It has now been 4 years and 2 months since the High Court first put a pause and then blocked the cycle path in Sandymount. Earlier this month, the Court of Appeal ruled that the High Court’s judgement was flawed on all substantial points and that the trial of the cycle route can proceed without planning permission or further environmental assessment.
Here are six reasons why a trial should go ahead as soon as possible and no later than in the early summer of 2025:
(1) This is a city-wide issue
If Dublin City Council trials the 3.5km cycle path on Strand Road and onto the Merrion Road, it will provide the first such cycle route crossing administrative borders in the south side of the city. This is not only a local Sandymount issue.
On Merrion Road, the city council’s trial route would connect with Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council’s Coastal Mobility Route. Combined, the route would amount to a 10km route and it will connect to other routes. It won’t be all perfect at first, but it will be a huge leap forward in providing a relatively continuous, safe and attractive route.
A 10km route does not mean that everybody is going to start cycling that distance. Some will, others will use different parts of the route along the way, and it already links to some other routes, including the cycle path on Sean Moore Road, and it’ll be a short hop to the section of the Dodder Greenway, which will soon link from London Bridge Road all the way to Donnybrook.
It’s part of a growing network of cycle routes for cycling for a range of reasons — primarily for transport, but also for recreation and even tourism. All three reasons relate to city-wide ambitions the city has to be accessible, healthier, more environmentally friendly and be attractive to residents and visitors.
It’s not just a local issue. The chilling effect of the flawed High Court judgement even made it, in part, a national issue.
(2) Strongly vindicated after a long legal battle
Dublin City Council has been strongly vindicated. The claims that these relatively minor interventions in terms of the level of construction needed would need planning and detailed environmental assessment have been blown out of the water by the Court of Appeal.
Despite claims from some of the objectors to the project, the ruling was a stinging defeat, with all substantive points made in the High Court judgment overturned.
After such a clear decision following the spending of a significant amount of public money to defend the case, there is a moral duty for Dublin City Council to proceed with the trial.
The clearly flawed High Court ruling had a chilling effect on the delivery of active travel and public transport projects, not just in Dublin but nationally. The key to this case was use of Section 38 of the Road Traffic Act as amended. These regulations allow councils to roll out traffic calming, traffic management, cycle routes, and bus priority measures along existing roadways.
The now-overturned High Court ruling had huge cost implications for the delivery of projects because more expensive methods were used and the case caused a slowdown in the delivery of projects. Slower progress is strongly related to extra cost, but slowing down progress to make our towns and cities more liveable, our streets and roads safer, and our public transport function more smoothly has wider affects.
(3) If the sky falls in, it can be reversed
Because the trial involves reallocating existing road space, it can be trialled rather quickly and without too much expense.
A lot of people don’t realise how close the trial was to being rolled out — advance works were almost finished before the High Court intervened and paused the work on a Friday, while the traffic changes were due to kick in on the Monday. The work was being done in-house by the council, and the materials to implement the trial have been in storage since. It can be restarted quickly.
And, if the sky falls in, it can be reversed.
But Irish Water’s works which made Strand Road one-way for months gives a good indication that the sky will not fall in — first from supportive residents saying so and then from data confirming that.
With the road made one-way and the cycle route being in place, it will have a positive effect of giving many people a different option, and wider monitoring can be done to test whether the idea of making the road one-way is overall positive.
High-quality cycle networks increase access in ways that most people often overlook. Not everybody can cycle, that’s true. However, when all age groups are considered, a greater number of people can cycle than those who can drive. A range of mobility devices (including but far from just limited to adapted cycles) can also be used on cycle paths — this starts to happen more clearly when a useful network starts to emerge.
(4) A route “on the green areas” could take 15+ years
As covered last week, the cycle route cannot be easily built off-road “in the park” or on green areas. People claiming an off-road option is a real alternative to a project which can be trialled within weeks should only be fooling themselves — it’s not clear of everyone’s motives but the facts are not on their side, or they don’t care.
The green areas at Sandymount Promenade are not continuous, with quite large gaps. These gaps are effectively part of Dublin Bay, which is a registered protected area. When the section of the bay which is now Sandymount Promenade was filled in, EU-level environmental protections were not in place, nor was the environmental screening process, and planning law generally was far lighter.
This isn’t just something that’s abstract. Outside the wall on Strand Road are rocks which are nesting areas for birds, and other habitats, and Ireland generally is poor for its protection of natural areas. On a practical level, the gap areas are substantial and include a section where the cycle route would have to go between houses and the coast, opening it up to likely stronger objections and further legal challenges.
Suggestions of traffic lights or any other stop-go systems to keep two-way traffic near these houses is not viable, especially given the railway level crossing. Such an option would be more disruptive to traffic and a threat to the safe running of the level crossing.
(5) The need for climate action, to tackle inactivity, and road safety for all road users
Transport is Ireland’s second-largest sector for greenhouse gas emissions, but the binding emission reduction targets are likely not to be reached. Should we give up or should we be trying harder? Some are dismissive of cycling provision as climate action, yet the IPPC has highlighted it as a means of ramping up action.
Inactivity is another crisis we are facing, yet, it hardly ever gets the attention it deserves. Besides a set amount of people who are willing and able to go to the gym etc, research shows that most people can see better outcomes by integrating activity into their daily lives. As cycle networks are built and usage grows, the health effects of cycling as a mode of transport can also be wide-ranging, including a reduction of air pollution and a reduction of harmful levels of noise.
Another element of cycle routes is road safety — cycle paths are often traffic calming in their own right, and evidence shows that building cycle routes can make roads safer for all users.
As the case involved such a chilling effect on the rollout of cycling infrastructure, somewhat correcting this by trialling the route now will also have wider effects as it will be one of the largest and high-profile projects to use Section 38 regulations.
(6) New guidelines have made the path clearer for trials
The Court of Appeal was strongly critical of the lack of national guidelines for Section 38. These guidelines have since been put in place and now need to be followed.
From the guidelines, we can see a few important points:
- A public notice should be published on the council website outlining that the trial is to go ahead. This notice period must be at least 14 days long.
- With trials, the public consultation happens during the trial, not before it. The guidelines outline: “Upon the introduction of the trial scheme, the local authority should be available to engage with local stakeholders, particularly local shops, businesses and residents, in relation to any operational issues that may arise from the implementation of the trial scheme.”
- The guidelines state that trials should generally run for between six months and twelve months, and can be extended, but no longer than 18 months without a decision being made to make the trial permanent or remove it.
- There should be records kept of decision-making around the trial. The lack of such records for the original trial, which was planned, was criticised by the Court of Appeal as poor administrative practice.
- The materials used for the trial should be removed at the end date unless a “prior decision has been taken to make the provisions of the trial scheme permanent either with or without modifications” — this is why it is key to have a trial longer than the proposed six month trial, to allow for evaluation.
How many of the people who have complained for years that Dublin City Council was not following procedures with this project will now complain that these guidelines will be followed? Their concerns will need to be set aside as not following the guidelines will open the project to legal challenge.
As mentioned above, there is also an option to extend trials; however, given the existing sensitivity in this case, it is better to have a set structure to evaluate the trial before its full end date. A 12-month trial also allows longer for bedding in, and allows for adjustments to be made and time for those adjustments to bed in.
The plan for a cycle path on Beach Road, Strand Road and towards DLR’s Coastal Mobility Route is pretty much ready to go, but a very quick review of the details of the project could be of great benefit — ideally between now and after the 14-day countdown starts. Any quick review should not look at radical changes but adjusting the cycle path to account for updated design standards and any other measures to improve the project, such as planning better access to the cycle path for emergency services.
Could certainly take advantage of the change in zebra crossings guidance to implement more zebras on the route without the need for belishas. Take out and recycle the signalised crossings that DCC so loves.