Galway City recently produced a local version of a famous graphic showing the space used by different transport modes.
Galway’s version — recently produced for Bike Week — has a slightly different twist and focuses on schoolchildren.
Students from Salerno Secondary School in the city lined up on a closed road to show how much space is taken up by 30 students if they travel by bus, bike or car.
Paul O’ Donnell, a coordinator at An Mheitheal Rothar, said: “A great Tuesday morning during #bikeweek with the students from Salerno! This was one action from the @SharedGreenDeal year-long project with Salerno, Coláiste Éinde and @MheithealRothar to raise awareness of congestion and student safety outside of the schools in Galway.”
As well as Salerno and An Mheitheal Rothar, a social enterprise, the production of the image was supported by Galway City Council.
Dublin City Council created a version of the image in 2022. The original was produced in Amersfoort in the Netherlands by Fietsersbond, the Dutch cycling campaign group.
Arne Haytsma, the photographer of the Dutch version taken in 1978, described the difficulty of creating the first image for an article republished in English on Fietsersbond’s website: “I had to direct everything. I believe we chased the cars away all afternoon: ‘because of filming!’. Only an empty street was usable. On either side of the street, there were two policemen to stop the traffic. The whole neighbourhood had walked out and was watching. But, of course, the street had to remain empty.”
He added: “That didn’t quite work out. You see people in the porches. And in the picture with the pedestrians there are too many. It just couldn’t be stopped.”
Examples were later made in cities such as Münster in Germany, Bucharest in Romania, Vienna in Austria, and various other locations, including regions in Australia and a number of cities in North America.
IMAGE: Your Move, Department of Transport, Western Australia.
