarbonising the system via private vehicle improvements is unlikely to lead to substantially different patterns of behaviour, rapid emissions reductions, and large well-being improvements. Car-dependent systems make rapid electrification slow and difficult, by locking-in large and growing vehicle fleets. Even with improved (and fully-electric) vehicles, they also fail to reduce lifecycle emissions, address accessibility gaps and other negative impacts (e.g. road fatalities).”

The same report recommends the following (page 9):

• Redefine the goal of the transport system as sustainable accessibility.
• Prioritise the up-scale of policies with high potential to transform the car-dependent system.
• Redefine the electrification strategy to support the transition towards a sustainable transport system.
• Embrace a systemic approach to policy decision-making across government departments.

It is our view that the current NR2040 strategy needs to engage with and respond to these recommendations.

In short, the final / adopted version of the NR2040 strategy needs to respond fully to the newly published OECD analysis.

It also needs to set out how the implementation of the strategy will contribute, in concrete terms, to the steady decarbonisation of the Irish transport sector over the years and decades. This needs to be set out in quantitative terms.

OUR SUB IS CONTINUED ON ANOTHER FORM – VERY FRUSTRATING FORM WITH ITS WORD LIMITS.

—————–

THIS IS PART 2 OF THE CYCLIST.IE SUBMISSION. VERY FRUSTRATING FORM WITH ITS WORD LIMITS.

3 – Conclusion

NR2040 needs to articulate much more clearly how the strategy objectives and investments will lead to a reduction in carbon emissions – and not simply rely to a very large extent on assumptions that the electrification of the car fleet will solve most of the problems in this domain.

Please acknowledge receipt of this submission. Thank you.
[email protected]

Healthcare and cycling groups call for more focus from hospitals on active travel.

The Sustainability Committee of the College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland, Cyclist.ie and Irish Doctors for the Environment have come together to recognise the best Irish public hospital for their commitment to active travel.

A complex transport network is needed to move goods, staff and patients in healthcare. There is a significant carbon footprint associated with this. Personal travel accounts for approximately 10% of the carbon footprint in some healthcare settings (1).  By encouraging active transport, we are not only reducing emissions but also improving the cardiorespiratory health of the communities in which we work.

Air pollution contributes to 1500 premature deaths in Ireland every year and road traffic is a major contributor to these pollutants (3,4). Considering the HSE employs approximately 100,000 people (2), enabling staff to cycle, walk or use public transport to reach these facilities could potentially remove thousands of cars from the roads.

The inaugural winner of the award is St James’s Hospital in Dublin for their excellent commitment to active travel promotion at their Dublin campus.

Barry McKenna, Sustainability Manager at St James’s Hospital says “As a leading healthcare institution we recognise the importance and benefits of active travel.  To support our cyclists and encourage others to take up cycling we’ve trebled bike parking in the hospital, provided showers, locker and drying room facilities, offered a free monthly “Cycleclinic” and bike maintenance workshops, promoted the Bike to Work Scheme, provided a fleet of ebikes for staff, and hosted an annual charity cycle. We aspire to be a leading cycle friendly campus by continuing to actively promote and facilitate cycling as a means of commuting.”     

Mary Sinnott of Cyclist.ie adds “In the hospital environment, those who participate in active travel are best equipped to encourage active lives which can significantly improve physical and mental health. Recognizing staff at St James’s hospital with the Active Transport award shows how hospitals can promote healthy lifestyles amongst their workers and visitors.”

Dr Sophia Angelov of the College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland, who carried out the initial hospital transport study, says “Hospitals should be the centre of sustainability – starting by encouraging and facilitating staff to travel to work actively. What we aim to award is a clear commitment by a hospital to improve active transport facilities at, within, and enroute to the site (by lobbying road authorities). We initially collected quantitative data to inform us how well networked our hospitals are. Then we sought to see how hospitals encourage staff to utilise healthier forms of travel (bicycle user groups, cycling skills training etc). Future work on this topic aims to expand the research and collect data on the facilities available for patients, visitors, and students to reach hospitals in a healthy way.”

Dr Colm Byrne from Irish Doctors for the Environment says “The climate crisis is a health crisis and health care workers need to show leadership in tackling it. Active travel or taking public transport is an important step in climate action. And there are added benefits; walking and cycling are great for our health, with some studies demonstrating a 40% reduction in mortality amongst cycling commuters. Therefore, we are delighted to announce this award which aims to highlight excellence in sustainable transport at Irish Hospitals.”

Prof Donal O’Shea, consultant endocrinologist specialising in obesity and honorary president of Cyclist.ie says “It is great to see Irish hospitals showing leadership in promoting active transport. We know it is the activity that you build into your day to day living that is the most important for your overall health. The health sector needs to be blazing the trail in demonstrating that healthy modes of transport are achievable, enjoyable and sustainable.” 

References:

1. https://www.fph.org.uk/media/3126/k9-fph-sig-nhs-carbon-footprint-final.pdf
2. https://www.hse.ie/eng/about/who/
3. https://www.eea.europa.eu//publications/air-quality-in-europe-2021
4. https://www.epa.ie/publications/monitoring–assessment/air/EPA-Air_Quality_in-Ireland-Report_2021_-flat.pdf