A new ramp for walking and cycling has been installed along the Royal Canal just across from Croke Park — the structure gives an idea of how a 2.1km section of the Royal Canal Greenway is costing €30.8 million.
The greenway will stretch over 150km from the River Liffey to the River Shannon in Cloondara, west of Longford town, but the Dublin City section of the route is the most complicated and costly. Most of the route is already open — over 130km — and was built at a fraction of the cost, but sections in Dublin City and Fingal are still in planning.
Dublin City Council’s phase 3 of its section of the route is under construction from Glasnevin / Phibsborough to North Strand Road. It is scheduled for completion in Q2 in 2025.
As our images showed recently, the section between Glasnevin and Drumcondra is progressing and is likely to be opened first.
The new ramp is at the east side of the Bloody Sunday Bridge (also known as Russell Street Bridge), which goes over the canal at Russell Street / Jones’ Road.
The photos posted by Dublin City Council show how, where the project includes ramps, these are not simple structures and are nearly bridge-like:
The location of the ramp is marked in yellow:
Here’s a video overview of the project:
Still no sign of any work starting on the section from Leixlip to Porterstown. This section is a straightforward build before the mess of the deep sinking, and should have been completed years ago.
Apparently Fingal didn’t want to draw down the funding in stages, preferring to do it in one go. Frustrating to put it politely.