Smyth pushes for bike-share scheme for the county town

Dublin has one, London has one – and just maybe Mullingar may one day get one! Three year ago, a proposal to introduce a bike sharing scheme in the town was ruled out on the basis of cost, but now, Westmeath County Council is to look at the possibility once more.

The subject was raised at Municipal District level by Green councillor, Hazel Smyth, who pushed her case after the written reply stated that it was not considered that a docked bike share scheme in Mullingar would be viable.

The reply explained that in November 2018, members had received a presentation on an EcoTravel Scheme that advised that the capital cost of such a scheme was €150,000 and annual maintenance costs would be €95,000.

Cllr Smyth said that she was not happy with the response, since by this stage, that information was out of date.

She suggested that it might be possible to look at other funding options – and said the council should explore whether it could use funding from the Active Travel scheme.

“We don’t need there to be hundreds of these bikes made available,” Cllr Smyth said, suggesting a trial of five or six bikes to see how it would work.

“I would have appreciated if the council could have spent a bit more time considering this,” Cllr Smyth continued, reminding the meeting that a bike sharing scheme would tie in with the council’s climate action plan aims.

Cllr Smyth said it was her hope that Mullingar would be chosen as the low carbon town for Westmeath and that if there were rental bikes available, it would encourage people to use a bike to get from one end of the town to the other rather than having to rely on their cars. Support for Cllr Smyth’s motion came from Cllr Denis Leonard: “If we had a bike sharing scheme that people would pay a small amount towards, it would basically pay for itself,” he said, adding that it would complement the proposed Mullingar bus service.

“If we are going to have a 50% reduction in carbon by 2030 – if that has any chance of happening – it has to happen through schemes like this,” he said.

“It can be done on a pilot basis. Surely if there is a national climate mitigation strategy, you should be encouraging towns like Mullingar to be able to have bikes available to anybody who wants to use them.”

Director of services Deirdre Reilly agreed to have the matter re-examined and also suggested that it be considered in greater depth at an SPC meeting.