Cyclist.ie made a submission today, 19 Feb 2021, to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DEPR) in regard to the “Review to Renew” consultation – that is, the process for the public to comment on the renewal of our National Development Plan.
In our short submission, we stressed the need for sustainable transport and active travel to become the central, and indeed dominant, parts of transport investment for the state over the coming years.
Introduction Members of the Cyclist.ie network have started to compile a list of locations on National roads where there are inadequate conditions for people wishing to choose active travel. We highlight, in particular, locations in towns and villages in the vicinity of schools.
A copy of the Cyclist.ie letters dated 18 February 2020 to Transport Infrastructure Ireland and to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications Networks can be found here (TII) and here (JOCTCN).
List of N-Roads and Locations
Clonakilty: The N71 ring road that circumnavigates the town centre is also the main artery that links residential estates (new and existing) to the town centre and schools. It has no provision for cycling.
Sligo: The N4 through the centre of Sligo is a multi-lane dual carriageway which is hostile to pedestrians and cyclists and is not conducive to facilitating safe routes to schools.
Travelling to Summerhill College from Maugheraboy requires a child to negotiate this junction, turning right. Children from the Maugheraboy area going to St.John’s National School would also have to negotiate this junction, going straight on.
There is protected cycle infrastructure to Summerhill College but it only begins on the dual carriageway and access from the North and West is unsafe.
Sligo: The N4 between Sligo and Grange or Cliffoney is an entirely feasible commute by e-bike but is unsafe because sections have no hard shoulder, and certainly no separate cycling infrastructure
Kilkenny: The N76, N10 and N77 form a ring road around Kilkenny with no cyclist provision at roundabouts, creating major severance between high employment, education and residential centres. The N10 and N77 have no cycle infrastructure extending outside the ring road, cutting off many commuter towns, villages and recreational spaces from the city. The N78, serving Castlecomer, one of the large population catchments in North Kilkenny has no cycle infrastructure. Similarly, Callan served by the N76 has no cycle infrastructure on the approach roads to the town.
Wexford: Road markings on the N25 roundabout with the R733 recently had a left turn only applied. This negativity impacts bicycle rider safety for those continuing straight along the N25 towards Rosslare who now need to merge to the outside lane with 100km/hr traffic. This is a very popular cyclist route. A safe alternative needs to be provided.
Navan: The “Andy Brennan” roundabout on the N51 beside Navan Retail Park has been flagged to local councillors as a problem, due to the lack of pedestrian crossings. The segregated cycle lane on the southbound approach to the roundabout ends prior to the roundabout, leaving cyclists with no protection or guidance. The roundabout is situated in the vicinity of a school, hospital, retail park, and within a 50 km/h built up area.
Wexford: Allowing toucan crossings on N roads. We have some cycling infrastructure that comes to a dead end at the N25. Allowing a toucan crossings with associated speed limits would allow the opportunity to safely cross. (e.g. Barntown cycle track that comes to a dead end where the N25 intersects)
Wexford: Repurposed N roads that are earmarked for “Greyways”. Greyways need to be clearly defined and standardised to an agreed acceptable safety standard. The term ‘Greyway’ currently does not exist in the cycling lexicon. See the Cyclist.ie article on these here – https://cyclist.ie/2020/10/greyways-under-microscope/
General: ALL new N roads MUST have cycling infrastructure. Current example: Wexford – The Rose Fitzgerald Bridge, part of the extended N25, opened this time last year. Not a hint of cycling infrastructure on any of the roads leading to and from the bridge or on the bridge itself. It’s a 100km/hr road with a very thin hard shoulder and this makes the route hostile for bicycle riders.
General: Hard shoulders on N roads, which are often used by people on bikes**, sometimes pinch in where there are right turns. This creates dangerous situations for bicycle riders. All new N roads should include at least a 2 metre consistent width of hard shoulder in the absence of dedicated cycling infrastructure. Existing ones should be retrofitted.
** Note that, according to the RSA’s Rules of the Road, the hard shoulder is “normally only for pedestrians and cyclists” (page 73).
Carlow: N80 Ring Road of Carlow Town, unprotected cycle lane beside a 80 kph road alongside HGV traffic (below). This is a main bridge crossing point for Carlow Town.
N80 approaching Carlow Town from Tinryisland. This is a route that brings traffic from the M9 motorway to Carlow Town. As you can see from the Google Map image below, this child cyclist has no segregation to distance him from the large volumes of traffic to his right. The speed limit on this road is 100kph.
N80 – O’Brien Road Carlow A mixed-use cycle path, that is often used by people with visual impairments with assist animals. This is not safe for pedestrians or cyclists, and dangerous conflicts arise. This road is often used by joggers and walkers and this is a prime example of where these pedestrians deserve priority through raised footpaths and segregation from cyclists to prevent conflicts.
Ballon: This town has the N80 run through it.
Ample road width as indicated by the islands and filter lanes. However you can see that the conditions for cycling and walking to Ballon National School are unsafe. These children deserve to be able to cycle to school segregated from all traffic, but especially HGV traffic.
This spacing continues throughout the town. The space for segregation is there.
Skibbereen: N71 by-passing the town.
There are several issues:
No cycling provision
Before the town (East) traffic calming makes no provision for cyclists, forcing them into the flow of fast moving traffic.
There are two roundabouts at either end of the by-pass with no cycling provision
No pedestrian / cyclist crossing at the junction of Mill Road on the by-pass
The N71 west of Skibbereen has sections of the EuroVelo Route#1 yet no cycling provision.
There is no cycling provision on the N71 by-pass for Skibbereen. This N71 by-pass is regularly cycled and walked. The Skibbereen Cycle Bus travels along the by-pass and cycles on the footpath for a section. There is a grass verge wide enough for a cycle lane, however for the bridge halfway along the road is narrower and footpaths are narrower. A cycle lane could go on the road here if traffic was slowed.
On the by-pass there is a junction to Mill Road. On Mill Road is the community hospital, estates and the Showgrounds in which Cycle Sense is based. The Showgrounds is also in the spot where the circus and fairground are held, and it hosts the rugby pitch. People use Mill Road as a walking route and cross the N71 (bypass). There is a crossing point with dipped pavements directing the pedestrian over 3 lanes of traffic with no central waiting point. Cyclists also cross here to access the playground and schools beyond via a cul de sac road. There is a need for a crossing at this location.
Connemara – Mayo – Sligo: N59 from Galway City through Connemara north into Mayo and on to Sligo. This is a very busy, narrow, curvy road through a beautiful area of the country, connecting a number of scenic towns, villages, beaches, coastline, bogs, loughs, national parks, etc., that has great potential for bicycle commuting and recreational cycling between towns and bicycle tourism. Safer and more calm bicycle routes will be a benefit to all parties.
Laois: N80 approaching Carlow Town from Stradbally and Arles. Arles is 7km from Carlow Town, which is certainly within cycling distance. After negotiating a road with no cycling infrastructure, this junction with HGV traffic is what cyclists have to negotiate. This requires segregation.
N80 Ring Road of Carlow Town, but in Graiguecullen. An incredibly wide road with residential estates off it as you can see in the picture (below). The people in this estate of Heatherhill are unable to cycle safely beside the large amounts of traffic, cars and HGVs on this road. The width of this road permits segregation, but a right filter lane for cars was chosen instead. There’s a roundabout which permits turnaround in approximately 500m.
Laois: Sleaty Rd Roundabout on N80 outside Carlow Town
This is a single lane roundabout on the N80 with ample space around it. Given this roundabout is already one lane, consideration should be given to providing cycling access to Knockbeg College, a boys secondary school as signposted.
Laois: N77 approaching Port Laoise. A bi-directional cycle path that due to a lack of maintenance is now a single directional path. The constant rising and falling of the surface here not only is highly unpleasant to ride on, but also comprises safety as segregation is non existent.
N77 Abbeyleix
No provision for cycling infrastructure in this town, and it is as a result dominated by cars. This town has been bypassed meaning that this town should be given back to its citizens.
In this article, Wendy Bond from Bike Friendly Bandon fills us in on how the new group came into being in 2020 and gives us a flavour of some of their aims and activities.
Bike Friendly Bandon started really during the first lockdown, and the idea came from Lucy Finnegan, who cajoled others to get involved along the way. Lucy had seen that her teenage daughters and their friends had felt more confident cycling around during lockdown as there was so little traffic on the roads. Indeed a lot more people on bikes could be seen around the area during the lockdown and many of us cycled more during that time. We saw this change though, once things went back to some kind of “normal” again and felt compelled to try and do something about it. We wanted to try and hold onto the change we saw during lockdown. It reminded us of when we were younger, that it was so much safer to cycle all over the place. We want to ensure our children have great memories doing that safely.
Bandon town centre and the roads around it are dominated by cars and heavy good vehicles (HGVs), like so many other towns around Ireland. Unless you are a confident cyclist (and even if you are confident enough), it can feel very unsafe and intimidating cycling around, and there is absolutely no infrastructure to support cycling in the town. Whilst there is a cycling club in Bandon, this tends to be people who are more competitive serious cyclists, going on longer cycle rides. We really want to encourage the increase of day-to-day cycling, so that every child, woman and man of any age can feel safe to cycle around the town. It may have started due to children and teenagers taking advantage of reduced traffic, but now we see potential to work with other groups with similar aims. There are plenty of funding opportunities and we found that we were pushing an open door. There are courses to reach out to lapsed cyclists who want to feel confident to cycle again; to run bike repair workshops to give us mastery over our own bikes; or simply provide bike racks so that people can cycle to the shops rather than jumping in the car.
We all know that making the town more cycle friendly and reducing the cars/HGVs that currently dominate the roads could have a massive impact on the quality of life in the area. It’s not just about cycling, it will have a positive impact in terms of our physical health, improving the environment around us and reducing pollution. Everyone we speak to loves the idea of making it safer to cycle around the town, so it’s just doing something about it really. In some European countries the attitude to cycling is so positive and it is considered to be so much part of day-to-day life. It is much safer in these countries because the number of active cyclists is so much more significant. Also, when most people own a bike as well as a car and cycle as well drive, it changes the relationship between cyclist and drivers and brings more respect between them.
So what have we done so far……well every Sunday, we have a spin at 11am on one of the quiet roads just on the edge of Bandon. This is aimed at families and people who don’t feel as confident cycling on the road and it has been a great success, although recently it is on hold due to lockdown restrictions.
As part of Cork Bike Week in September, with funding from Cork Sports Partnership, we arranged various activities around the town. This included safe cycling, fun bike activities for younger children, bike repair workshops, electric bike conversions, and we even had a trishaw at the farmers market, which took people on spins around the town. It was such good fun and well attended, the idea being that there was something for all ages to show how accessible cycling can be. We were really taken with how supportive the cycling community is. It really was a platform to raise the profile of Bike Friendly Bandon around the town and increase the interest in cycling. Whilst things have slowed down due to recent lockdown restrictions, we have run an online bike repair course through Cork Community Bikes and hope to start our own repair workshop in the town. We have received support from Cork County Council Community enhancement and Cork Environmental office, they have been a hundred percent behind us.
Looking into the future, our aim is to do more consultation with people in the area and work with Age Friendly Bandon to promote Cycling With Confidence. In light of the new government’s push to increase cycling and walking in the country, we are also working with Cork County Council and Bandon Walking Club to develop a Bothar Rothar between Bandon and Innishannon, and hopefully a route to the beach from Bandon where cyclists are prioritised on the road. We feel like this is just the beginning and there is so much we can do. We are also working with West Cork Development Strategy to create maps of cyclist priority routes between Bandon and Innishannon.
It’s great to know there are so many groups like ours around the country and we are lucky that here in West Cork, we have groups nearby in Skibbereen and in Clonakilty all with similar hopes about promoting cycling and improving safety in the area. We look forward to working with Cyclist.ie and hope that their knowledge and expertise will support us in realising these hopes.
In this article, Clara Clark from Cycling Without Age offers some suggestions on how we can kiss the (kissing) gates goodbye.
During the many Covid-19 lockdowns, I took to cycling through my local neighbourhoods, parks and housing estates. I noticed the many kissing gates and other metal barriers at access points.Some are navigable with a standard bicycle, but are impassable for non-standard bicycles, cargo bikes, bikes with child seats or trailers, wheelchairs, double buggies and Cycling Without Age (CWA) trishaws. I took photos of the barriers, and sent a file of 30 photos to my local Council, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown (DLR) County Council.
As a Dublin Cycling Campaign representative on the DLR Council Cycle Forum, I asked for ‘kissing gates’ to be put on the agenda. At that meeting, I offered to cycle with anyone on the committee who wished, to show them the barriers. This offer was taken up by Ruairi O Dulaing, head of Parks, and Councillor Carrie Smith, chair of the Forum. To emphasise my point, I took my CWA trishaw, and two volunteers came, one with a trailer bike and one with a child seat. Two hours and three parks (Clonkeen, Kilbogget and Loughlinstown) later, our point was made! This cycle also gave us time to chat and to build up rapport and relationships.
The next step was up to the Council who, in fairness, responded in a very practical way and now many of these barriers and gates are being removed – see the before / after photos below. DLR Council is currently implementing a Safe Walking and Cycling Routes plan, and these include routes through parks and quiet estates away from main roads. So, that’s another reason for removing the barriers.
My policy has been to demonstrate with examples and to ask, politely but clearly, for their removal. Praise and thanks are much easier to receive than abuse or aggression, and Councillors and Council staff have a lot to do. Winning their respect and support is essential to gaining a listening ear. I know that not every local authority has a cycling or a sustainable transport officer, but start with your local councillors, get the name of your Head of Parks and introduce yourselves. Take photos, identify the locations and explain what you need (e.g. kissing gates replaced by one bollard, with a minimum of 1.2m gap either side, dished footpath at point of entry etc.). Offer to take anyone willing out to show them what you mean. And then, praise and acknowledge any progress as it comes!
One question to ask is: what is the purpose of kissing gates? If it is to prevent anti-social behaviour, then how can this behaviour be managed better? The barriers themselves are anti-social. Parks are for people of all ages and abilities. To block the disabled, less-abled, and parents with children is to discriminate and disempower. Parks should be places to visit, walk/cycle through, sit and eat, play and enjoy. Give people ‘ownership’ of their parks by making them welcoming, provide litter bins, bicycle parking, seating, dog paddocks, and easy access.
Covid-19 has filled our parks daily with people of all ages who want/need to exercise and actively travel. Councils can come on board to meet these needs by #kissingthegatesgoodbye!
Cyclist.ie has had an intensely busy and fruitful period of campaigning over the last two years. In the text below, we list many of our highlights and main achievements in 2019 and 2020. It is broadly divided into Campaigns, Submissions, Presentations, International Advocacy Work and Organisational Developments.
It is certainly not exhaustive, but will give a good sense of our core campaigning work. In summary though, our advocacy work has had a significant impact on national policy, on funding for cycling, and in supporting cycle campaigning at a local level which, in turn, is helping to shape the approaches of Local Authorities and communities in nurturing cycling. We look forward to an even more fruitful year in 2021!
2019 Highlights / Main Achievements
Major Campaigns
#allocate4cycling campaign organised with the aim of prioritising investment in cycling. As part of this, many PQs (Parliamentary Questions) posed to TDs so as to help disentangle figures around the actual annual spend on cycling
Supporting the #ibikeivote social media campaign to encourage those registered to vote in the local and European elections to get on their bikes and vote – and opt for candidates serious about active travel.
Supporting the campaign (led by Cyclist.ie member group Stayin’ Alive at 1.5) to have a new regulation introduced on the dangerous overtaking of cyclists (finally announced on 11th November 2019 by Shane Ross, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport). https://cyclist.ie/2019/11/dangerous-overtaking-of-cyclists-legislation/
40 submissions drafted and delivered to government departments, agencies and local authorities on a wide variety of topics – for example:
Dr. Damien Ó Tuama from Cyclist.ie presenting to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism & Sport in November 2019
Officials from the Road Safety Authority, An Garda Síochána, the National Transport Authority, and three separate sections of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport (Sustainable Transport, Road Safety and Tourism)
International
Engaging through the European Cyclists’ Federation on EU level processes related to mobility and road safety. https://ecf.com/
Fundraising successes for the National Cycling Coordinator position
Building stronger alliances with An Taisce and Cycling Ireland, and advancing campaigns collectively through our membership of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition
Hosting of two Council meetings for our members and eight Executive Committee meetings in 2019
2020 Highlights / Main Achievements (as of 01 Dec 2020)
To get cycling prioritised in the Programme for Government which we succeeded with, crucially in regard to funding. The PfG now includes the following text:
“The Government will commit to an allocation of 10% of the total transport capital budget for cycling projects and an allocation of 10% of the total capital budget for pedestrian infrastructure. The Government’s commitment to cycling and pedestrian projects will be set at 20% of the 2020 capital budget (€360 million) per year for the lifetime of the Government.” (page 13 of https://drive.google.com/file/d/12TNmlz1a4B56dI31zyixzRT493Cv7sgl/view)
Campaigners from Skibbereen in West Cork including the crew from Cycle Sense, a member group of Cyclist.ie
On the development of a Vision for Cycling in Rural Ireland https://cyclist.ie/2020/11/a-vision-for-cycling-in-rural-ireland/, which was officially launched by Malcolm Noonan, Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, on 23 Sept 2020.
Bus Connects Projects in Dublin & Galway. Linking in both groups to engage with Designers. 16 routes in Dublin and two in Galway.
Limerick Shannon Metropolitan Area Transport Strategy
Building stronger alliances with An Taisce and Cycling Ireland, and advancing campaigns collectively through our membership of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition
Development of a new 5 year strategy for Cyclist.ie supported by professional input and facilitation by Sandra Velthuis from Whitebarn Consulting. Strategy to be adopted on 12 Dec 2020.
Hosting of two Council meetings for our members (plus an additional two special Council meetings regarding our new strategic plan) and eight Executive Committee meetings in 2020.
(This post previously appeared on the Maynooth Cycling Campaign website)
Kildare County Council recently carried out Covid-19 works in Kildare Town. Part of the works included the reallocation of space in the town square from car parking to tables and benches for people to sit and relax. The change in the environment from a place dominated by cars to a place for people to linger is striking and has deservedly been warmly welcomed.
However, the same cannot be said of the second works in the town on Cleamore Road (Academy Street). Cleamore Road is approximately 250m long and contains a school, community building, shops, factory unit and private houses. Its cross section varies from 7.5m at the lower section, 8-9m in the middle section and increases to 15m at the upper end. Traffic has been restricted to one direction and footpaths have been widened to give more room for social distancing. The photographs below show the result of the works.
Cyclists from the north west of the town have to take a circuitous diversionary route via Grey Abbey Road to access the school as no contraflow cycle track has been provided. Rather than providing a School Street or School Zone to enable children to safely cycle to school, the work is more likely to encourage cycling on the footpath than to encourage more cyclists.
The works have been heavily criticised by cycle campaigners for its failure to properly provide for cycling. Covid funding was intended to provide for increased walking and cycling, not walking OR cycling. Over 1000 children attend the adjacent St Brigid’s School but according to the 2016 Census, only 7 children cycled to primary school. As can be seen from the photograph, cyclists are expected to share the road with cars. Few parents allow young children to share the roads with cars anywhere, so why does the Council expect them to do so in Kildare Town?
Kildare County Council made a short video of the works which can be seen here. A council engineer describes how the works allowed the footpath on one side to be widened a minimum of 3m and on the other side to nearly as much. While this is true of the lower section, it is patently untrue in relation to the middle section. As can be seen from the photograph, there is room for parking on both sides of the road and a footpath on just one side ( and also hatching for vehicles) but there is no room for a dedicated cycle path. To crown matters, parking on the west side is perpendicular to the road – just what is needed for reversing cars to deter any cyclists with doubts about cycling safety. Further along the road, there are road markings which indicate “Private Parking” in front of the factory unit so the Council acquiesces in the decision to allocate public space to parking for a private company. The Design Manual for Urban Roads and Streets sets out a road user hierarchy with pedestrians at the top, followed by cyclists and with drivers of private cars at the bottom. The design for Cleamore Road ignores this but councils get away with such decisions as they are judge and jury on the matter.
In Ireland, cycling has flatlined nationally for the last twenty years. Unless Kildare County Council starts to provide high quality cycle infrastructure, it won’t change in Kildare for the next twenty. In the July Stimulus, Kildare only received half the allocation of similar commuting counties such as Meath and Wicklow. If the council continues to ignore the needs of cyclists with designs such as Cleamore Street and even worse recent examples in other Municipal Districts, Kildare will be lucky to get half in the future.
Putting Greyways under the microscope – a view from Wexford
We have posted previously on this website on the Government’s 2020 Stimulus Package for Active Travel. There are lots of good projects and proposals in there, but some worrying expenditure proposals, particularly on the conversion of hard shoulders on old N routes to cycle routes that are referred to as greyways. The term suggests some sort of formal category of cycle facility; however, these routes unfortunately tend to be little more than white lines painted inside the hard shoulder and are then called cycle tracks! They are a poor use of taxpayers’ money, when funds could be directed to more standard designs which would be safer for all ages and abilities, and encourage non-cyclists to get on their bikes.
Wexford is one of the counties that received funding to build greyways. Phil Skelton, of our local Wexford Cycling Advocacy network group WexBug, has posted a blog on the proposed introduction of a new greyway in Wexford, in which he outlines the mistakes of the past, and queries the wisdom of its expenditure under this Stimulus Funding Package. Check out Phil’s blog here. He makes cogent arguments about the need for proper considered design and for a comprehensive safety audit.
A must read for anyone working on rural cycling!
Greyway near Clogh Village, Wexford
Greyway on R445 (Old N7) between Nenagh and Birdhill
Cyclist.ie is delighted to have been invited to speak at the ‘TEDxRethinkIreland presents Countdown’ event this Monday 12th October at 2.30pm.
Countdown is a global initiative to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis, turning ideas into action. It is a year-long focus on climate change led by TED and a coalition of leaders, activists, scientists, and businesses around the world, leading to COP 26 in October 2021. The goal is to build a better future by cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 in the race to a zero-carbon world – a world that is safer, cleaner, and fairer for everyone.
Cyclist.ie will be represented at the TEDx event by Dr. Damien Ó Tuama, National Cycling Coordinator with Cyclist.ie and An Taisce. In his talk, Damien will set out Cyclist.ie’s vision for a low carbon mobility system in which active travel is a core component.
Deirdre Mortell, CEO and Founder of Rethink Ireland Deirdre has been the CEO of ONE Foundation and held senior roles in fundraising & communications in Oxfam and Barnardos.
ECO–UNESCO Ireland’s Environmental Education & Youth Organisation that works to conserve the environment and empower young people.
Burrenbeo Trust a charity dedicated to reconnecting us with our landscape and our role in caring for it.
Green Sod Ireland a land and biodiversity trust with gifted Wild Acres in its care – creating safe habitats, facilitating the free movement of wildlife vital for biodiversity all over Ireland.
It is almost eight months since General Election 2020 (Saturday 8th February – although it feels like several years ago) and since Cyclist.ie published its “#GE2020 10 Asks to Make Cycling Better & Safer for All” as shown in the graphic below.
And it is coming up to four months since the final Programme for Government was published (mid-June 2020).
Last week Cyclist.ie delivered its Pre-budget 2021 Submission to the Minister for Finance, so over the coming fortnight we will be monitoring very carefully how our “10 Asks to Make Cycling Better & Safer for All” will have shaped Budget 2021 (taking place on Tue 13th October).
As we learn to live with Covid-19 and begin to recast our visions for transport, housing and energy in response to the urgent need to decarbonise our lives, there is no better time to transform our mobility systems and to invest in high quality cycling infrastructure countrywide. Keep in touch with us over the coming weeks as – we hope – a new picture for the future of transport in Ireland begins to emerge.
Cyclist.ie is delighted to announce that we are one of the successful applicants in the first phase of Rethink Ireland’s Innovate Together Fund. This follows the formal announcement by Rethink Ireland last week – particularly exciting news to receive during National Bike Week, probably our busiest week of the year!
A total of 51 projects are being funded in the first phase of Rethink Ireland’s Innovate Together Fund, following applications for grants by 481 projects. The fund is all about supporting innovative responses to the pandemic, and Cyclist.ie sees cycling and active travel as very much part of an appropriate societal response to the situation in which we find ourselves. The Innovate Together Fund is supported by the Department of Rural and Community Development via the Dormant Accounts Fund.
The focus on cycling through the Change Our Streets campaign aligns with a Europe-wide trend of reallocating road space to pedestrians and cyclists, reducing speed limits, and introducing other interventions such as ‘filtered permeability’ schemes – all with the aim of changing the conditions to enable more people to choose to cycle. This trend has been reported widely in the international press – see for example the Guardian’s articles (from May 2020) on How coronavirus will transform transport in Britain’s cities and Covid-19 prompts world’s cities to free public space of cars – and in the domestic media such as the Irish Times’ editorial of 27 July 2020 which argued that the “pandemic has strengthened the case for getting more commuters cycling and walking” – see the Irish Times view on cycling infrastructure: a tipping point. As recently as today, the 2nd of October 2020, the BBC reported on ‘Coronavirus: How pandemic sparked European cycling revolution’. All of these developments are now being systematically tracked by the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF), of which Cyclist.ie is the member for Ireland, with its Covid Measures Tracker.
The project builds on some fine campaigning work in which Galway Cycling Campaign, the Irish Pedestrian Network and Cyclist.ie focused on speeding and the need for safe, usable space across the country, for people to shop, exercise and commute by active travel means during the crisis. This initiative was supported by The Irish Heart Foundation, the Irish Cancer Society and the Association for Health Promotion Ireland – see the Irish Heart Foundation joins call for safer streets. The project also builds on the work of Better Ennis with, for example, their open letter to the local Council requesting healthier streets during the pandemic. Huge credit is due to campaigners across the country advancing this advocacy work as it has raised the profile of the issues and of the need for Local Authorities (LAs) to engage more fully on public health matters.
The essence of this Rethink Ireland funded project is around strengthening the capacity of Cyclist.ie as an effective non-governmental organisation (NGO) to create further change. This means:
– Building up our knowledge base at local, national and international levels on what is happening to enable cycling during the pandemic (e.g. by drawing on the ECF Covid Tracker tool referred to above)
– Engaging constructively with LAs countrywide (e.g. through the Transportation or Infrastructure Strategic Policy Committees (SPCs) on which some local Cyclist.ie member groups are represented – and through further direct contacts with officials)
– Building wider support and alliances for Cyclist.ie’s advocacy work – with businesses, health bodies and other NGOs. On this, Cyclist.ie draws great inspiration from Dropbox’s support for cycling advocacy through its endorsement of the work of Dublin Cycling Campaign (a member group of Cyclist.ie) – see Campaigning Moves up a Gear with the Support of Dropbox
In short, the project is all about building on what Cyclist.ie has been working on since its foundation in 2008, but with the heightened urgency that Covid has prompted. As set out in our funding application in May, the success with Rethink Ireland’s Innovate Together Fund enables Cyclist.ie’s National Cycling Coordinator, Dr. Damien Ó Tuama, to transition from a part-time role towards a full-time position in cycling advocacy. This, in turn, will help to nurture the further growth of effective cycle campaigning countrywide – see the map showing the growing array of cycling advocacy bodies all around Ireland (currently being updated to include new members). Ultimately, this project will support the emergence of strong cycling cultures at local community levels nationwide during and beyond the pandemic.
Once again, Cyclist.ie wishes to sincerely thank Rethink Ireland and the funders of the Innovate Together Fund. We also wish to acknowledge the Cyclist.ie Executive Committee for their input on the funding proposal back in May 2020. We see this funding success as a further stepping stone in strengthening cycling advocacy in Ireland.
Finally, we wish to note here that Cyclist.ie continues to appreciate its strategic partnerships with An Taisce and with Cycling Ireland. These partnerships help to cement cycling advocacy within broader movements around creating a more sustainable system and a healthier population in Ireland.
