Opinion: Galway in a Climate Crisis

Updated 1 hour ago

You may have heard about the temporary Salthill Cycleway, which is located in Galway. It’s proposed to be a 3km stretch along Galway’s iconic promenade – a place where currently very few people cycle because to do so means negotiating parked cars on one side, and moving traffic on the other. It’s always stressful and dangerous.

The setting is important. The Burren hills change colour depending on the sky and ocean. It’s a south facing bay so looking out from the prom, the sun comes up on your left and goes down on your right, always over the sea. It’s completely gorgeous.

The intention is to install a All but one person approved the temporary Salthill CyclewayGalway City Councillors at a vote in September. The plan was for a temporary, two-way bicycle path along the coast for six monthly. This is a great way to test out what works.

Positive changes

The overwhelming positivity seemed a sign of a sea change, a shift towards a safer and healthier Galway.

The cycleway period will begin next month. Recent Consultation processThe plan was attracted 7,500 submissions from members of the public – 7,500 is massive, by the way. It is an incredible level of engagement.

We don’t yet know the results of that process.

We know that many people submitted simple fixes to concerns about the plan. For example, increasing accessibility and Blue Badge Parking. There are also alternatives to a controversial section of the track at one end that would have impeded vehicular access. There are many solutions and ideas that could be implemented to improve the existing plan.

It doesn’t matter. Because councillors were elected at the last minute, just before the results of the consultation. I have made a motionThey intend to withhold their September support for the plan.

Yes, you did read that correctly. It’s a vote to ScrapSalthill Cycleway

The motion isn’t to amend or improve the cycleway. The motion is to stop it.

If that happens, the 7,500 submissions and solutions therein, don’t matter.

The two-year process to get to this point doesn’t matter.

The €1m of funding available for the cycleway doesn’t matter.

The temporary nature of the plan – a perfect way to learn and improve – doesn’t matter.

That Galway badly needs safe cycling infrastructure, doesn’t matter.

Research on similar active travel measures has shown overwhelming positive results.Ireland and internationallY, in terms people, business, and even AccessFor Emergency services doesn’t matter.

That Galway City Council has not installed even one inch of new, segregated, protected cycling infrastructure in years, despite all the mobility funding available for active travel, doesn’t matter.

None of it matters.

A flawed plan, but a start

It’s hard to disagree with the view that the Council Executive’s plan for the temporary Salthill Cycleway, its communication around the plan, and its commitment to the project was unbelievably poor. Any improvement, no matter how temporary, is better than the status-quo.

In this instance, no change is more than stability. A huge step backwards is impossible when there is no change. What’s the next step? This is part a pattern. Galway City Council was there to help during the pandemic. didn’t installA single piece of protected, segregated and new cycling infrastructure.  

It did some other things. It resurfaced cycle lanes, installed bollards along existing lanes, and placed them outside a national school. It also carried out works and rebranded popular walking trails as a shared cycling/walking area.

But we didn’t see the ambition necessary to bring about this desperately needed modal shift. It begs the question: What will it take for the Salthill Cycleway to stop on Monday?

The coast road isn’t safe to cycle. Is that okay? I ask this because I hate it when my kids want to ride with me, especially on that road. My 11-year old son tried it once. He was turned off by being too close to cars on his way to football practice. He didn’t ask again and I’m relieved he didn’t. It was too risky.

Now, I can cycle with the kids on the back of the cargo bike. It’s still stressful, but at least they won’t wobble into the path of a car that’s too close. Salthill Cycleway’s plan is temporary. It seems that even that may be too far for some.

Galway should be leading the way, but instead, we watch as Dublin City, Fingal, and Dún Laoghaire have been transformed, Limerick has a new cycleway on a major bridge used every day by children cycling to school, Cork has made streets car-free and installed two-way cycleways in the city centre. We are so far behind. Galway is the home of the School Cycle Bus movement. Here, people cycle despite all. It is a bewildering lack of ambition.

Climate crisis

This obstruction of progress can be found all over the country. It doesn’t matter how much funding and legislation is available from the Government. The Council Executives and other public representatives can continue to be indifferent to active travel without any consequence.

Galway City Councillors seem happy to wait for any other plan when it comes to Salthill Cycleway. A perfect plan for the future. Ten years, 20 years’ time is soon enough.

All of the people who have a say here, councillors and those on the executive, will protest that they support safety and cycling and active travel – it is difficult to find any opponents of active travel in Galway – but words will not work this time, it’s action that matters.

Safety on bicycles is important. Safe alternatives are essential. Galway is being choked by traffic. We are experiencing a climate crisis right now. It is not a decade away. We do not have the luxury to wait for the perfect cycleway plan, it doesn’t exist, because change, by its very nature, is painful, and not everyone will be happy. That’s what change means.    

This is not a new thing. Look at the pedestrianisation of Shop Street, Galway’s main thoroughfare in 1998. Many were opposed. It took vision, courage, and leadership to make it work, but we would never go back to the way things were. This is the same kind and type of change.

We cannot continue to be as car-dependent as we are. Salthill Cycleway is more that a chance for you to experience 3kms of protected infrastructure in a central location. It’s a chance for Galway to try a different way of living.

Galway City Councillors will have an opportunity to apply modern, pragmatic thinking on Monday next. For over two years, we have been discussing a Salthill cycleway. It shouldn’t be this difficult. I urge them to consider the suggestions made during the consultation process and seize this chance to make Galway a more sustainable and people-centered city.

Gráinne Faller is a communications consultant and a former journalist. She lives with her family in Galway and prefers riding a bike to the car. A Community cycleSupport the Salthill Cycleway on Sunday, 13 February at 11.30 a.m.