On March 6th a number of us plus Stephen McManus of IBIKEDublin, Irish Cycle’s Cian Ginty and a Cycling Ireland crew went to the Sport Ireland workshop on how to #GetIrelandCycling facilitated by Dr. Damien O’Tuama (consultant to Sport Ireland) and Sandra Velthuis.
Keynote speaker was Damien’s collaborator Angela van der Kloof, of Mobycon who said unless you have a coherent network of segregated cycle tracks/path criss-crossing urban areas you will not get more people cycling. She said “Children are precious and must be protected from fast traffic”. It was good to see senior officials from Healthy Ireland and Departments of Health and Transport there too along with Road Authorities and Local Sports Partnerships folks. Super. Con O’Donohue of AGS National Roads Policing and two colleagues were also there.
We got a chance to speak and harped about the urgency of government appointing a National Cycling Coordinator in Department of Transport along with a team and a promotional budget.
We need to keep repeating this as a mantra in public as often as we can. It’s a key recommendation of the NCPF.
We were asked to post an estimate of the percentage of commuters who would be using a bike by 2025. I posted 6% nationally; the NCPF called for 10% by 2020!
Did you get a chance to discuss the tone of recent AGS social media posts? Some work needs to be done by AGS to rebuild confidence with cyclists.
I certainly agree with the need to have a network of infrastructure. This does not need to cost the earth, although this type of investment has a short payback, if you can match international experience. Given the success of bike infrastructure in Ireland (Greenways / Bike schemes) I would expect Ireland to excel in this regard. We need politicians with a bit more ambition.
That said, its good to hear of constructive lines of communication being open. Were there any actions following the discussion?