Colm Ryder and Damien Ó Tuama (pictured) - both from Dublin Cycling Campaign and Cyclist.ie - attended the cycling conference in Belfast on Thursday 30th April. This came just a few days after Belfast launched its own public bike scheme. The conference attracted around 60 or so delegates from the ‘Civinet’ network of cities and from Belfast City Council Council and beyond. The speakers included Anne Doherty (Belfast City Council speaking about the Belfast Public Bike Share), Colin Rees (Bath & North East Somerset Council speaking about Bath’s bike-share scheme), Damien Ó Tuama (speaking about dublinbikes) and Patty Delanghe from the City of Ghent. The full speaker line-up is available at http://www.civitas.eu/content/move-conference-about-cycling-and-connecti….

It is very encouraging to see public bikes being launched in Belfast, but the city is still a long way off being bicycle friendly: multi-lane one-way streets dominate in the city centre and the car is king on many of the city’s roads.

We sincerely hope that the public bikes act as a real stimulus for the Department for Regional Development (DRD) to publish an ambitious and progressive new Bicycle Strategy for Northern Ireland over the coming months, as spoken about by Andrew Grieve, Head of the Cycling Unit in the DRD. (See here for the joint Cyclist.ie / An Taisce submission on the draft strategy http://www.antaisce.org/articles/submission-on-draft-bicycle-strategy-fo…).

Watch this space for news on the publication of NI’s Cycling Strategy.