Velo-city 2019 Dublin officially closed its doors yesterday. The final plenary explored the City of Today and how it should evolve into the future of tomorrow. With a special commitment of the Lord Mayor of Dublin.

The closing ceremony was attended by a full auditorium, somehow nostalgic to know the “house of cyclists” is over for another year. But together with some of the greatest speakers in the cycling world, Philippe Crist, Advisor for Innovation and Foresight for the International Transport Forum (ITF) at OECD, gave it a proper goodbye.

Philippe opened the discussion with an inspiring thought:

“The City of the Future is in our hands, we can influence what it will look like, today. And the people who can do that are in this room. What would you keep and what would you leave in the past?”

Miguel Gaspar, Councilman for the city of Lisbon in charge of transport, gave his vision on this: “There are several things we don’t want to see in our cities of the future. Cars are too fast in Lisbon, we have to redesign the streets to offer a better and safer environment for all. And in the future I see, cities will become more mobility managers and less infrastructure builder”.

Janez Koželj, Deputy Mayor of the City of Ljubljana and host of Velo-city 2020, is also looking at the big changes that will happen in the future: “I am an activist of sharing. I want to see cities where we share space, vehicles, buildings. Ljubljana is transforming to adapt to this model and create multi-purpose spaces for cohabitation”.

Raluca Fiser, Vice President of ECF and President of the World Cycling Alliance, thinks we should give more attention to people: “We have to prioritise living in the city, not driving. It’s not about how many vehicles we have, it’s about what kind of human environments we want to build and live in. We are moving in the right direction, we cannot afford to lose this momentum”.

And finally Mariel Figueroa, Country Manager of the bike sharing operator Tembici Argentina, was clear and determined in what she doesn’t want to see anymore: “I am tired of empty speeches: we need decision makers that lead by example and embrace the change they preach”.

A new horizon

Paul McAuliffe, Lord Mayor of Dublin, then took the floor for the handover ceremony, thanking all the Velo-citizens (organisers, volunteers, delegates, speakers, exhibitors, activists, press) for their great effort and the inspiration they brought with them:

“As Lord Mayor of Dublin, I accept the challenge of Velo-city: to make of Dublin a truly cycling city”.

He then simply passed the bike-baton of Velo-city to Janez Koželj, officially closing the 2019 edition.

On behalf of all Velo-citizens, we’d like to thank Dublin for being such a nice host city!