| |A to Z| | |City Council| | |Our Services| | |Online Services | | |Citizen Info| | |Related Sites| |
| |News| | |About Cork| | |Enterprise| | |Tourism| | |Maps| | |Lord Mayor| |
This year Cork City Council is promoting Bike to Work Week from May 24th to May 31st 2008 as one of a calendar of initiatives it is undertaking to promote cycling for an EU project called "Trendy Travel". As part of the initiative we are asking employers to help in the distribution of the attached "Bike to Work Week Leaflet" to employees within their organisation via email/paper format as appropriate.
A “Bike to Work Week” is promoted in different countries around the World in May or June. (For a selection of English speaking sites see www.biketoworkweek.org or www.bikeweek.org.uk;) In Denmark they devote a whole month to the “We Bike to Work” Campaign which encouraged 8,000 people to get back to cycling last year!
The aim of the initiative in Cork is to devote one week to promoting more cycling amongst workers in local businesses.
As an employer the benefits of more staff cyacling are:
Employer Benefits:
The employer also profits indirectly from the wider socio-economic and environmental benefits:
Environmental/City Benefits:
To reap these benefits, please consider the events described below and distribute the information forms amongst your employees/co-workers.
Promoting cycling at work is an integral part of corporate mobility management planning. At the moment all businesses applying for planning permission are required to submit a Mobility Management Plan but the requirements to develop and implement sustainable Mobility Management Plan’s are likely to be more widely applied under forthcoming legislation.
To learn more about incorporating cycling provisions into Mobility Management Plans please come to a lunchtime event on this topic on May 26th from 12:30 pm to 2pm. A light lunch will be served based on the pre-registered attendance. See Flyer attached.
To help reap these benefits we are asking employers to inform their employees about our Cycle-To-Work Challenge. All businesses/workplaces participating in the challenge can have their company profile uploaded onto our website and the workplace that makes the most effort to promote cycling will receive an award at the annual CEF Environmental Awards.[1]
To enter we suggest that Employees form groups of 4, preferably including a mix of regular and irregular or novice cyclists. Each team member records how many miles they cycle each day during the week and records this on a chart displayed in the workplace. Results can also be submitted to Cork City Council for upload on-line.
Where there are several teams within the workplace, we recommend that the best one be awarded a prize by the employer. We can help, by providing bells helmets and mileage counters upon request e.g. for prizes etc. We are also offering free use of rented bikes for the week to those who’d like to try a new bike
Cork City Council is also offering “Back on your Bike” Cycle Safety Skills Training to all adults willing to cycle but apprehensive about starting. The Training will be offered on Saturday May 26th with a choice of one-on-one beginner sessions or group refresher sessions (All must Participants must pre-book by May 16th.)
We realise that Cork does not have the same grand cycling infrastructure as the Netherlands or Denmark; In many cases our streets are just too narrow to accommodate cycle lanes, however we welcome feedback and ideas on ways to improve provision for cyclists.
Already we have designed 10 Green Routes with prioritisation for bus/cycle lanes where possible. We are also planning some contra-flow cycles lanes to make the one-way system a little easier for cyclists to negotiate, but again we will record and consider all specific suggestions for locating more cycle friendly measures- traffic calming, toucan crossings, advanced stop-lines / cycle-lanes etc.
E-mail suggestions to: traffic@corkcity.ie