Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

296 Chapter 11: Environment and Transport Figure 11.14  Multiple benefits of compact development Density DENSITY More people in the neighbourhood More homes in the city reduces housing shortage Higher land values enable further construction What is attractive is desirable and reasonably priced More city life and urban environments Increased variety of culture, shops and public services closer by More movement area daytime and evenings gives greater security Fewer need cars. More use public transport. Runs more often. Better parks and playgrounds Increased supply of services locally because of larger customer base Simpler day- to-day life. Walking and cycling distance to more functions Source: Bibri et al. , 2020; reproduced under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) Reallocation of street space. The reallocation of road space is critical in supporting sustainable modes of transport, especially walking and cycling, and has been found to contribute positively to achieving equity, wellbeing, a thriving local economy and climate action targets (Douglas et al. , 2023). However, interventions for reallocating urban space in Ireland are rather fragmented and being introduced incrementally rather than transformatively, as the car-dominant mental model prevents the radical implementation of road reallocation (Egan and Caulfield, 2024). Pedestrian plans are established for the five cities, with more to follow for regional centres throughout 2024 (DoT, 2024a). The Active Travel Investment Programme has delivered 600 kilometres of walking and cycling paths nationwide, with over 1200 projects progressed or delivered, including the Salmon Weir Bridge in Galway, the Bilberry Greenway in Waterford, and the Mahon Greenway in Cork (DoT, 2024a). Road space is contested space and thus holistic planning and balancing stakeholder needs is necessary. For instance, the framework proposed by Creutzig et al. (2020) balances three perspectives: streets for transport, streets for climate action and sustainability, and streets as places. In another example, using the movement and place framework, the New Zealand government has introduced the One Network Framework, which methodically categorises streets and roads to facilitate targeted actions (Figure 11.15). This allows the redesign of areas to prioritise movement on essential inter-regional roads and enhance place functions that promote walking and cycling on local streets (Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency, 2023).