Major Dublin cycle route projects on hold due to lack of funding

National Transport Authority officials have asked Dublin City Council to suspend work on three major cycle route projects because of a lack of funding.

The three projects are the Dodder Greenway,  the city centre to Sandyford (Clonskeagh) route, Royal Canal Cycleway Phase 4 (between Phibsborough to Ashtown), and Dodder Greenway.

Cllr Ciaran Cuffe (Green Party), chairman of the city council’s transport committee, said: There’s been a rise in cycling in recent years, but we’re not seeing funding keeping pace. These projects are crucial elements of the city cycling network. If they are stalled it will set cycling back significantly and leave cyclists with sub-standard facilities.”

The issue is to be discussed at a meeting of Dublin City Council next monday.

He added: “There is a stark contrast with the funding made available to gold-plated road bypasses for towns around Ireland, and the crumbs of funding available to cycling in the Government’s transport plans.

 


...That's the end of the article. Keep scrolling if you want to the comments, but IrishCycle.com *NEEDS* readers like you to keep it that way. It only requires a small percentage of readers to give a bit each month or every year to keep IrishCycle.com's journalism open to all. Thank you.


9 comments

  1. This ridiculous. According to your linked article, these three schemes were allocated combined funding in 2016 of €610,000 out of a total allocation of €23.2m. Are the NTA now saying that the money has been spent on these projects and no more is available; that there have been overruns on other projects and these projects must be stopped to fund the overruns or that their total allocation has been cut by the Dept of Finance? This comes on top of a recent instruction to DCC to stop design work on the proposed pedestrian/cycle bridge downstream of the Samuel Beckett bridge.
    As we all unfortunately know, cycle infrastructure projects take years of studies, design, procurement and eventual construction before we finally get something we can all use. Cuts to funding anywhere in this elaborate process inevitably lead to major delays if not shelving of essential projects.

    Reply
  2. Once upon a time a cyclist was very mean to someone who grew up and took a senior position at the dept of transport. Fiction?

    I am running out of ideas as to why there is such a blasé attitude towards cycling in government. The pro-car lobby seems to be gaining ground while the trend internationally is to prioritise quality of life and sustainable development. Forget Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Seville… we are not far off having to look up to Belfast for more realistic aspirations.

    Ciaran Cuffe is doing great keeping the pressure up, I doubt it is an easy job – and so is Mr. Ginty, of course! There is a serious cultural change needed, let’s hope the tipping point is not too far off.

    Reply
  3. The NTA should be dissolved – they’re utterly useless and incompetent.

    Dublin needs a directly-elected mayor which includes responsibility for transport.

    Reply
  4. Bad news on the project funding. Good for Ciaran on fighting the good fight. This should be more highlighted so that the council and NTA do not escape scrutiny for these decisions.

    Agreed with Aidan on an elected mayor, though it should follow best practice in other countries and also cover actual Greater Dublin including North Wicklow, North Kildare and East Meath rather than being wedded to anachronistic county boundaries.

    Reply
  5. Dublin City Council could have secured itself the funding to further these projects if it hadn’t cut property tax (RPT) to the lowest permitted in law!
    We need to know if there are cost over-runs on LuasXCity. Let Minister Ross explain it to us, after all being in transport is a doddle. The NTA is his quango and he has been a critic of doing things by quango for so long when in opposition.
    It proves yet again my contention that cyclists don’t count.

    Reply
  6. There is no specific reference to S2S scheme in the RTE report so can we assume that it’s going ahead due to it being part of a flood-defence scheme?

    Reply
  7. The €1.2m allocation from the NTA to finish the Dollymount section of the S2S doesn’t seem to be affected. It’s hard to know why they picked the three particular projects and why they didn’t leave it up to DCC if cuts had to be made.

    Reply
  8. Ironic too that Luas, who refuse to allow bikes on their trams despite NTA policy, are now soaking up funds allocated for cycling and walking infrastructure.

    Reply
  9. The Journal (pinch of salt possibly required) are reporting that this decision is not about funding as such, but is due to lack of available engineering resources due to the demands of the Luas Cross City project. Given that the Luas project is not due until late next year, are we looking at no more movement on these cycling projects before then?
    I’ve been waiting well over a decade for the Nortk Kildare / D15 section of the Royal Canal bike route to be built and in that time, only 1km of my 7km route has been given a cinder-track surface because of other roadworks at Clonsilla. Environmental impact study was done two years ago. Still nothing. And now this. Starting to think I’ll be heading for retirement age before I see it completed.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to akaCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.