cyclist.ie Highlights & Achievements – 2019 & 2020

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
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
Lunch with the partners on the Erasmus+ project in Corella – with Justin and Allison from the Clonakilty Bicycle Festival and Cyclist.ie at the front!
Alan Curran from the Galway Cycle Bus presenting at the 2019 Velo-city Cycle Planning Conference in Dublin
  • Organisational Achievements / work
    • Growth of the Cyclist.ie network to encompass 20 member groups
    • 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)

Campaigners from Skibbereen in West Cork including the crew from Cycle Sense, a member group of Cyclist.ie
  • 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.