What if we applied “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” to greenways and cycle paths?

— Be it rural or urban greenways, cycle paths or bus and rail projects, too many of us, especially comfortable home owners, have lost the concept of the collective good.

Comment & Analysis: Not many politicians these days would get away with saying something like “ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country”.

The context or sentiment which President John F Kennedy might have been more wide-ranging than in this article, but sometimes it’s worth looking at how inspiring words could apply on a more focused level.

People took their own meaning of inspiration of what Kennedy had in mind. Today his meaning might be reversed. ‘Country’ in his line might be misunderstood by some as meaning the Government or the collective institutions of the State. Rather than the collective of everything that makes a country, mainly its people.

So, what does this point have to do with footpaths, bus lanes, bus gates, cycle paths or rail projects?

While it’s rare that any project is perfect, too many people start off with defending the status quo — there’s well-proven psychological theory around status quo bias. Humans catastrophise about change.

Change can be hard, but it’s rarely as bad as people think. With sustainable transport and other projects any negatives are usually far outweighed by the positives.

The opposition to greenways, especially rural greenways, is a classic case study on this: As they are mainly totally off-road they rarely have any impact on car drivers etc but a huge amount of opposition, usually after someone who is disgruntled starts spreading misinformation and gets everyone annoyed.

The claimed negatives include anti-social behaviour (which is nonexistent on rural greenways), that they’d be used for casing out farms to rob (which is daft), that they split farms (greenways are not motorways and working with authorities is the best way to develop routes to avoid distribution) and even that they’d aid townies in their adventures to fornicate (that’s not a joke, it was covered in a local newspaper as a one of the reasons objectors gave).

Sorry to be blunt here: But none of these fears stack up and they definitely don’t outweigh the benefits. And with greenways the benefits are often mostly felt by locals — greenways aren’t just good for tourism and the local economy, they are highly beneficial in terms of health in getting locals out walking and (lesser so) cycling, and in connecting people in ways which haven’t been seen since cars have taken over so many rural roads.

Much of the same is true for urban projects.

Survey after survey, the majority of people support sustainable transport projects, even where space is taken away from cars.

Of course, when it comes to implementation, some of those people may change their minds. What happens after that again and again is that once projects are built and people get used to it. Usually only a small dedicated few (who can sound loud) keep complaining.

Dublin has a number of examples where ‘modal filters’ (mostly bollards and planters) were installed on more minor roads in places like Grangegorman and Drumcondra which were being used as rat runs. It was claimed these would cause life to be unbearable but when trialled opinion shifted to supporting the filters.

Other projects are harder to trial.

An example I have in mind is the Killala Road in Ballina — very personal to me as it’s the main road between where I live and the town centre. It’s where my children have got their school bus for years and where they walk, cycle and get driven to places.

The road has suffered from linear development without any significant upgrades in the road design since I was in secondary school. It hosts a load of estates, maybe the largest factory in Co Mayo (Coca-Cola Ballina), schools and childcare facilities, and a few other workplaces. There’s no bypass of the town and the road is used by a number of quarries and oil delivery depots.

As I’ve written before on this website covering how a road safety and accessibility scheme could fit into the current road space.

That could be done without touching anything but public land, and, when that’s the case, there’s next to no possibility that compulsory purchased orders will be used.

But what if, not just for my local road but many other similar roads around Ireland, people came together and asked what could they do for their area?

In a lot of cases, a small area of 1-4 metres from larger gardens could make a huge distance to redesigning a road or street to make it safer, more accessible, greener, more attractive, and more sustainable (from allowing alternatives to cars to greenery to water management).

But what if the community came together, acknowledged the problems on their road and put it up to the council to say not just “things have to change” but that “we support it, we want it” even to the point of giving over a few metres of a garden to aid in a better road or street?

For it to work people would have to look at it in the round — you could squeeze in cycle paths, shared paths or basic road crossings. But with a bit of extra width, many roads and streets could be made to work better for everything including more green buffers between roads and homes, and  easier turns into driveways than if things were just squeezed into the current road layout.

To be clear here: This has limits. It wouldn’t suit everywhere and I’m definitely not suggesting cutting smaller gardens. And no process is perfect, there’d have to be care taken not to unduly pressure people into giving up space because their neighbours are.

Much like other processes, people would have to have their boundary walls and greenery set back and restored by the council and not left out of pocket. Arrangements for changing other elements such as driveway widths or offering alternative access points or on-street parking reserved for residents where that makes sense, etc should also be in the mix.

In some locations some of the existing boundary greenery including trees could be integrated into the design of the road or street.

I don’t have all the answers. But I’m asking: What if we applied “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” to greenways and cycle paths? How would this community up approach work? Could it work as a partnership between the community and the council?

Would it produce better results than people getting caught up in anger about cycle paths or greenways? Could it even work on a town or district level? How many people could a community group even get on board, will there always be a significant number of people objecting regardless?