A new plan to replace the long-hated narrow pathway alongside Blackrock Dart Station will be presented to councillors. The plans include separate paths for walking and cycling.
The current path forms part of the Coastal Mobility Route, but signs tell cyclists to dismount as there’s an 80-metre pinch point where it is hardly wide enough for many bicycles, prams, and wheelchairs to pass at once.
Cllr Tom Kivlehan (Green Party) said: “A Part 8 planning [process] for a new connection between Blackrock Dart station and Blackrock Park at Deepwell will be discussed tonight on the Dun Laoghaire Area Committee… progress at last!”
According to a drawing provided to councillors, the project will include extending the two-way cycle path and separate footpaths in Blackrock Park towards Blackrock Dart Station.
The work proposed includes closing the existing narrow alleyway beside the Dart platform and forming a new public space in what is currently part of the garden in Deepwell House, a former house of the Guinness family.
On the park side, a new bridge will be required to replace the existing narrower bridge over the stream, and, on the station side, a shared area for people walking and cycling is proposed before the cycle path exits onto the carriageway on Bath Place outside the train station.
‘Support Living Streets Dun Laoghaire’, a group set up to campaign for the neighbouring Living Streets project, said: “Great to see the narrow pathway beside Blackrock Dart Station (behind the old house known as Deepwell) on the agenda! A wider pathway is desperately needed as anyone who walks or cycles in the area knows.”
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I can’t believe it has taken this long for them just to raise it as an issue!- it’s been an obvious disaster for decades at this stage. They should have CPO’d the mofo back when they put the dart station in.
One can only hope it isn’t another 30 years before they get it built. Assuming it doesn’t cost a few million for the barely 100 metres it stretches.
Or at least when they did the platform extension, back in what, the ’90s? When they did that, they narrowed the already narrow lane. At the station end one can still see the remnant of the original railing concreted closed for all eternity.
And not before time! The notes on the drawing saying “following landowner engagement” are a bit worrying. Hopefully there has at least been enough “engagement” to agree the principle of the land acquisition whatever about the details of wall heights and finishes.
This can’t come soon enough!
I’ve spent years on the DART platform listening to people having arguments about right of way in this narrow patch. Personally don’t understand why they didn’t route a spur up the hill towards the car park to make this lane unnecessary if cycling. But better late than never. Should have CPOed the land when the platform was extended