60 percent of students at Coláiste Muire in Ennis have said they would be more inclined to cycle to school if wider footpaths and increased cycling lanes existed.
On Wednesday, a group of Transition Year students from the Coláiste’s TY3 class conducted a project in conjunction with Clare County Council whereby they ran an Action Day called ‘Walk to School Wednesday’ to encourage more people to park and stride.
Designated drop-off points were the car parks at Dunnes Stores, Ennis Leisure Centre, St Joseph’s Hospital, Cloughleigh, Parnell Street and the Temple Gate Hotel. These have been selected by students as they are within ten minutes of the school, parking and striding from here will lead to less emissions in the vicinity of the Coláiste.
Over 200 students walked to school from the drop off points. “Our roads were quieter, and less traffic congested this morning,” TY student Amy Gibbons told The Clare Echo.
In preparation for the action day, students got an insight into the reasons why their classmates did not use active means of transport to get to school. “We did a survey and got over 350 responses, 60% of them said they would be more inclined to cycle to school if there was wider footpaths and cycling lanes, we’re hoping tomorrow will push them to walk and get our ideas to the Council to try get cycling lanes in more places and it will be more than a one day a week,” explained Emma Dunlop.
“Around 70% of students get dropped in cars, the rest go by public transport, we don’t have a lot of cyclists right now because there are not enough cycle lanes,” Clarecastle native Emma added.
Ennis 2040 DAC are encouraging the involvement of schools with different categories such as transport, biodiversity and energy to choose from. “We chose transport because it is the one we felt we could improve most on. Our aim is to highlight the large volume of traffic congestion, Ennis 2040 is aiming to make Ennis a ten minute town and make Ennis more sustainable,” Amy who is from Ruan outlined.
Levels of traffic and the town’s air quality prompted them to choose this category, Emma said. “The two roads leading to our school, College Rd and Harmony Row always have a load of cars parked everywhere and buses can’t get through, we’re trying to make use for public transport to get there and have less emissions into the air. We have a device measuring the air quality, we’re measuring the air quality around our school, we’ll have it on tomorrow to see how much is produced. We’ve done some research and in 2021 17.7 percent of the emissions in all of Ireland were by transport and we’re trying to reduce that less”.
Initially planned as a one-off, the Walk to School Wednesday could become a more regular feature, the girls admitted. Edel Malone is the teacher overlooking the project. Students are also working on a possible one-way system for buses to access the school that could also reduce the amount of cars in the vicinity.
