Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan has announced the approval of 35 “pathfinder” sustainable mobility projects. These cycling, walking and public transport initiatives spread across 19 counties include the removal of traffic from Dublin’s College Green, a train station for Moyross in Limerick and a cycle link between Waterford city and the Dungarvan greenway.
If these schemes sound familiar, that is because the pathfinder projects are not new; almost all have already been approved for funding, many under the National Transport Authority’s (NTA) annual “active travel” programme. Each year the NTA and the transport minister of the day announce hundreds of cycling and walking projects across the State. This year there were 1,200, up from just under 500 last year. Many on this year’s list were also on last year’s list. A small number have commenced, few have been completed.
So how are the pathfinder projects different? According to Ryan, they are schemes which will go ahead within the next three years. They will be guaranteed funding, as long as they meet timelines, and he says his officials will “sit on” local authorities and hold their “feet to the fire” to make sure they happen. This is a tacit acknowledgment that a significant number of the remaining active travel projects are unlikely to go ahead, at least not in the short to medium term.
Ryan spoke plainly this week about the financial realities. His department had a budget of €35 billion against €75 billion worth of planned projects. Local authorities would face spending constraints within the next two years and it would be “tight”, he said, for them to get funding for all the projects that had been approved.
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This does not mean these active travel schemes had been axed. The concept of a “pathfinder” is that it would lead the way for other projects. However, with just 35 schemes guaranteed out of more than 1,000, and one third of local authorities receiving no pathfinder funding, there is a risk a lot of cycling and walking initiatives, key to tackling climate change, will fall by the wayside.