Cork City Council is the first local authority in Ireland to produce an Air Quality Strategy. This strategy follows on from the delivery of a high-level air quality monitoring system across the city and the introduction of an ambitious city centre pedestrianisation programme over 2020/2021.
The Air Quality Strategy sets out short, medium, and long-term initiatives to improve air quality in Cork City including proposing:
• A ‘last mile Electric Vehicle Delivery’ service for HGV (heavy goods vehicles) in the city.
• The creation of Low Emission Zones /Clean Air Zones
• The increase of tree cover in the city including the development and enhancing of ecological corridors, the securing of wetland areas, increasing the number of pocket parks and parklets and the expansion of areas to be used to offset carbon levels. Next year, it is expected that up to 1,500 trees will be planted following the planting of 1,200 this year – a sixfold increase on the year previous.
Over €2 million has been invested in cycling infrastructure including the addition of over 20km of new and improved cycling lanes and the installation of 4km of bollards to make cycling safer and more attractive. The National Transport Authority has committed €3.5bn as part of the Cork Metropolitan Area Transport Strategy to the development of world-class sustainable transport solutions in Cork.
In a recent public survey conducted by Cork City Council on attitudes towards air pollution, 97% of the 744 respondents deemed air quality as important or very important while 47% of those answered the survey are most concerned with air pollution from traffic.
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