The Campaign made a submission to Dublin City Council about their plans for interim cycle facilities on East Wall and Alfie Byrne Roads.

The plans work towards connecting the Clontarf Promenade - via the protected lanes on Alfie Byrne Road - to the Liffey Quays. The missing link will be along busy, narrow East Road (designated 30km/h but, as usual, poorly observed or enforced).

The facilities Council proposing are two-way cycle lanes where footpaths currently are. Our submission supported the scheme in general, but we submitted that a 2.5m wide two-way cycle lane is just too narrow, and that the scheme should be continued to join with Dublin Port’s planned Liffey-Tolka facility.

We supported the use of ‘bus bypass’ cycle lanes - these aren’t ideal as they cause cyclists and pedestrians to cross each others’ paths, but are a lot better than forcing cyclists to share the road space with 30-ton buses. The submission covers other general and scheme-specific issues - have a look via link below (PDF).

We’re hopeful the Council will go ahead pretty soon, as they don’t need planning permission for this scheme. How long it will stay in place - what exactly ‘interim’ means - hasn’t been made clear yet, but longer term plans for the route are shown in the NTA’s Greater Dublin Area Cycle Network Plan so it’s to be hoped that the eventual permanent scheme will be even better.

See also the Council’s consultation page, where PDFs of the plans are accessible, at the link below.