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Sustainable travel is a vital aspect in ensuring the future economic and environmental conditions within our City.  Cork City Council wants to help the residents and visitors to Cork City and metropolitan area to travel in more sustainable ways ; that is to travel 'Smarter'.

What is Smarter Travel?

The overall aim of Smarter Travel in Cork is to look at our existing travel behavior and then find ways of supporting alternative modes of travel, which are better for the environment, good for our health and often less expensive.

The Department of Transport (DoT) is running a Smarter Travel Area competition (www.smartertravel.ie) for Local Authorities throughout Ireland. Cork was successful in the first round and is now one of 11 Local Authorities bidding in this final round for Smarter Travel funding. Our application for funding will be submitted to the DoT on 30th April 2010. 
Part of this stage of the bidding process is to identify some Smarter Travel measures which we are interested in developing further should our funding application be successful. 

At this stage in the process we have identified six themes which we look at in greater detail as the project develops, these are as follow:

• City Centre Travel : Initiatives may include travel planning for city centre employers, and improvements to the conditions for walking and cycling in the city centre.
• Suburban Commuting and Local Travel (4 Demonstration Communities) : Initiatives may include bus services, personal travel planning advice and changes which would help support cycling and other non-car based travel choices.
• Promotion and Implementation of Innovative Sustainable Transport : Initiatives may involve looking into car clubs, car pools and the use of alternatives such as electric vehicles.
• Travel by Bike : Initiatives may include promotion and support of cycling across the city.
• School travel planning : Investigating initiatives such as helping schools plan how children and staff can get to and from school in a more sustainable manner.
• Implementation & Operation of Smarter Travel Measures : Initiatives including the establishment of a travel team and travel information centre to support personal sustainable travel planning.

We need your help

The City Council is currently preparing it’s submission to the DoT and is looking for your views on the measures which have been identified and anything else you feel is relevant.  We have put together 4 key questions which we are interested in hearing your feedback :

1. Do you think the travel initiatives, we have identified are the correct measures to support changes in travel behaviour?
2. What do you see as the biggest challenges for travel and transport for Cork over the next 10 years?
3. What measure do you think would change your travel behaviour and why?
4. Is there anything we haven’t considered which you think would support you changing the way you currently travel? 

Please email your comments before 10th April to traffic@corkcity.ie or write to the project team at : Traffic Division, Cork City Council, City Hall, Anglesea Street, Cork, Ireland. Thank you for your time.  Your views are important to us and we will ensure the Smarter Travel measures will continue to be developed in consultation with you, the local community and stakeholders.’