Permanent Sandyford to City Centre active travel route needs to be reviewed quickly for two reasons

— Funding constraints may force streamlining projects but Dublin City should jump before it is pushed.

Comment & Analysis: Officials’ claims about cycle track widths on Dublin City Council’s planned Sandyford to City Centre route need to be reviewed in light of the experience of the Clontarf to City Centre Cycle Route and because the project is taking an overly complicated approach that is not concerned enough with deliverability.

Back in January 2023, I wrote an article asking: “Are two-way cycle paths better where space is limited, like on the Ranelagh Road?“. Now added to the focus of that article is deliverability.

This is one of the few arterial routes in Dublin that was not included in BusConnects. It should have been prioritised and brought to the construction stage in the last few years.

However, while public consultation on the Sandyford to City Centre project was held between January and February 2023, the consultation report was only finalised in August 2024 and only published on the council’s website in Q4 2024. Something is going horribly wrong here.

In light of question marks over the national funding for active travel beyond this year and, generally, to seek value for money, the project should be streamlined for delivery as a two-way cycle track where possible using the existing carriageway widths.

IMAGE: A cross-section from the project’s draft drawings.

Taking on feedback on board is a strength, not a weakness

The public experience of the widths of the cycle track Clontarf to City Centre Cycle Route must filter into the design process.

Even before the Clontarf route was finished, users identified the cycle track width as a problem for safety and comfort. It often caused issues with people cycling at different speeds trying to overtake.

The Sandyford route includes planned cycle tracks that are much narrower than the Clontarf route.

After the public used the non-statutory public consultation to express concerns about the narrow width of cycle tracks, the Dublin City Council Active Travel responded in the consultation report as follows:

“The scheme designers have reviewed the width of the scheme and have done tracking for cargo bikes along the scheme extents. It is acknowledged that there will be local constrained areas throughout the scheme due to existing road boundaries and width constraints. The local constraints can be addressed in the permanent scheme as part of a full street upgrade. Tracking shows that the constrained areas should be able to accommodate a standard cargo bike.”

I’ve seen many excuses over the years as to why standards didn’t need to be followed but have never once seen or heard of a consultation report using vehicle tracking as a way to suggest that narrow, sub-standard cycle tracks are grand.

It’s abstract in the extreme when solid guidance — including the NTA Cycle Design Manual — talks of not just safety but comfort and attractiveness.

Cycling a cargo bike or any bike with your children in it isn’t going to be comfortable or attractive with the bare minimum width that a cargo bike can fit in. I’m not sure why I’m even mentioning children — people are making this point about the Clontarf route without having children on board.

And — again — the Sandyford route will be narrower overall and much narrower at pinch points.

This narrowness and the twists and turns planned around parking bays etc might not even be too bad for two-wheeled cargo bikes, but for trikes, hand cycles ete, it will cause more issues. Twists and turns in wide open spaces can cause hand cycle users to topple over; add in narrow spaces and kerbs/delineators, and you have extra risk. But again, the design is abstract from the reality of use.

Cycling with children on their own bikes will be worse when commuters try to squeeze by, and such busy and narrow cycle tracks are also especially unattractive to older cyclists. So, as it stands, this project is failing to provide for all ages and abilities.

Much like Dublin City Council’s invention of the Dublin-style junction, officials seem unwilling to accept that some well-intentioned desktop ideas do not match user behaviour.

The line: “The local constraints can be addressed in the permanent scheme as part of a full street upgrade”, doesn’t ring true — constraints put on by the project team by high-level decision-making will tie their hands, and compromises will have to be made.

IMAGE: The turquoise-coloured cycle tracks included in the project drawings are to be level with the footpath with a delineator separating the two… but even with that, look at the width if the cycle track at the loading bay!

Narrow widths

While the national guidance in the NTA’s Cycle Design Manual is a huge jump in quality from the old National Cycle Manual, there are still clear issues around the widths of cycle tracks and councils minimising cycle tracks before they minimise the width of the carriageway or remove turning lanes or parking etc… or switch the route to using a two-way path along a substantial section of a route (shorter sections with switchbacks are not attractive).

As mentioned on this website last year, new Dutch guidance on the width of cycle tracks comes with a note that it is a minimum width “regardless of intensity” — that means we should be applying the standard here. It has been long known internationally that 2-metre-wide cycle paths are a bit too narrow. The Dutch guidance is only catching up to this:

  • “The minimum width needed by two cyclists to cycle side by side safely and comfortably, regardless of intensity. This minimum width is set at 230 centimetres.” (2.3m)

Two-way cycle paths are a more effective use of space — for example, on the street with existing 1.5 metres of cycle lanes and a little extra space to play with (say 0.3m from reducing wide traffic lanes), if you use that space for protected unidirectional cycle tracks, the space is substandard and makes overtaking and cycling side-by-side uncomfortable.

With that space, you could have a 3-metre wide two-way cycle path with a 0.3-metre buffer. Just to note: A 3-metre wide path should not be the aim for a busy route, but it’s far better than unidirectional cycle tracks with the same space.

If you apply the same idea to cycle tracks that are just under 2 metres wide, you have gone from a not-great width to one of the best in the country.

It’s not clear from the project drawings if Dublin City Council is including or not including an upstand kerb in their cycle track — if they include the kerb, it narrows the usable space in the cycle track, and if they do not include it, it increases the risk of motorists parking or otherwise driving on cycle tracks.

The narrow cycle track approach taken by Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council on part of its section of the route near the River Dodder will not work for the city council because higher levels of cycling will need to be accommodated closer to the city centre. The Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown project also evolved from an old design that was nearly ready to go.

Not only is there a higher density of residents and a higher propensity to cycle, but where both the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown section of this route and the Dodder Greenway route converge into the Dublin City section of the route.

The Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown section also includes far less demand for loading and parking.

Why do other Dublin councils, London and Paris use more two-way cycle paths?

The consultation report noted:

“An Options Assessment for the scheme was completed and was available on the consultation portal. This involved an analysis of the schemes existing conditions, an options assessment and a multi-criteria assessment for different options for the scheme. This assessment concluded that one-way raised cycle tracks on both sides of the road was the emerging preferred option for the scheme.”

However, as noted on this website previously, the stark differences between Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council’s assessment of two-way for use on routes in some of its core areas is worlds apart from the Dublin City Council assessment.

Questions are not being answered about why there is such a different approach. Just referring back to the assessment is not good enough. Besides Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, South Dublin County Council also has a better delivery record with the use of two-way paths where they make sense.

International experience is also important — both London and Paris also use two-way paths to overcome width constraints, and both have records of much faster delivery than Dublin City.

A two-way path on one side of the street means that there are now only half the number of bus stops to deal with, fewer junctions, and parking/loading (where there’s space) can be located opposite the cycle track, which means less space is needed for buffers etc.

Considering all the factors now available, two of the main issues that seem to affect Dublin City Council’s approach to design are its abstract point-of-view and lack of focus on how design choices influence deliverability.

Again: Designing in the abstract of the experience of what’s happening on projects it has already built.

Using a two-way path may require some difficult choices, including considering turning restrictions and holding lanes (where motorists wait to turn out of the flow of traffic) or even looking at modal filters on some side streets. Other junctions will be far more simplified than what the council is currently proposing.

However, having to make some hard choices is not a good reason to avoid a different approach.

2 thoughts on “Permanent Sandyford to City Centre active travel route needs to be reviewed quickly for two reasons”

  1. Good post Cian.
    It reminds me of the complaints from drivers when the vehicle lane is narrowed in order to act as a traffic-calming device or to make way for the insertion of a generally sub-standard cycle lane/track – drivers don’t like it one bit. Double standards at work in design offices?

    Reply
  2. I dislike 2 way cycle lanes, as it far too often involves switching from one side of the street to the other when the scheme starts and returns to two single lanes. A lot of cyclists just continue on the roadway.
    The delay crossing and recrossing far exceeds the delay of overtaking a slower cyclist.
    They can also be more dangerous for motorists and pedestrians, as cyclists can approach from an unexpected direction.

    Reply

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