Progress on Royal Canal Greenway from North Strand to the Docklands

Foundations are being built on an important walking and cycling link in Dublin — the Royal Canal Greenway from North Strand Road to the Docklands.

It will link into the small existing section of cycle path on the Royal Canal beside the Convention Centre, and onto the Grand Canal Cycleway and the two-way cycle path along the South Docklands.

It might not look like much now but the foundations are being laid on this link in Dublin’s slowly developing cycle network:

Most of this section of the route is very high quality with separate paths for walking and cycling. Although a new bridge is planned to have a shared walking and cycling surface.

This section of the route starts behind the Convention Centre and across the canal from the Docklands railway station (image of that end of the Canal in the main picture above).

The route then goes under this bridge carrying the Northern Line (which is the railway to north Dublin and Belfast):

The route will then quickly starts to rise on a new bridge over the railway between these two fences pictured below (which is the rail link between Docklands railway and Connelly Station):

This is the view from the Northern Line:

The route will then reach North Strand Road — the road with the second busiest flow of commuter cyclists into Dublin City Centre, which is due to get segregated cycle tracks, creating a link to the northern section of the S2S Dublin Bay cycle route.

The greenway will continue towards west Dublin and onwards along the Royal Canal on a mostly built (or under construction) greenway to Longford in the midlands. The route in turn uses a disused railway between Longford and Athlone.

Most of the yet-to-be upgraded sections of the canal greenway are in Co Dublin. The planned Dublin City Council area upgrade will include new and improved crossings of busy roads, improved access points and replacing restrictive barriers with bollards.


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11 comments

  1. And will there be the usual discrimination gates at exit/entry points? Will I be able to get my cargo-bike along it? :/

    Reply
    • @Wolf as noted in the article, Dublin City Council plans to remove the restrictive barriers along the Royal Canal — a single row of bollards is set to be used here too.

      Reply
  2. Totally agree with Citizen Wolf we need to take action,legal if necessary to get proper access to cycling infrastructure here.
    Does anyone know the latest on ferrans lock and moyvalley sections of the grand canal greenway?

    Reply
  3. @cian Yep, I saw that. But I remain skeptical. We’ll see I guess. If they do remove the discrimination gates, let’s hope they do it all along the canal. Lots of these gates are still in place all the way out to Ashtown :(

    Reply
  4. The Gardai are very jurisdiction minded such that it’s like something out of an American road movie with thieves crossing the state lines.

    They really need to be more proactive in how they Police the canal route.

    Reply
  5. @CitizenWolf There’s no barriers or gates from the North Strand road up to Dorset st. There are some steps at Jones’ road, but nothing at Summerhill

    Reply
  6. Any steps, barriers, gates or bollards less than one metre apart will prevent our #CyclingWithoutAge trishaws from using the canal paths. Our trishaws are 1.1m wide at the front, and 2m long, with a large turning circle. Once built, it will be too late to make these changes.

    Reply

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