Galway Cycling Campaign Safer Cycling for Galway

Cycling targets of 10% by 2020 set by Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey TD

The Galway Cycling Campaign has welcomed recent announcements on cycling by Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey TD. In a speech last week prior to a public lecture on the needs of urban cyclists, Minister Dempsey announced that the Government is "finally getting serious about cycling". In his speech, the Minister announced that he has set a target of 10% of trips being by bike by 2020. The measures proposed by the Minister include:

Training every schoolchild in the country in safe cycling
Providing safe cycle routes to schools, colleges and workplaces
Re-prioritising existing roadspace in favour of cyclists and walkers and designing new roadspace with cyclists' needs in mind
Rebalancing road traffic law to improve the lot of the cyclist vis-à-vis the motorist
Ensuring that traffic engineers are skilled in providing properly for cyclists on the roads that they have every much a right to use as motorists
Providing decent infrastructure for cyclists including secure parking and, where appropriate, proper and well maintained cycle lanes,

The Minister also referred directly to "shabby examples" of cycle lanes that have been a repeated complaint of cycling activists in Galway and elsewhere.

Galway Cycling Campaign PRO Simon Comer stated that the group is "very hopeful that this initiative will signal real change for cycling in Galway and nationwide".

Mr. Comer pointed out that according to the National Census, Galway is already on its way to matching the Minister's target.

Between 2002 and 2006 the number of Galway workers commuting by bike increased by 51%, albeit from a low base of 919 to 1393.

Cycling now accounts for 4.4% of commuter journeys compared to 6.5% who use bus-based public transport. In the same period cycling by Galway Third Level students increased by 38%, up from 411 to 569. Just under 10% of student journeys are by bike, with similar numbers travelling by bus.

Galway is also the only Irish city where more secondary schoolgirls cycled to school than drove cars.

"These increases in the number of cyclists in Galway have been achieved with little or no Government support," said Mr Comer. "If the Department of Transport is genuinely serious about promoting cycling as a significant part of the solution to our traffic congestion and environmental problems, we would hope not only to meet but to exceed the Minister's targets by 2020. However, to do that we need Galway City Council to get serious also."

"We will continue to campaign for much-needed improvements in Galway's cycling environment, and we expect that Minister Dempsey will be pushing an open door in terms of getting buy-in from the commuters of Galway".