Belfast city centre’s first ever secure bike cage will soon be popping up.
It comes as a motion brought forward by Green Party Councillor, Brian Smyth, got ratified by Belfast City Council this week with cross-party support.
The city centre parking cage proposal is part of a series of measures which will also include an expansion of the Belfast Bikes scheme.
Four new Belfast Bike stations in each corner of the city should be ready for use alongside the city centre bike cage in September.
Councillor Smyth said: “Belfast is not cycling friendly and is lagging well behind so many places in the provision of safe and accessible cycling infrastructure.”
More than £800,000 worth of bikes were stolen last year alone in Belfast.
Cllr Smyth, a cyclist himself, said the scheme also involved “improving connections between the city centre and nearby communities,” adding that the increased infrastructure is about “building new ways for people to get about.”
New investment in cycling infrastructure in all corners of the city will amount to a total of £310,000.
The vision to reimagine Belfast as a green city is a long-term goal.
“We are trying to push a long term vision here and I know that there's going to be bumps along the way. But how we operate presently is just completely unsustainable and it's not healthy. And it's not healthy for the people in our city,” he said.
Some of the inspirations that Cllr Smyth has cited for the vision have included Bristol, Brighton and beyond.
He told Belfast Live: “I look at somewhere like Amsterdam 50 years ago. It was as bad as Belfast is now … and it changed.”
Support from residents has been “really positive."
He added: “In terms of locally with the Lisnasharragh leisure centre, I think people know it makes perfect sense to have a Belfast Bike station.”
But a coalition of different political parties have been supportive of increasing cycling infrastructure too.
There are eight parties across Belfast City Council, and four of those parties are represented in Lisnasharragh alone, where Mr Smyth is a councillor.
On securing the new Belfast Bike park for Lisnasharragh Leisure Centre, Coun Smyth told Belfast Live: “There's been really good cross party working between ourselves and the different parties represented in the area: me as a Green, two Alliance councillors, two DUP and one SDLP – it’s fairly broad.”
Cllr Smyth says that, in recent years, Belfast has “suffered” and that we “need to be creative and inventive with how we attract more footfall back into it.
“Strengthening our cycling infrastructure can play a vital role in that.”
