Active Travel Ireland – €360m a Year and 1,000km Built

Active travel Ireland has become one of the country’s largest infrastructure programmes, with €360 million committed annually for walking, cycling and scooting infrastructure through to 2030. In five years, over €1 billion has been invested and more than 1,000km of new walking and cycling infrastructure has been delivered across all 31 local authorities. This guide covers the scale of investment, the delivery architecture, staffing capacity, key programmes like Safe Routes to School, and the challenges facing Ireland’s most ambitious transport infrastructure shift in decades.

💶 The €360 Million Annual Commitment

Ireland’s active travel investment is split across two primary channels. The National Transport Authority (NTA) received €290 million in 2025 (and again in 2026) for its Active and Sustainable Transport Investment Programme, which funds walking and cycling infrastructure in cities, towns and villages. This covers segregated cycle lanes, widened footpaths, pedestrian and cycling bridges, new pedestrian crossings and public realm improvements. Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) received a further €67 million in 2025 (€62 million in 2026) for greenway development and active travel infrastructure on national roads.

An additional €8 million is available annually for behavioural change and training programmes, including CycleRight training in primary schools and the NTA’s Smarter Travel Workplaces and Campuses Programme. This brings the combined total to approximately €360 million per year – a figure that has been locked in under the National Development Plan Transport Sectoral Plan, published in November 2025, with funding guaranteed through to 2030.

To put this in context, the total NTA funding for active travel over the last ten years amounts to approximately €1.75 billion, with the majority allocated in the second half of that period. Before the current Programme for Government, annual active travel spending was just €45 million in 2019. The tenfold increase to €360 million represents one of the most dramatic shifts in transport infrastructure priorities in the history of the state.

🏗️ What Has Been Delivered

The headline output from five years of investment is over 1,000km of new and improved walking and cycling infrastructure delivered across every county in Ireland. This includes segregated cycle lanes, widened and improved footpaths, dedicated pedestrian and cycling bridges, junction improvements, pedestrian crossings and public realm upgrades. The NTA manages approximately 1,000 individual projects per year across all 31 local authorities, ranging from small-scale crossing improvements to major Pathfinder projects that transform entire transport corridors.

Notable completed projects in recent years include the Salmon Weir Bridge in Galway city, the MacCurtain Street Public Transport Improvement Scheme in Cork, the Hyde Road Scheme in Limerick, the Coastal Mobility Route extension in Dun Laoghaire, and various schemes in towns like Mullingar, Donegal and Athlone. In 2026, major projects progressing include the Broadmeadow Estuary Greenway in Dublin, the Lehenaghmore Road Improvement Scheme in Cork, the Mary Immaculate College to City Centre Active Travel Scheme in Limerick and the Tramore Ring Road Active Travel Scheme in Waterford.

One of the less understood aspects of the programme is the split between pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. An NTA analysis in November 2025 revealed that active travel spending is actually split approximately 60/40 in favour of pedestrian infrastructure, contradicting the common perception that the programme is primarily about cycling. Footpath improvements, pedestrian crossings, public realm enhancements and accessibility upgrades account for the majority of spending, reflecting the fact that walking is by far the most common form of active travel.

👥 Building Local Authority Capacity

One of the most significant achievements of the active travel programme has been the creation of dedicated active travel teams within all 31 local authorities. Approximately 240 specialised staff have been recruited across the country, funded by the Department of Transport through the NTA. These teams include engineers, planners, project managers and community engagement officers whose sole focus is delivering walking and cycling infrastructure.

Before the programme, most local authorities had no dedicated active travel staff. Road engineers and planners handled walking and cycling projects alongside their other responsibilities, often with limited expertise in active travel design. The creation of dedicated teams has transformed delivery capacity, allowing local authorities to manage multiple projects simultaneously while building institutional expertise in areas like segregated cycle lane design, junction treatments and accessibility standards.

In December 2025, Minister O’Brien and Minister Canney confirmed the continuation of funding for active travel staff in local authorities through to the end of 2030. This five-year guarantee gives councils the certainty they need to recruit, train and retain staff, avoiding the loss of expertise that often follows short-term funding cycles. The NTA also provides ongoing training and upskilling for local authority staff to ensure construction and delivery of high-quality projects.

🏫 Safe Routes to School

The Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programme is one of the most visible elements of the active travel investment. The programme delivers infrastructure improvements at and around schools – including pedestrian crossings, reduced-speed zones, cycle parking, drop-off management and front-of-school treatments – to make walking and cycling to school safer and more attractive for children and families.

CycleRight training, delivered in primary schools as part of the broader active travel programme, teaches children practical cycling skills and road safety. The programme aims to build a generation of confident, safe cyclists who see active travel as a normal part of daily life. Construction on front-of-school infrastructure treatments continues at dozens of schools across the country each year.

The programme is not just about infrastructure. Behavioural change initiatives including walk-to-school campaigns, cycle buses (where groups of children cycle to school together with adult supervision) and school travel plans are all part of the effort to shift how families get to school. The €8 million annual allocation for behavioural change programmes funds these initiatives alongside the Smarter Travel Workplaces and Campuses Programme, which targets adult commuters.

🎯 Targets and Policy Framework

The Climate Action Plan sets a target for walking, cycling and public transport to account for 50% of all journeys by 2030. This is an ambitious goal given that Census 2022 data showed cycling accounting for 3-4% of commuter trips and car dependency remaining deeply embedded in Irish travel patterns. Achieving it will require not just infrastructure but fundamental changes in land use planning, school transport, workplace practices and public attitudes.

The 2026 target is to deliver 200km of new walking and cycling infrastructure, broadly in line with the annual delivery rate needed to meet Climate Action Plan goals. The NTA’s 2026 allocation of €290 million will fund almost 1,000 projects of varying scale, from small crossing improvements to major urban corridor schemes.

Vision Zero, the national road safety strategy, aims to eliminate road fatalities and serious injuries by 2050. Active travel infrastructure is a key component of this strategy, with segregated facilities for pedestrians and cyclists physically separating vulnerable road users from motor traffic. Minister Canney specifically linked the 2026 funding announcement to Vision Zero, noting that the NTA planned to assess locations of interest for road safety improvements aimed at protecting vulnerable road users.

🚍 BusConnects and Integrated Delivery

BusConnects is one of the most significant channels for active travel infrastructure delivery in Dublin and Cork. The programme redesigns bus corridors in both cities, and as part of each corridor redesign, new segregated cycling lanes and improved pedestrian infrastructure are delivered along the route. This integrated approach means that active travel infrastructure is built as part of major transport projects rather than as standalone interventions.

In Dublin, BusConnects involves 12 core bus corridors radiating out from the city centre. Each corridor includes continuous segregated cycling facilities along its length, creating a network of protected routes that connect suburban communities to the city centre and to each other. Cork’s BusConnects programme follows a similar model, though at a smaller scale. The approach demonstrates that active travel infrastructure is most effectively delivered when it is embedded in broader transport planning, rather than treated as an afterthought.

⚠️ Delivery Challenges

Despite strong funding and political support, the active travel programme faces significant delivery challenges. Planning objections and local political resistance have delayed or blocked projects in several areas, with segregated cycle lanes and road space reallocation proving particularly contentious. Some business groups oppose the removal of on-street parking to accommodate cycle lanes, while residential objections to construction disruption can slow timelines.

Design quality varies across local authorities. While some councils have developed strong in-house expertise, others produce designs that fall short of best practice standards for segregation, junction treatment and accessibility. The NTA has invested in design guidance and training, but inconsistency remains a concern for active travel advocates who argue that poor-quality infrastructure discourages use.

Coordination across multiple agencies is another challenge. The NTA, TII, local authorities and several government departments all play roles in active travel delivery, and ensuring consistent standards and joined-up planning across this complex institutional landscape requires sustained effort. BusConnects, which delivers cycling infrastructure as part of bus corridor redesign in Dublin and Cork, is an example of effective integration, but replicating this approach across all transport projects remains a work in progress.

Some local authorities have experienced funding volatility despite the national commitment. County Louth, for example, saw its active travel allocation cut from €6.5 million to €4 million for 2026, raising concerns about whether the national €360 million figure translates into consistent funding at local level. The NTA allocates funding based on project readiness and delivery capacity, which can create variations between authorities.

🔮 What Comes Next

The active travel programme is now entering a phase of maturity. The initial focus on building delivery capacity – recruiting staff, developing design skills, establishing project pipelines – is shifting towards accelerating construction output. The target of 200km per year, set under the Climate Action Plan, requires the programme to maintain its current trajectory while improving the quality and consistency of what is delivered.

The five-year funding guarantee announced in December 2025 provides the certainty that councils, contractors and supply chains need to plan ahead. It also sends a political signal that active travel investment is not a temporary initiative but a permanent feature of Ireland’s transport landscape. Whether the programme can sustain momentum through changes of government, economic downturns and competing infrastructure demands will determine whether Ireland achieves its target of 50% of journeys by walking, cycling and public transport by 2030.