THE PROSPECT of your employer being able to supply you with a company bicycle and accessories worth up to €1,000 looks set to boost the ranks of cycling commuters next year.
The new benefit-in-kind tax relief scheme for companies that buy bikes for their employees, announced in the Budget, is similar in concept to one that has been running in the UK for years and which has helped boost sales of bicycles.
In the Republic, the number of people cycling to work has risen steadily, if undramatically, over the past decade, according to Dublin City Council's annual traffic survey. But in the past year the number has jumped by 17 per cent, according to the most recent survey, which counts the cars, lorries, cyclists, motorcyclists, buses and pedestrians entering the city between 7am and 10am. Figures from Cork City Council's traffic survey also show a sharp increase in those cycling in the past two years. The number of cyclists counted cycling both into and out of Cork city has risen from over 2,100 in 2005 to nearly 3,000 in 2007.
The growing trend for cycle commuting is catching on elsewhere, boosted by traffic congestion and soaring oil prices, but also by local authority initiatives to encourage cycling to improve public health. Paris, Barcelona and other cities in Europe have introduced bicycle loan schemes that allow commuters to pick up bicycles at official stands outside train stations. All that is needed is a swipe of a credit card to guarantee that the bike will be returned.
A similar, if controversial, system is coming to Dublin next year, courtesy of a deal between Dublin City Council and outdoor advertising firm JC Decaux, which also operates the Paris scheme and several others.
In addition, Dublin City Council is to appoint a qualified civil engineer to a newly created post of "cycling officer", while Cork City Council has been working to promote cycle commuting through various events this year.
One doesn't have to look far to find apparently solid scientific evidence of the positive link between good health and cycling. Cycling England, a British government-sponsored expert body charged with promoting cycling, recently published a report entitled Cycling and Health, which aims to list all the available evidence about the health benefits of cycling.
For instance, one study found that people who cycle to work experienced a 39 per cent lower rate of "all-cause mortality" compared to those who did not - even after adjustment for other risk factors.
Another study found that cycling for an additional 30 minutes on most days of the week, combined with reducing calorie intake, could achieve weight loss comparable to doing three aerobic classes a week.
The benefits also extend to emotional health, with at least one study showing that cycling can improve wellbeing, self-confidence and tolerance to stress while reducing tiredness, difficulties with sleep and a range of medical symptoms.
The Cycling England report also addressed the safety issue, acknowledging that one of the barriers to taking up cycling was the perception of the physical danger posed by other traffic. However, it concluded that the real risks were minimal, citing one study's conclusion that the risks were "outweighed by the health benefits by a factor of around 20 to one".
Nevertheless, the "fear factor" is the one that probably does most to put off many commuters in Ireland from considering using a bicycle even for very short trips, says Dr Mike McKillen, chairman of the Dublin Cycling Campaign. A commuting cyclist for 37 years, he says that beginner cyclists are put off by congestion, noise and pollution; other vehicles going too fast in urban areas; dangerous overtaking by buses, coaches and taxis in bus lanes that are too narrow; and a continuing failure by gardaí to prosecute poor and dangerous driving.
McKillen is also keen to put Dublin City Council's traffic figures into some perspective, pointing out that the overall number of cycle commuters remains 'tiny' and fluctuates anyway depending on the weather on the days of the council's canal cordon traffic count.
He says the 2006 National Census is a more accurate reference, but it charts an "inexorable" decline in commuting by bike over the years.
According to the 2006 Census, only about 1.9 per cent of adults used a bike to go to work; only 4 per cent of school pupils cycled, and of these only a tiny fraction were girls. "We also need school-based surveys to find out why parents are not permitting children to cycle to school," he says.
McKillen and his fellow cycle campaigners have welcomed the new tax incentive as a decent effort to encourage a shift in positive attitudes towards bicycles as commuting transport, and also as greener transport.
But he questions whether the affordability of a bike is the key issue that discourages more people from cycling to work.
"It is the perception among citizens that it is dangerous to cycle on our roads that is the key issue," he says.
"We need to make roads safer so that neophyte cyclists will not quit having just purchased their new bike under this scheme after a few days trying to cycle to work, and finding out that taxis and buses are overtaking with unsafe separation distances in sub-standard bus lanes."
Encouraging more cyclists onto the roads is, by itself, a measure that would do a great deal to improve cycling safety, cycle campaigners say, but they add that the successful promotion of cycling depends on more than just encouraging and educating people. It also depends on cycling being afforded parity of esteem with driving, in terms of planning, road design, transport policy, and enforcement of the law ondangerous overtaking.
"The best measure that the Government could implement to reduce the fear factor would be to instruct the gardaí to effectively enforce the dangerous overtaking offence against drivers who endanger cyclists," says McKillen.
There is some optimism that, besides the new tax incentive, the Government is at last showing a willingness to tackle more of the issues that discourage many of us from cycling everyday. In a speech last May, the Minister for Transport, Noel Dempsey, said he had instructed his department to draft a national cycling policy which, when published, would commit to developing a "culture of cycling in Ireland by 2020, with 10 per cent of all trips by bike".
'It is quicker than going by public transport'
The decision to leave the car at home (or bypass the bus stop) is likely to be driven by other factors besides beating the traffic jams, but particularly the health benefits of cycling. For instance, the ability to combine the journey to work with reasonably vigorous exercise is clearly one of the main attractions of this form of commuting.
Sebastian Hoffmann (28), pictured above, started cycling to work from his home in Rathmines to the Ebay Ireland headquarters in Blanchardstown last autumn.
"In my job I work most of the time sitting at my desk and I felt that I didn't get the chance to move around enough," he says. "There was not always a chance to catch up with any sports activity after work either."
Hoffmann now cycles the 12km (each way) to work every day of the week regardless of the weather conditions. He found it hard at the beginning but quickly felt fitter as a result and now can't imagine leaving his bike in the shed for more than three days.
He changes out of his cycling gear and into normal work clothes after taking a shower in the gym at work.
"I'm quite happy now combining a little workout of 45 minutes in the morning and the afternoon with the need to get from home to work and back," he says. The journey to work is quicker than going by public transport, he says.