A new two-way cycle path on Dodder View Road in Dublin has opened, extending the Dodder Greenway in the Templeogue and Rathfarnham areas.
This video shows the new path and a short section of upgrade works on the Lower Dodder Route — the main part of the video shows the route towards and beyond the junction with the Rathfarnham Road, heading east, and the secondary part shows clips of cycling towards the Rathfarnham Road junction while heading west:
The River Dodder Greenway is in a combination of three council areas — mainly South Dublin County Council and Dublin City Council, and a small section in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council area.
As IrishCycle.com recently reported, quick-build sections of the route are planned to be built to speed up the process of joining up the existing opened sections. The first two projects are already out for public consultation.
This map shows the sections of the Dodder Greenway open, under construction and planned:
That took a long, long time, two years at least for a route which already had a semi decent off road cycle route. Well made.
@Symmachus — what was there previously was basically shared paths the size of normal footpaths or smaller in parts, I wouldn’t use the word decent anywhere near describing them.
Myself and my mother (72) use this a lot now. It is way better than what was there before. As Cian said it was all narrow shared paths or paths made barely passable by brambles in Summer. You can now cycle pretty much segregated from Dundrum luas bridge all the way on to the dodder greenway at the start of your video, especially if you use pedestrian crossings to access the dodder road lower which looks like it is also getting an improved cycle lane. At the moment it is a rough road during works but quiet because it is closed except for local access and cyclists. The whole thing puts a smile on my face, even if it did take ages.
I’d say decent in the sense that there is much worse in the better than nothing sense. Much of it was quite wide, but then a lot of it wasn’t. The problem with it was oft-times there’d be something approaching cyclist-pedestrian conflict. While the route was under construction, I had to switch to an on-road route which was not the worst, but off-road routes are safer. One exercise I carried out myself was to follow this route and other specific off road most park cycling routes to the coast (Monkstown or Dun Laoghaire), and it did highlight for me the problem with shared routes, and the benefit of a clear cycling route.. Some day, somehow, there might be clear cycling route along various axes whether into town or to the coast. Anyhow, I think the design is good and hopefully it’s maintained.
This is a dreadful looking scheme: wall to wall concrete and blacktop and no landscaping. There is no attempt to soften the road corridor and blend it into the adjoining green space. Wide footpaths could have had as a minimum occasional trees in tree pits set into the path. With a small degree of imagination the footpath could have weaved in/out of the green space creating pockets for landscaping close to the road. The cycle track could have been surfaced with a buff colour to improve aesthetics and reduce the wide expanse of blacktop. No doubt this road will have speeding problems because the language of the street encourages it with no in-built traffic calming i.e. trees close to the road edge.
Traveling east to west I can’t see many cyclists waiting for the lights to cross Rathfarnham Road only to get to the other side where they have to wait again to cross Dodder View Road just to use the cycleway.
Then at the lights at Rathfarnham SC having to cross again as they travel towards Walkinstown.
So much money spent. Don’t forget the red bridges, one in Templeogue and one leading into Bushey Park….!
Going the other direction though to where the video starts and the turn off to Tesco is- there is no system to use the road at all as you would normally at a junction- it’s either cross as a pedestrian at the lights or hop off the lane earlier and take you chances in the car lane with passing cars who don’t expect you there and with no safety box or mini red cycle lane to get off the cycle track and into position to turn left.
I still don’t understand how they can put so much effort into these long stretches of lanes that are away from heavy interaction with traffic anyway, yet high traffic and dangerous urban areas are completely ignored- Westmoreland St, Quays, etc etc
Coming from the dodder Park Road junction towards the tesco, I made it through the lights and stayed on the road . I was doing a good 35kmph keeping up with traffic. A van a few cars behind was beeping furiously. A couple cars passed me and this asshat pulled alongside and started shouting and swearing point to cycle lane across the road. I swear back and the prick speeds ahead of me, jams on his breaks and swerves towards the kerb. I squeeze passed alongside the kerb.as I passed I see the look of shock on his face as he realised what nearly happened. All his bluster and he didn’t realised the speed I was going. If he clipped me he would have been in serious shit. When he passed by again his window was rolled up and he said nothing, and every other time he passed by up templeogue he said nothing and didn’t even look at me.
These off road lanes are good but they need to flow with traffic. That section along the river will have several crossing to get on and off each end. It’s not practical and it gives some cars the opinion that the cyclist is in the wrong for being on the road and fair game to abuse, if they don’t use them.
Exactly- totally agree- quite dangerous. Many of these schemes don’t suit every journey- they need to be better integrated with general journey routes- especially near obvious journey locations like shopping centres or towns.
If you cycle on George’s Street (no cycle lanes) in Dun Laoghaire, Monkstown or the Main Street you get the same thing… they expect you to stay on the cycle lane along the coast and nowhere else.
This looks great but I’m skeptical of “quick build schemes” because our experience is that they take just as long to get underway as the regular ones as they make their way through the morass of our sclerotic planning system.
That said I’m really looking forward to the whole system opening up to eager cyclists!