The future of transport is not the electric car — it’s the electric bike
With proper infrastructure, bikes move faster, and can be parked and locked outside the door of your destination as well as giving welcome headspace and exercise at the end of a day stuck in front of a computer screen. File picture: Larry Cummins
Paris citizens have voted in favour of a proposal by the city’s mayor to triple parking charges on hefty SUVs. Cars weighing 1.6 tonnes or more will be charged at €18 per hour in the city centre or €12 per hour further out.
The charges will affect electric cars that weigh over two tonnes. Exclusions from the charge include people living and working in Paris, taxi drivers, tradespeople, health workers and people with disabilities.
The city mayor, Anne Hidalgo justified the charge succinctly — "The bigger they are the more they pollute."
This is the latest step in Ms Hidalgo’s mission to get cars out of the city — including pedestrianising many streets, such as along the banks of the Seine, and building a continuous network of cycle lanes to discourage driving and meet climate targets while reducing air pollution.
Dublin has yet to propose such an ambitious hike in parking fees directed at SUVs, which are very popular in Ireland. However, recent plans to re-allocate road space across Dublin from private cars, to buses, cyclists and pedestrians has been ‘overwhelmingly’ supported by the public, according to a report presented to Dublin city councillors.
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The Dublin City Council and National Transport Authority (NTA) plan aims to "remove traffic that has no destination" in the city. This would impact two out of every three motorists passing through the city.
If you try to imagine Dublin city in five years from now, what kind of a picture springs to mind? City streets clogged with fossil-fuelled, hybrid and EVs or a city centre largely devoid of cars and thronged with electric bikes, bicycles, buses on the move, LUAS and DART lines and lots of people bustling, ambling, playing and jostling across the city?
Ireland is a European leader in its love of SUVs — 65% of all new cars sold in Ireland in 2022 were SUVs, 13 percentage points above the EU average.
New electric vehicle (EV) sales in Ireland increased by 45% in Ireland in 2023 compared to 2022, but this rate of increase in not enough to hit the 2030 target goal of 945,000 EVs, according to David Savage, Geotab President, Ireland and UK. It is effectively mathematically impossible to hit the 2030 target goal of 945,000 EVs, he said.
EVs are not going to be able to reach climate targets, what is the alternative? A real game-changer could be the roll of e-bikes and e-scooters.
A major problem with EVs is their price. The level of grants the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) offer reduced last July from €5,000 to €3,500.
At that time, a petrol or diesel Volkswagen Golf was quoted as retailing at €36,025 new, the electric equivalent, the ID.3, had a retail price of €43,960 or 22% more. Ireland’s best-selling car the Hyundai Tucson was almost 30% cheaper in a diesel version — €37,795 new compared with €48,995 for a plug-in hybrid, according to SEAI.
EVs also emit more carbon over their life cycle than any other form of urban transport, except petrol cars. This makes their use illogical for people traveling alone over short distances. A National Household Travel Survey reported last summer that almost half of all journeys by car are less than 5km with seven-in-10 trips less than 10km.
It also highlighted that three-in-10 trips nationally take between 15 and 29 minutes, with a quarter of trips taking less than 10 minutes. Trips which take longer than one hour accounted for 7% of all journeys.
Think what a difference it would make to congestion on Irish roads in urban settings if 70% of trips that are less than 10km were taken by electric bike rather than by car. If the infrastructure were in place to make cycling a safe experience with continuous protected lanes that link up with public transport — there is no reason why this could not be a reality in towns and cities across Ireland.
For a city dweller, doesn’t it make more sense to buy a (much) cheaper e-bike, benefiting from the Bike to Work scheme which can halve the cost, that can be charged in an apartment and supplemented with a car/share, taxi ride or car rental for long trips or holidays? No tax, insurance, no costly servicing. No horrendous bill for a breakdown when the breaks slip, steering wobbles or engine fails.
With proper infrastructure, bikes move faster, and can be parked and locked outside the door of your destination as well as giving welcome headspace and exercise at the end of a day stuck in front of a computer screen.
Irish Doctors for the Environment summed it up this week when they recommended that Irish cities follow the example being set by Paris in getting cars out of cities.
"In light of rising transport emissions, the inactivity epidemic, and the spike in road mortality across Ireland, we urge Irish city councils to consider similar measures, be it increasing parking charges or adding congestion charges. Paris is reaping enormous benefits from the actions taken only a few years ago. We have no time to waste. Let’s invite people back into our cities," it said.
I would add the enormous benefits in terms of building community cohesiveness, so urgently needed right now. We have no time to waste. All that is needed is the political will to make it happen.
- Dr Catherine Conlon is a public health doctor in Cork
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