The Dublin Cycling Campaign is an independent, voluntary lobby group that has been working to improve the city for all cyclists for over a decade and a half.
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You Said No! to Axing the City Cycling Officer
Thanks to all who have helped so much with this campaign! Heartening that the City Council and Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government got together and extended the Cycling Officer's contract for six months. We really hope that this gives time to find permanent funding for the Officer's salary, given the extraordinarily high ratio of benefit to cost that the promotion of cycling achieves. Though it's the principle of having the Officer job in place, as set out by the National Cycle Policy Framework, we have to say that the current Officer, Dr. Ciaran Fallon, has been a really effective and capable voice for cycling in Dublin for the last 3 years, and we do hope he'll see fit to continue in the job!
We'd three main campaign actions-
1! Be at Wood Quay on Tuesday 20th Dec at 1pm to join the protest http://www.facebook.com/events/238173339589281/
2! Sign the online petition at http://www.petitiononline.ie/petition/save-dublin-cycling-officer-post
3! Write your local TDs & Councillors - see below!
We're adamant that the City Cycling Officer position must be retained. It's been funded by the Department of the Environment, Community, and Local Government, who now want to pull the plug. We think this is a retrograde, damaging step which would cost the city and Dubliners dearly over the longer term in increased healthcare costs and motoring expenses. All those interested in promoting cycling and protecting cyclists should lobby their local TDs, councillors, and the Ministers of Transport, Environment and Health to Save the Cycling Officer!
Here's a suggested text for a letter to your local TD or City Councillor (lists below)-
Dear TD/Councillor,
We abhor the failure of Dublin City Council (DCC) to find funding to continue the contract of the Cycling Officer. We understand that the Cycling Officer's position has been funded up to now by the Department of the Environment, Communications and Local Government, but this contract ceases on January 5th.
A Cycling Officer is needed not only to represent the interests of the increasing number of Dubliners who already cycle, but to rapidly increase modal share, by-
- Co-ordinating & guiding DCC policy towards increasing cycling, e.g. by reviewing draft policy documents like the Development Plan and contributing to the Transport Strategic Policy Committee, etc.;
- As an engineer, counteracting the mindset of roads engineers who have been trained in outmoded, car-based transport principles;
- Publicly promoting cycling, as done very successfully with the recent family-oriented Sky Ride, when 10,000 Dubliners took to their bikes in the city and gave an enthusiastic response.
We in the Campaign have developed an excellent working relationship with the current Officer, but all citizens can see the tangible results. Due to bigger cycling numbers, Dublin's streets are now quieter, less congested and, most importantly, safer for ALL road users.
The background to this issue is the mystifying way transport has developed in Ireland:
- How is it that our roads have been made unsafe for kids to cycle to school, when over 300,000 of our children are overweight or obese?
- How is it that, with car ownership now costing over €10,000 per year, and a crazy 40% of short trips being made by car, we're not energetically pushing this low-cost transport mode?
- Why is our Department of the Environment apparently reducing funding, when research published last week showed that high cycling numbers could make a huge dent in Europe's greenhouse gas emissions?
- Are we really content to simply continue to sit in traffic jams? A Dublin Underground is not going to materialise any time soon. Cycling is a quick, easy, very cheap answer to congestion.
It's clear (and it's in the Government's own Cycle Policy Framework) that there should be not only a Dublin Cycling Officer, but a Cycling Tsar or team at Government level, and one in every Local Authority in the State. Departments of Health and Children, Transport, Tourism and Sport, and Environment all bear responsibility here. Yes, budgets are tight, but with a 20 to 1 return on investment in cycling (the huge health benefits to the population allow immense savings), it's crazy to penny-pinch one key professional's salary.
Indeed, we would be very interested to see DCC's cost/benefit analysis of the decision to end this contract, given that its Transportation division expenditure was €73 million for 2010, and the Dublin Bikes scheme alone brings in €400,000. Funding is not the problem here, it's ill-informed and regressive thinking.
Yours sincerely,
MEMBER
DUBLIN CYCLING CAMPAIGN
Notes/sources-
http://www.cso.ie
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/1217/1224309215494.html
http://www.2030vision.ie/
http://www.smartertravel.ie/National-Cycle-Policy-Framework
http://www.aaireland.ie/AA/Motoring-advice/Cost-of-motoring.aspx
http://www.ecf.com/press_release/5056/
http://www.irishheart.ie/iopen24/pub/building_young_hearts_final_pdf_201...
Dublin City Councillors are listed here-
http://www.dublincity.ie/YourCouncil/Councillors/YourLocalCouncillors/pa...
Maria Parodi maria.parodi@dublincity.ie
Pat McCartan cllrpatmccartan@gmail.com
Dermot Lacey dermot.lacey@dublincity.ie; dermot.lacey@labour.ie
Mary Freehill freehill@eircom.net
Mannix Flynn mannix.flynn@dublincity.ie
Kieran Binchy Kieran.Binchy@dublincity.ie
Gerry Ashe gerry.ashe@dublincity.ie
Edie Wynne wynnee@eircom.net
Oisin Quinn oisin@oisinquinn.ie
Dublin TDs listed below. Often a TD's e-mail address is like- Name.McName@oireachtas.ie
Dublin Central (4)
Pascal Donohoe (FG) Paschal.Donohoe@Oireachtas.ie
Joe Costello (Labour) joe.costello@oireachtas.ie
Mary Lou McDonald (SF) marylou@sinnfein.ie
Maureen O’Sullivan (Ind) maureen.osullivan@oireachtas.ie
Dublin West (4)
Joan Burton (Labour)
Leo Varadkar (FG)
Joe Higgins (Socialist/ULA)
Patrick Nulty (Labour/Ind)
Dublin North (4)
James Reilly (FG)
Brendan Ryan (Labour)
Clare Daly (Socialist/ULA)
Alan Farrell (FG)
Dublin North Central (3)
Richard Bruton (FG)
Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour)
Finian McGrath (Ind)
Dublin North East (3)
Terence Flanagan (FG)
Tommy Broughan (Labour)
Sean Kenny (Labour)
Dublin North West (3)
Roisin Shortall (Labour)
John Lyons (Labour)
Dessie Ellis (SF)
Dublin Mid-West (4)
Joanna Tuffy (Labour)
Frances Fitzgerald (FG)
Robert Dowds (Labour)
Derek Keating (FG)
Dublin South (5)
Shane Ross (Ind)
Alex White (Labour)
Peter Matthews (FG)
Alan Shatter (FG)
Olivia Mitchell (FG)
Dublin South Central (5)
Eric Byrne (Labour)
Aengus O Snodaigh (SF)
Catherine Byrne (FG)
Joan Collins (PBP/ULA)
Michael Conaghan (Labour)
Dublin South East (4)
Ruari Quinn (Labour)
Lucinda Creighton (FG) lucinda.creighton@taoiseach.ie
Eoghan Murphy (FG)eoghan.murphy@oir.ie
Kevin Humphreys (Labour)
Dublin South West (4)
Pat Rabbitte (Labour)
Brian Hayes (FG)
Sean Crowe (SF)
Eamonn Maloney (Labour)
Dun Laoghaire (4)
Eamon Gilmore (Labour)
Seán Barrett (FG)
Mary Mitchell O’Connor (FG)
Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP/ULA)
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