Cork County Council Active Travel Grants 2024 allocation €21.39m

Two people cycling on a designated cycle route.

The National Transport Authority (NTA) has allocated funds to Ireland’s local authorities with a view to spending on walking and cycling infrastructure in 2024. The recently announced allocation of €21.39m has been warmly welcomed by the Mayor of the County of Cork, Cllr Frank O’Flynn, who has acknowledged the continued support of the NTA saying, 

The allocation is affirmation of the NTA’s confidence in Cork County Council when delivering sustainable travel infrastructure.

This announcement follows a record year in 2023 which saw expenditure under the NTA Active Travel Investment Grant of €24.5m for Cork County (€7.5m investment outside Metropolitan Cork).

Mayor O’Flynn highlighted how 

The development of active travel infrastructure has an immensely positive impact and enhances the quality of life for those who live and work throughout Cork County.  The benefits of this investment are immense, locally making our towns and villages greener and more liveable.

There are four pillars to the investment programme: Cork County Metropolitan Area active travel network, Towns and Villages Programme (outside Metropolitan Cork), Safe Route to Schools (SRTS) and Bus Stop/Shelter upgrade programme. This funding announcement will see further delivery of infrastructure under all these pillars in 2024. 

Chief Executive of Cork County Council Valerie O’Sullivan added 

Cycling, walking, public transport access and car-free options will all be boosted by these projects.  We all have a significant challenge to reduce our emissions by 50% by 2030. To achieve this, we must encourage people to choose sustainable ways of travelling. However, as we have seen already with greenways, walk and cycle ways, once built, they become instantly popular, and people are facilitated in making a sustainable switch.

This substantial investment will fund approximately 800 Active Travel projects, contributing to the development of 1,000km of new and improved walking and cycling infrastructure across the country between 2020 and 2025, a key target included a number of Government Climate and Road Safety Strategies. Total expenditure on NTA Active Travel funded projects since 2020 will exceed €1Billion during 20024, with over 600km delivered to date.