— Councillors point to issues with what they see as “over engineered” solutions.
— One Cllr questions if what’s being planned is delivering what’s needed for modal shift.
Designs for a 1km quick-build North Circular Road active travel route were made public in 2022, and consultation ended in January 2023. But the rapid build element fell by the wayside and the project was quietly redesigned last year. It is now set to go to public consultation again.
The project was expected to connect to the Clontarf route at Five Lamps soon after that route opened, but the timeline is now unclear.
The delay in progressing the project was criticised by councillors at the January 2025 monthly council meeting of Dublin City Council and also this week.
Cllr Ray McAdam (FG) said: “Myself and Cllr [Janet] Horner attended a briefing [on the North Circular Road scheme] at the end of November… [the project] has been engineered within an inch of its life and makes things 10 times worse than it currently is at the moment.”
He said that a quarterly update report on the active travel projects “stipulates that we are going to have a report on the first consultation that took place in 2023… at some stage of quarter one of this year.”
“I really don’t get any sense that there is any urgency and I have to say I think what was presented to us makes things worse, and I think there needs to be a meaningful engagement now with the area committee on that.”
Cllr McAdam added: “And the idea that you are planning to close off certain streets, despite having the approval apparently of the NTA, is a non-starter in my book.”
Speaking to IrishCycle.com this week, Cllr Janet Horner said: “The delays with this scheme have been incredibly frustrating. Some of the junctions along it are among the worst in the city for pedestrians and have needed revising for a long time. But this scheme has sat on a shelf for two years, only to emerge in an unworkable form.”
“As someone who has been pushing for cycling infrastructure in the city for a long time, I think we need to start asking new questions about whether the type of infrastructure planned by the active travel team is really delivering what we need to achieve a modal shift,” she said.
Cllr Horner added: “It seems to me we need to simplify what we are delivering, taking away the over-engineered approach, and bring it back to safety and comfort for anyone cycling so we can see the behaviour change we are aiming for.”
Victor Coe, project resident engineer for Dublin City Council’s Active Travel team, was responding to councillors’ questions at their monthly meeting.
Coe said: “The North Circular Road, that project needs to go to public consultation again as it is to be redesigned as a permanent fully protected scheme with the junctions redesigned… that’s where that’s at the moment.”
The written report that Cllr McAdam referred to was the Quarterly Report of the Active Travel Programme Office dated December 2024 and presented to councillors at the January 2025 monthly council meeting.
The Quarterly Report report said: “The North Circular Road Project aims to provide segregated cycling facilities along a 5.5km route from Infirmary Road at the junction with Conyngham Road and Parkgate Street to Seville Place at the junction with Guild Street. The project will be delivered in five schemes and the Active Travel team are currently progressing with the Dorset St Lower. to Amiens St section.”
The report continued: “This Active Travel Scheme will deliver 1.1km of protected cycle paths, improved pedestrian facilities and cycling-friendly upgrade to the signalised junctions at Belvedere Road, Fitzgibbon Street and Summerhill. Public Consultation on an interim scheme design was undertaken in 2023.”
“A significant revision of this previous design following review of public consultation submissions and in line with new NTA Cycle Design Guidance has been carried out. This revised design was submitted to the NTA and approved in Summer 2024,” the report said.
The report added: “A second round of Public Consultation is now to be undertaken on the new design. The project team are currently engaging with key stakeholders. A report on the first Public Consultation will be published along with the revised designs in Q1 2025.”
I think someone needs to rebrand “quick-build” as “cheap and cheerful” or something, because apart from the coastal mobility route in Dun Laoghaire in 2020 I can’t think of many that have been quickly designed and implemented inside of several years.