Northern Ireland cycling policy dashboard
Bicycle Strategy key targets and outcomes
Budget: Department for Infrastructure, Walking and Cycling Unit
Data sources
Time periods have been matched for consistency across different formats, eg DfI's budgets work to financial years, TSNI uses a 3 year average and other measures use a calendar year.
Notes
5% of all journeys between 2 and 5 miles to be cycled by 2025, and 10% by 2040
10% of all journeys between 1 and 2 miles to be cycled by 2025, and 20% by 2040
20% of all journeys less than 1 mile to be cycled by 2025, and 40% by 2040
"Measuring Success: The Minister’s ambitions for increasing the number of people choosing to travel by bicycle during the lifetime of [the Strategy] are set out below. Securing the level of resources [as detailed] will enable us to deliver these ambitions."
An annual spend
of £12.5m per annum within five years, and £18m within 10 years
£
"The truth about cycling aspirations isn't found in the vision. It's found in the budget."
Last update: TSNI 2017-2019 in-depth report (Jan 2021)
Next update: DfI end of year spend (April 2022)
From 2014 to 2019 the TSNI survey has not reported a figure for cycling journeys under 1 mile, marking instead as "negligible (less than 0.5 (including 0))."
Northern Ireland has never recorded cycling levels above 1% of all journeys under a mile in length.
There is no evidence of a growth trend in cycling in the journey range of between 1 and 2 miles.
The cycling share of journeys at this distance is now only just above one quarter of the target level set by the Bicycle Strategy.
There is no evidence of a growth trend in cycling in the journey range of between 2 and 5 miles.
The cycling share of journeys at this distance is now just half of the target level set by the Bicycle Strategy.
There are 4 measures of progress of the Bicycle Strategy for Northern Ireland, based around budget and journeys.
Our key: 2019 = 2019/20 = 2017-2019 (using most recent TSNI year). Report displays calendar year.
Walking 30%
Public transport 2%
Private motorised 65%
Comparison (2019)
Walking 68%
Public transport 1%
Private motorised 31%
Comparison (2019)
Walking 8%
Public transport 5%
Private motorised 85%
Comparison (2019)
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The Bicycle Strategy laid out a framework to bridge the gap between NI's historically poor cycling investment and the consensus £10 per head of population needed to propagate real cycling growth (still short of the £25 per head in NL).
We've estimated the year-on-year budget growth required to reach £18 million by 2025.
Over the past 3 years the actual annual cycling budget has averaged just 55% of the target budget.
The indicative budget for 2021 is £11m, but we await the actual spend.