Soon-to-open Dublin Bay cycle route to mix cycling and walking at junctions

— Project to fill 2km missing link on S2S route next to Bull Island

A northside section of the Sutton to Sandycove (S2S) Dublin Bay cycle route, which is due to be opened next month, will mix walking and cycling at junctions.

At the public consultation stage in 2013, the project was planned to include shared sections of footpaths at junctions. The implemented design fails to fix this design issue and seems to include larger-than-planned sections of shared footpath surfaces around junctions.

Our images below also show how new footpaths on the inland side of the revamped costal road, do not comply with the Manual for Urban Roads and Street. The manual outlines that, where footpaths cross driveways, footpath users should have a level surface — this guidance is not followed.

Most of the media attention on the project and its €5 million price tag is focused on the cycle route, but the overall project includes laying a major new water main pipe, building coastal flood defences, and a full rebuild of footpaths and the roadway surfaces along the route.

The 2km section of cycle route is still under construction and works on the water main appeared to be still on-going last week.

The cycle route section of the project will fill in a major gap between two existing section of the S2S on the northside and it will form part of what will be the longest continuous cycle route segregated from motorists in Dublin.

While the under construction section and some of the older sections of the route will have some shared surfaces between pedestrians and cycling, the route will be segregated from motor traffic for nearly 10km. It will stretch from Fairview Park just north of the East Wall Road / Alfie Byrne Road junction to the Dublin Road just before Sutton Cross.

The project is officially named the “S2S Cycle & Footway Interim Scheme” because an earlier and grander design which would have included an expensive boardwalk is not going ahead at this time. The current project instead makes use of the space behind the coastal wall by narrowing the roadway.

The S2S North will, however, not link to the city centre in the short-term because councillors voted in 2011 against a planned link between the Docklands and Fairview Park via the Eastwall area.

Above and below are images of some of the shared footpath sections:

Here’s how the route will link with the existing section of the S2S south of the Wooden Bridge in Clontarf:

New footpaths on the in-land side of the road, do not comply with the Manual for Urban Roads and Street:

One the the completed sections (still fenced off):

The roadway is finished:

A section which still needs its final surface:

Here’s one of the hidden costs of the project — the water main:


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