Journalism and Cycling 2: the difficult second album

Almost takes an English publication to have something positive to say…

The bicycle played a rich role in Ireland’s past. Now it is key to our future | Cian Ginty

Edit: link won’t embed for me, but I see Zell12 has managed it below!

Despite what the CSO shows (which is qualitative, i.e. self-reported), quantitative data shows we need to work much harder than we have been on promoting cycling.

It's also blatantly false to claim that the government pumped €360m per year between 2020 and 2025 into active travel.

2020-2023 actual spending + 2024 allocated funding totalled €1billion as per the NTA themselves: https://www.nationaltransport.ie/publications/active-travel-investment-grants-2024-allocations/

If you look at actual spending vs allocated spending for every year, you'll see a significant underspend compared to the headline claims. The same applies to greenway spending, where every year a headline figure was announced, generally under 50% was spent, and the next year's headline figure had a note stating that it included funding previously allocated and not drawn down.

I'm also unaware of any local authorities that have made substantial progress on cycle networks, even DLRCC just has part of a coastal route and anything further is just in planning stages.

I wish he'd stop using actual data and just be a pundit/opinion-type as he usually gets it wrong, sometimes it seems deliberately.

If it was a SocDems councillor writing this in TheGuardian, Cian would have a piece on IrishCycle the next day accusing them of spreading misinformation tbh.

comments - is that true? 😯

That would mean every road had effectively two bus lanes. In an ideal world, yes it would be true. In reality i sincerely doubt it's above 1 or 2%.

A cracking photograph: "Baker's Corner in 1955: Flann O'Brien looks on from the pub doorway during the then annual Dun Laoghaire Cycling Week."

a dramatic photograph of Baker’s Corner in action. It’s from 70 years ago this month, and the action is provided by a race in the then annual Dun Laoghaire Cycling Week, as competitors take a sharp left onto Rochestown Avenue.
…

Female competitors in the 1955 events included one from England whose name, “Joy Bell”, hinted at infiltration by bike. But the competitions also included one, for the title “Miss Cycling”, that took the merging of personalities to a new level.

Contestants had to “parade in their cycling club outfits, wheeling their machines”. The winner would be the one judge “smartest and prettiest, and with the most glamorous bicycle”.
…

It’s a source of some regret to the Flannorak community, meanwhile, than an earlier version of the nearby Deansgrange cycle lane was not adopted. That would have involved routing part of the bike lane through a cemetery where, if its most famous literary resident is to be believed, some of the remains are majority bicycle anyway. O’Nolan would have enjoyed the joke. Relatives of the rest of the dearly departed were less amused.

Obviously the cycling numbers dropped drastically during COVID, but I wonder if they've actually recovered fully? Perhaps the current number represents the same people as before, but with hybrid working, only in the office a few days a a week? The numbers counted would be very different if it was done on, say, a Monday vs a Wednesday, with all the TWaTs (Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday) workers.

Sorry, but you can't just say "this thing is likely attributed to this thing" for no reason other than you want it to be. Bikes also haven't gone up in price in real terms, while cycle-to-work has gone up (although again, I'd have questions over how many cycle commuters have access to CTW).

Public transport numbers increased consistently from 2010 onwards despite price increases.

Did ye see this nonsense? Thank God we have people moving here from the US to teach us greenways are as scary as earthquakes. FFS.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41674523.html

A woman who lived in constant fear when she lived in an earthquake zone in the US says plans to route a major Cork greenway through her family’s land have triggered the same deep-rooted anxiety.

Also - And we want to build our home here, but there has been no real consultation about the route — it’s just awful. 

Sure totally objective then 🙄 She also seems to have difficulty understanding that the reason this is being called the THIRD round of consultation is because, y'know, there have been TWO already.

You spoke very authoritatively for someone guessing. Again, bus passengers numbers historically haven't shown themselves to be particularly price-elastic if we look at pre-2020 data, and general research on the price elasticity of demand of public transport has shown it to be relatively inelastic.

The €2 fare didn't see the same jump on luas passengers to nearly-pre covid levels as bus passengers, and bus passenger numbers also include longer distance buses that wouldn't be subject to the €2 fare.

In my experience, most larger employers have C2W schemes that they farm out to the likes of biketowork.ie etc.

Personal experience - I've never worked for a private company that offered the C2W scheme and anybody I know working in one doesn't get it. The public sector have it though

Might seem that way but no, it was a best guess to try to explain the situation