40 Dublin ‘Youth Bicycle Heroes’ have this morning presented their ideas for increasing the attractiveness of cycling in communities in the capital.
Dublin City Council said that the children and teenagers presented their ideas to the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Caroline Conroy and other councillors, and city engineers in Dublin City Hall’s Council Chamber.
Aged from 10 to 15, the children are from 5th Class at Scoil Eoin, Kilbarrack, Dublin 5 and 3rd Year, Loreto College Crumlin, Dublin 12. The children were tasked with looking at solutions to safer cycling on their school route and to Trinity College.
The initiative is part of the Bicycle Heroes BYCS Youth Voices for Active Mobility project which is supported by the Urban Mobility section of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, a body of the European Union.
BYCS, an Amsterdam-based NGO, has run the programme over the last five years in the Netherlands and helped its rollout elsewhere, including Dublin. Nearly ten thousand children have taken part in the initial awareness and problem-solving phase of the program across the EU.
The Lord Mayor, Cllr Conroy (Green Party) said: “I’m delighted to be here today to listen to the young people who are presenting their ideas to increase uptake of cycling in Dublin City. I cycle myself and I welcome these ideas to make cycling safer and more enjoyable in our city and communities.”
Cllr Donna Cooney (Green), project manager of the Dublin Bicycle Heroes Project said: “I’m so excited about coordinating the first BYCS Bicycle Heroes project in Dublin with partners Dublin City Council and Trinity College. We worked with groups of children aged 10 to 15 years, to give them the tools to enable them to reimagine their city space to meet their needs.”
She added: “Children are now empowered by designing, exhibiting and presenting to transport engineers, planners and decision makers to influence the design of Dublin City spaces for their own future active transport needs.”
Martina Mullin, health promotion officer at Trinity College, said: “Trinity is pleased to see so many clever and innovative ideas from the children for travelling from their school to our campus. Trinity has 1% car use. We’re delighted to see children question how public space in Dublin can be allocated to support health, biodiversity and the climate.”
Niamh Ni Cholmain, from the school mobility program Dublin City Council said: “This project has helped Dublin City Council to get ideas from students on the design, development and evaluation of their School Zones and Safe Routes to School treatments. Children who become Bicycle Heroes in School Zones promote safer and more respectful driver behaviour within their families and communities.”
MORE: bycs.org/youth-voices
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Fair play to them. Will their suggestions be available online?
Would love to see their suggestions!