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The Way Forward: A Broader Vision

During the Summer break of 2008 a number of students who had been involved with the Green Mile Week met to reflect on what had been achieved and to consider the future potential of this project. It quickly became clear that what had been achieved to date was only the beginning of a much more significant project, namely the putting in place of an efficient, viable and sustainable school transportation system which will serve this country into the future. That system must, as we see it, be centred on students cycling and walking to school wherever the distance is reasonable (e.g. less than 5km), with an efficient bus system to cater for students outside this radius and bad weather conditions. In this way we can reduce traffic volumes significantly making the roads safer for all users while positively affecting the health of our young people - lack of fitness and obesity in children is a rapidly growing problem.

We had the opportunity, in June 2008, to present our work to date and our vision for the future development of the Green Mile Project to the Strategic Policy Comittee for the Environment, Cork County Council. We received very positive feedback, and a commitment of support into the future.

In persuit of this vision, we have developed a set of short term and long term goals, as follows:

Short Term Goals:
Establish Charleville as a model school transportation town (similar to the way in which Ennis, Co. Clare was set up, some years ago, as a model IT town), along the following lines:

• Provide safe cycling lessons to all secondary school students in Charleville
• Provide bicycle lock-ups in all of Charleville's secondary schools
• Provide cycle lanes along all major routes up to a 5km radius of Charleville town centre, connecting to all schools in the town, together with improved street lighting
• Put in place a system of temporary speed limit reductions at school drop-off and pick-up times within the 5km radius
• Work in conjunction with the school book companies to provide to each student an electronic copy of every book purchased, in order to obviate the need to carry books to and from school
• Work in conjunction with the school bus companies to maximise the efficiency of routes and buses, converting all school buses to bio-fuel

Long Term Goals:

• Continue to work in cooperation with Cork County Council to monitor the implementation and effectiveness of the above measures
• Once the effectiveness of the Charleville school transportation system has been confirmed, roll out nationally.