Sustainable transport plan will fail unless we stop putting cars first

The Government has taken steps to put walking and cycling policy first, but the greatest cause of the underspend is cultural rather than political or bureaucratic

Avenue des Rennes, Mahon, Cork is one of the areas targeted for improvements under the proposed Mahon Cycling Scheme, by Cork City Council. Picture: Larry Cummins

The revelation in the  Irish Examiner that local authorities have failed to spend their allocations for walking and cycling infrastructure is not surprising to those in transport circles: the Programme for Government commitment to spend 20% of the transport budget on walking and cycling made headlines around the world, but its implementation has proven to be a problem.

There are many causes of this problem at all levels of Irish governance: local authorities have been slow to recruit staff, the staff that have been hired may not have the skills to know what’s best for walking and cycling, the multinational engineering firms hired by local authorities to do design work do excellent work in other countries, but this is not always appropriate in the Irish setting.