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AROUND HALF of people would like to walk or wheel more, while a third would like to cycle more, a survey of people in five Irish cities has found.
The National Transport Authority (NTA) has today published the findings of the largest-ever survery of walking, wheeling and cycling in Ireland.
At least 1,100 people aged over 16 were surveyed in each city – Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Limerick and Galway.
It found that in all the metropolitan areas in Ireland, more than half of adults walk five or more days a week, while at least 15% cycle once a week.
Approximately one in two residents want to walk or wheel more, and approximately a third would like to cycle more.
The report also found that walking and cycling talks 680,000 cars off the roads every day in the five cities.
There was support in each area for more government spending on walking and wheeling, ranging from 74% in the Dublin Metropolitan Area to 68% in the Waterford Metropolitan Area. A similar level of support for spending on cycling was also noted ranging from 77% to 61%.
Across all five of the Irish metropolitan areas, residents gave similar answers as to what would help them walk or wheel more.
This included better footpath surfaces, more parks and green spaces close to home, and nicer places along streets to stop and rest.
Residents gave similar answers as to what would help them cycle more – infrastructural improvements such as traffic-free paths through parks or greenways, signed cycle routes along quieter streets, and cycle tracks along roads physically separated from traffic and pedestrians.
Across residents in all the metropolitan areas, there was strong support for building such cycle tracks even where that means less room for other traffic – ranging from 88% to 69%.
The report found that every day, 530,000 return walking and cycling trips are made in the Dublin Metropolitan Area by people who could have used a car.
It said that if these cars were all in a traffic jam it would tail back 2,500km.
71% of residents in Dublin walk or wheel at least five days a week, 25% cycle at least once a week, the report found.
A total of 72% of people in Dublin support building cycle tracks physically separated from traffic and pedestrians, even wherre that means less room for other traffic.
In Cork, the report found that walking, wheeling, and cycling save 18,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in the city each year, which is equivalent to about 227,000 residents taking flights from Cork Airport to London Heathrow Airport.
A breakdown of the five Walking and Cycling Index 2023 reports can be found here.
“It’s clear from the latest Walking and Cycling Index that more people in Ireland’s five largest cities want to cycle and walk each day,” NTA CEO Anne Graham said.
“By encouraging people to make active travel a part of their daily journey, we can all play our part in creating a more sustainable future,” Graham said.
She said that NTA will “continue to accelerate” efforts to roll out walking and cycling infrastructure in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford and other areas across Ireland.
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Great! The resulting 0.002% reduction in the live register as a result will show we’ve broken the back of this recession. Not too sound to negative about the development of cloud computing, data centres etc. in Ireland, but they’re not really labour intensive enough to make any real impact on our unemployment crisis are they?
These jobs bring money into the country and keep well educated people here. It’s not really the case that hog tech jobs like these aren’t labour I tensive enough, it’s more the case that most job seekers aren’t well educated enough for jobs like these.
Fergal it’s not a matter of not being ‘well educated enough’ it is a matter of having the right set of skills and capabilities for the job. It is pretty much common knowledge that people differ in this respect. You can hardly suggest that a person with qualifications in accountancy or law, isn’t well educated enough. They are just well educated in a different area. Similarly the lab scientist with a PhD…
“Not too sound to negative…”. Well, I’m afraid it does sound negative.
This post is really frustrating: there is a small company out there trying hard to create employment (on any scale), and the first response of some people is just begrudery. This company could be the next Google, or it may not: either way, at least they’re trying, and making jobs in the process.
Great! Just not “news”.
While job creation is a big priority, the micro level reporting of every job lost or created in the country is plain daft. If anything it has the opposite impact on the intention behind the announcements as they often reduce morale. How about the jobs are created and everyone just gets on with it?
The Argos announcement earlier this week of “800 jobs” was ridiculous as well – if they were 800 permanent jobs, then maybe a worthy news item. But most of these jobs will be for a few weeks, then announced again as new jobs next year.
The only time, even in the local or regional press, in the UK that I read about jobs lost or created or the really big eye-catching projects or closures of very large factories. These stories smack of politicians desperate for votes and pats on the back. When mostly it is nothing to do with their actions.
There is a difference between between sceptism and begrudgery. Am all for keeping well educated and skilled people working and spending in this country and fair play to this company in particular. However, at a macro level, I just wonder how many jobs in reality will be created by the latest wave of IT industry developments, which in simple terms appears to be based around innovative ways for storing and managing data. Compare it to the early 90s when the arrival of Intel, Dell, Microsft etc created tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. Not all rocket science positions, granted, but employment at a serious scale. Correct me if i’m wrong, but the employment potential from cloud computing, data centre devleopment etc appears to be only a fraction of this.
You stand corrected ;) cloud computing isn’t just data management and storage; its everything that the web is based on nowadays – look at Youtube and Facebook, Google Apps, and Salesforce – there are thousands of jobs that rotate around cloud computing in Ireland and new jobs becoming available every day.
The jobs and employment are there, the skills can be learned and as this is the way that technology is moving towards with more and more systems in the cloud, the jobs will continue to grow.
10 jobs is probably only on the hardware/infrastructure level. A well managed DC has a ratio of 250 to 500 servers to 1 staff. Of course if the end “customers” of those 250 servers are in Ireland, then there could – potentially – be a knock on creation of jobs if the customers choose to use Irish developers.
On the flip side, a badly designed and managed infrastructure would need as many as 1 support person for every 30 servers. These are mostly blades by the way, with attached storage – would require a highly disciplined support person rather than just high skill. There are numerous companies now providing such services from Ireland, including Amazon and IBM.
Well, I might no live or work in Ireland, I’m an IT freelance professional though and I would like to express this single question: How many local IT freelancers or small IT service companies will be out of business given the expansion of cloud computing service providers and their services being sold even broader than their country of installation?
How many of those 10 job places will be held next year, given that growing competition will enforce cloud computing service providers to reduce job seats rather than increasing them?
I have just created ten jobs by driving my car into the front of a supermarket.
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