The Galway Cycling Campaign has made a 20 page submission to the City Mobility Team for Change Our Streets campaign with suggestions on making streets and public areas more accessible.
Galway City Council drew up its own Roadmap for reopening the city and restarting the economy as we move slowly out of the Covid-19 crisis, which includes a Mobility Team looking at travel in the city.
The City Mobility Team is examining new patterns of travel arising as a result of Covid-19 restrictions, social distancing requirements as those restrictions are eased, and how the city can adapt.
Since its inception last week, the Mobility Team has been seeking submissions from the public on areas where they feel the transport infrastructure of the city can be improved to make it more accessible.
Kevin Jennings, chairperson of Galway Cycling Campaign, said they received over 100 suggestions from people who live, work, study, and trade in the city.
“We have reviewed, collated, filtered and reduced these to 60+ suggestions that could be quickly and cheaply implemented as per our city’s Roadmap and Framework mobility plans for Covid-19.”
The submission includes the idea that city centre streets be opened up to people walking and cycling through ‘Share With Care’ zones.
There are also ideas to tweak and complement the Galway Transport Strategy (2016) Primary Cycle and Greenway Network.
Regarding road design and layout, there are suggestions to improve stacking lanes, roundabouts, traffic signal management, and traffic calming.
The full list of submissions made by Galway Cycling Campaign can be viewed online here.
One of the first actions taken by the city council’s newly created Mobility team was to create an online platform where people can submit a request directly to the team, and tag the location on an interactive map interface.
Martina Callanan, spokesperson for Galway Cycling Campaign encouraged everyone with ideas on how to promote social distancing to use the online request form.
“If you are concerned about space at a bus stop, touching beg buttons at crossing, need a wider footpath in your residential area, or need space for cycling, you can make a specific request for a particular location.”
