Let’s break the school-run cycle - National bike week

More than 1,000 Dublin homeowners discovered yesterday they may lose gardens or parking places as the National Transport Authority plans to create 16 high-speed bus routes in our capital. The common good trumps private interests and even if it is natural to have sympathy for those who might fall victim to the consequences of growing population and inadequate urban planning the greater good is being served.

The plan is to facilitate buses, but how much better our towns and cities might be, not to mention the health of commuters, if the same vigor was brought to projects aimed at making urban areas safer and more navigable for cyclists. This seems especially so for schoolchildren happy to cycle to school but forced to run a gauntlet of cars or jeeps driven by parents determined to deliver children almost to their classroom desk. Surely it’s time local and school authorities — and unthinking parents too — did more to try to make school environments less like a fairground dodgem park and more amenable to cyclists. Car exclusion zones around school entrances might be one solution.

This is National Bike Week, designed to encourage us to emulate continental Europe’s ease with city cycling. Of course, there are myriad excuses not to do so but by changing our habits — and planning requirements, so all developments might better facilitate cyclists — we would be making an investment that promises great dividends.