Dublin bids to host international cycling conference

Dublin City Council is bidding to host Velo-city 2019, an international cycling conference.

Dublin was recently shortlisted, but it is up for stiff competition against fellow shortlisted city Helsinki. Both cities have been visited by an inspection team from the Europe Cyclists’ Federation (ECF), who run the conference.

The ECF states that Velo-city “seeks to encourage cycling as a part of daily transport and recreation”.

Next year Velo-city is to be hosted jointly in the cities of Arnhem and Nijmegen in the Netherlands, while it is to take place in Rio de Janeiro in 2018. The conference rotates from its Europe origins to a city outside Europe every second year. Dublin has previously hosted the event in 2005, while Helsinki has yet to host it.

Here’s some Tweets relating to the ECF’s visit to Dublin:


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4 comments

  1. Unfortunately, we don’t deserve to host it, but it would at least have the advantage of focusing minds and most likely forcing progress on some of the endlessly delayed and obstructed infrastructure projects that have been in the pipeline for years.

    Reply
  2. Perhaps it is a good idea for a conference like this to come to a place where everything isn’t going smoothly to see what sort of problems exist. Elected officials who complain that cycle routes will “kill the economy”, business lobby groups operating under the misapprehension that their customers use cars not bicycles, car lobby groups being somehow conflated with an impartial road safety bodies and the actual road safety authority treating their supposed legal advice as if it was a state secret.

    What do you do in a country where a significant number of people would be happy to have cyclists eliminated from the public thoroughfares? Where blowhards like Michael O’Leary get national press for their anti-cyclist ranting? Where phrases like “I don’t condone deliberately running down a cyclist” is almost inevitably followed by something like “but I can understand how a motorist could be frustrated”.

    Reply
  3. Dublin Cycling Campaign and Cyclist.ie have long been campaigning to have the Velo City Conference return to Dublin, Dublin City Council responded and jointly hosted the Belo City 2019 bid with Dublin Cyling Campaign. We will learn the result of this stage of the bidding process on 7th December next, and hopefully Dublin will win out!
    But if we do win out it means a really busy and active two and a half years working on getting full support and making the conference a success. Plaudits to Dublin City Council, and also to Fáilte Ireland for financially agreeing to support the bid process!

    Reply
  4. I agree with HivemindX. I think this event would a real positive for the city. I’m sure the experience in Dublin is not unique. No matter where you live, you have to fight to get funding for new projects.

    It’s important that councillors and business owners hear the oportunities from improved cycle infrastructure.

    Reply

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