— Key section in the route was finished as part of wider €68m Clontarf to City Centre project, which included everything from new water mains to new bus stops.
— It’s now possible to cycle 12km from Sutton Cross to the city centre and Docklands on a continuous route.
The Taj Mahal was built in 17 years. The Great Wall of China was finished in around 2,000 years. Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia church is 144 in the making, and workers are only due to be off the site in 2026. Despite the vivid imagination of Dublin’s motorists, the Clontarf to City Centre Cycle and Bus Project is not in the same league.
Work on the 2.7km project started in March 2022 — or a little earlier if you include some minor enabling works.
While the project — which has been planned for 15 years — might have had earlier estimated finish dates, but when work started in March 2022, a Dublin City Council press release said: “The project is scheduled for completion in Q1 2024”.
These facts haven’t stopped online commentators from spreading disinformation that the project is years delayed or that work has been ongoing for four or more years, which clearly isn’t the case. The project failed to meet several deadlines, likely fueling the fire of confusion.
It is also often claimed that the project is a “cycle lane” when it is much more.
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The 2.7km length seems small, but the project included a full boundary-to-boundary rebuild of the streets and roads while maintaining access to homes, businesses, and schools along the route and keeping one of Dublin’s busiest bus corridors open.
The project starts at the large Clontarf Road/Alfie Byrne Road junction and goes via the extra-wide road in Fairview to North Strand Road and onto Amiens Street, where it finishes outside Connolly Station.
Dublin City Council said that the route has delivered 8km of upgraded pedestrian footpaths, 6.8km of new cycle tracks, and 5.4km of upgraded bus lanes. The roadway has also been rebuilt with not just resurfacing but major strengthening works.
The project included three two new pedestrian crossings in locations where there were none previously and pedestrian crossings added to junctions which were missing crossings on some sides.
Some trees were lost, although not as many as originally planned, and greenery was added along the route, most notably the inner city sections, which were lacking it.
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The route was officially opened by Cllr Naoise O’Muirí who was deputising for the Lord Mayor, transport Minister Eamon Ryan, and local Minister Paschal Donohoe, and Anne Graham, CEO of the National Transport Authority.
Minister Ryan said it was Dublin City Council who had the courage to proceed with the project and further work is now needed across the city, including building the S2S along Dublin Bay.
He said as a cycle campaigner in the Dublin Cycling Campaign 30 years ago he campaigned for the project.
Minister Donohoe thanked residents and businesses for putting up with the works. He said that most people would now agree it is an improvement to the area.
He commended Minister Ryan’s work on transport and environmental issues, saying it was one of his last public engagements
Anne Graham, who is also leaving the NTA and is at one of her last public engagements, said there had been substantial progress on transport provision across Ireland, especially active travel.
She said she hoped it would be just the start.
And already An Post is using it as a parking lane.
It is brilliant but it just stops at connolly station leaving you at taxi rank with taxis blocking the lane
I’d love to know what the final cost on this is.
As far as I know, the €68 million mentioned is the final cost, up from €62 million mentioned when the construction work started in 2022.
For infrastructure projects that is a surprisingly small overrun. Fair play to them. It’s not perfect but definitely a step forward.
Does Irish Cycle ever have anything good or positive to say about any project?
Hi shomera,
IrishCycle’s coverage has, in this article, highlighted in the headline and one of the standfirsts that it’s Dublin’s first continuous suburbs to city centre cycle route (which is fantastic to have but this is a news article so it’s covered in a news sort of way — but I think it should be obvious).
There’s a map included to highlight the point.
The other part of the headline acknowledges the delay which was not insignificant but the article also (in the first paragraph) debunks the rhetoric and disinformation floating around that the project has taken 4 years plus.
Maybe you’re unaware of it but the disinformation about this project has been substantial and damaging not just to the project but to the possibility of progressing active travel.
While Dublin City Council rightly keeps messaging positively about cycling etc, it does little to directly tackle the myths and misinformation/disinformation. I think IrishCycle has had at least two articles on debunking misinformation/disinformation on this project alone and considerable number of words in other articles attempting to do so.
This article also highlights most of the main the non-cycling parts of the project which will be an improvement to the area, while other media outlets yesterday focused largely on the cycling (which anybody involved with or watching the local debate knows is highly problematic).
When this project was in planning IrishCycle also went into full-on campaigning journalism mode to improve the project — helping (among many others) to get this project away from being a disjointed mess.
On further review of other news outlets coverage, the above article also is light on the affects on businesses (which it’s referenced, not so much in detail) — but on that point it has to be said that that was prolonged by the water works and the unforeseen ESB issues.
IrishCycle strives to be fair and balanced but, on reflection, this article is also actually light on criticisms of the project including the very basic point that there’s near-universe feedback from users that the width of the path is too narrow for overtaking etc and the junctions are already proven to be problematic, especially safety concerns about the Five Lamps junction.
These are on-going issues which are likely to get worse as the the growing network attached to this route attracts more people to cycling. I’ve seen what happened in London when you have segregated routes which attract new cyclists but you don’t get the junctions right and it’s not pretty.
And that’s before we get onto the hugely contradictory design choices of expecting pedestrians never to have to cross a cycle path but use an excessive amount of share space. I spend a significant amount of time observing user behaviour on this and other routes, both pedestrians and cyclists don’t use them as design because the design doesn’t account for human behaviour.
We keep trying to reinvent the wheel when the solutions are known. I’d say that subject is a full article but it’s more likely needs to be an international systematic psychological study (the issue isn’t confined to Ireland).
Lessons need to be accepted — sadly there’s no sign of that on the BusConnects and other projects planned by most councils around the country. It’s IrishCycle’s job is highlight issues, while also striving to highlight the positives but the former are often more newsworthy.
There’s a balance to be had and if you think IrishCycle to the extreme of the negative side, you’re missing out on the complaints people have on social media and by email etc.
Overall I don’t think the above article is on the negative side, it acknowledges the delay and while doing so strongly debunks the negative exaggerations, and also does a far better job than others at highlighting the project was not cycle a cycle track.
While I respectfully disagree with your position, thank you for your feedback.