Luas Finglas includes sub-standard, disjointed cycle paths years after project lead said it would “jeopardise and undermine” planning process

Plans for the Luas Finglas, a 4km extension of the Luas Green Line, have been submitted for planning permission today with a disjointed and substandard cycle route despite the tram route going through mainly wide open areas.

In 2022, IrishCycle.com covered how the National Transport Authority (NTA) actively worked against what transport Minister Eamon Ryan had said he wanted and directed the removal of sections of cycle paths on the Luas Finglas project.

Today, Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) has submitted a railway order — a type of planning permission for rail projects — to An Bord Pleanála with fewer cycle paths than in the first draft design.

Back in 2022, the TII project team disagreed with the NTA’s action. As reported at the time, Marcello Corsi, the then TII project manager for Luas Finglas and now head of rail investment with the NTA, told the NTA that the project team “fundamentally disagree” with the NTA on the issue.

He said that leaving out sections of the cycle route along the Luas project would bring “unnecessary risks” to the project and may “jeopardise and undermine” the “responsibility towards delivering an intrinsic and holistic ‘safe’ design”.

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The drawings published today as part of the railway order show a non-continuous cycle route and a two-way cycle path going through Tolka Valley Park and St Helena’s Park at just 2.5 metres wide when the Cycle Design Manual outlines that two-way cycle paths should have a ‘desirable minimum width’ of at least 3 metres.

Including extra width is also recommended where cycle routes are on inclines, but the cycle paths remain under the ‘desirable minimum width’ even on the significant incline approaching Broombridge.

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The NTA manual outlines that 4 metres width is desirable for routes with over 300 users in the peak hour, but international best practice recommends the same width generally for any high-quality cycle route.

The cycle route starts north of the canal at Broombridge, with no way to cross the canal except mixing with buses and motorists. The narrow and steep bridge uses an alternating one-way system controlled by traffic lights, which means people cycling have limited time to cross the bridge before motorists approach from the other side of the blind hump in the bridge.

The project includes building a two-way cycle path on Broombridge Road north of the canal, but the width here is even narrower than generally along the project because trees are planned to line the cycle path without any buffer, meaning that the usable width of the cycle path is reduced even further.

The Luas Finglas project is also planning to include short sections of cycle tracks on the Tolka Valley Road when the tram route intersects with the road. But here, too, guidance is ignored, and new green buffer areas are added between the cycle track and the footpath rather than the cycle track and the road.

Because of the planned layout, the project team has included advanced stop boxes to turn into the cycle route along the tram route. Advance stop boxes are widely seen as undesirable and not comparable with providing for cycling for all ages and abilities.