— National Transport Authority fails to meet fifth deadline on core route.
The long-delayed reveal of the preferred option of the Liffey Cycle Route is delayed, again, at least until the new year.
The National Transport Authority has continued to fail to meet deadlines after it took the route planning away from Dublin City Council when councillors were on the verge of voting between two options.
The authority is also looking to revise its Greater Dublin Area Cycle Network before any significant sections of segregated routes are built.
The news comes as the Dublin Cycling Campaign tomorrow continues its monthly family-friendly Liffey Cycle protest starting at 11am from Grand Canal Square and traveling along the quays. The group also intends running a BusConnects workshop on the first four routes to be announced.
The National Transport Authority did not respond to a request for an update from IrishCycle.com before the weekend, but a spokesman told The Times that the Liffey route would be presented to Dublin City Council in the new year.
The authority has said the preferred route option would be revealed by December. Dermot O’Gara, a spokesman for the National Transport Authority said in October: “Work on the Liffey Cycle Scheme is at a very advanced stage and we hope to have it completed next month.”
In an article today, The Times covers criticism by Mikael Colville-Andersen of cycling progress in Dublin. Colville-Andersen recently left Copenhagenize, a cycling-focused planning agency he set up.
A spokesman for the National Transport Authority rejected Colville-Andersen‘s criticism of the Dodder Greenway staying it was “premature”.
However, Colville-Andersen‘s criticism of the Dodder has centred on mixing walking and cycling on shared paths and a large section of the route by South Dublin County Council is already confirmed as set to use shared paths, and the section closer to the city was recently put public consultation as a share paths.
Influential local group Dodder Action, which does work on cleaning and protecting the river, views shared paths as the best solution for all users. The thinking goes against strong Irish and international advice and experience that mixing cycling and walking in urban areas does not work, especially not on routes between suburbs and large areas of employment.
According to The Times, Colville-Andersen also said that on-street cycle paths should never be bidirectional because he claimed they provided no protection from cars at busy junctions — although Colville-Andersen has made has opposition to two-way cycle paths known previously, the idea that such designs provided no protection at junctions will raise an eyebrow with our Dutch readers who are used to two-way cycle paths with signalised segregation.
Dutch cycle paths — both unidirectional and bidirectional — are widely viewed cycling observers to offer more protection at junctions.
Two-way cycle paths are still been built in the Netherlands in cities such as Amsterdam and Utrecht which have higher cycling modal share and are seen by other observers to have more children cycling themselves than Colville-Andersen‘s home city of Copenhagen.
Honestly the protest is a joke at this point. I have been a few times and really what is the point of going at 11am on a SubSun. People use the cycle route during work hours. We should hold the protest at 5:30pm on a Friday if we want results