Best route to cycle from Heuston Station to Park West

laoisfan

Hi

I am just wondering if anyone could possibly advise me on the best route ( preferably the safest ) to cycle from Heuston Station to Park West ?

It looks like it is roughly 4 miles ( give or take depending on the route I guess ).

Advice welcome & appreciated!

not even wrong

Go down Military Road beside the Eircom building onto Kilmainham Lane->Inchicore Road->Tyrconnell Road. When you reach the Grand Canal at the Black Horse pub take the canal cyclepath which will bring you all the way out to Parkwest with no traffic to worry about.

https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=St+John%27s+Rd+W%2FN4&daddr=53.3417523,-6.3041639+to:Tyrconnell+Rd&hl=en&ll=53.340441,-6.31297&spn=0.021293,0.06227&sll=53.329806,-6.352753&sspn=0.021298,0.06227&geocode=FZMALgMdWQCg_w%3BFTjuLQMdXc6f_ynRx5sNRgxnSDFAPaD7pscAEw%3BFcbRLQMdqnCf_w&t=v&dirflg=w&mra=dme&mrsp=2&sz=15&via=1&z=15

Edit: you could also cut through the Royal Hospital grounds instead of taking Kilmainham Lane....

laoisfan

Thanks for this.

Another question. How safe is it to cycle along the canal? Especially in the evenings ( 5:30pm time ).

a148pro

Fine. By far the most dangerous thing you will encounter is other cyclists, and possibly an angry swan.

kenmc

a148pro wrote: »

Fine. By far the most dangerous thing you will encounter is other cyclists, and possibly an angry swan.

well an email came around the park today from security, a girl was attacked last evening, dunno what time, but they or he tried to take her handbag and failed. she got away from the attacker/s.
personally I wouldn't take that route, as you're basically trapped if anything does occur, kind of like going down a long alley. I'd say morning times would be fine, they don't tend to be awake that early.

oh and fwiw, parkwest is a pretty grim, soulless place.

monument

a148pro wrote: »

Fine. By far the most dangerous thing you will encounter is other cyclists, and possibly an angry swan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kf9KrgZlTo

kenmc wrote: »

well an email came around the park today from security, a girl was attacked last evening, dunno what time, but they or he tried to take her handbag and failed. she got away from the attacker/s.
personally I wouldn't take that route, as you're basically trapped if anything does occur, kind of like going down a long alley. I'd say morning times would be fine, they don't tend to be awake that early.

oh and fwiw, parkwest is a pretty grim, soulless place.

Do you know around where and when it happened?

Sorry to hear it happened. I mentioned this on here before regarding the kissing gates -- they are a personal security nightmare -- and the same applies to the new barriers as you have to come to a stop.

A far better idea is to open the gates up, then:

1. you attract more cyclists to give active and passive security,
2. there's less of a funnel affect,
3. less chance of people hanging out around the gates,
4. the gardai can get down quickly with a motorbike if needed,

Sadly even then there are wider problems which need to be sorted -- one of them is Dublin still has it's back largely turned on the canals and rivers. In urban areas they should have promoted more urban renewal along the canals -- even going as far as building residential streets and building apartments along side them. Instead we're mostly left with offices or industrial estates, blocked off from the canals with unsightly fences or large earth mounds.

I'm guessing the park = Park West?

RacoonQueen

I'd go straight up into Ballyfermot and head towards Parkwest when you get there. Probably take the same amount of time really, just the gates on the canal can be a bit of a pain and the canal is very lonely on dark evenings particularly from Inchicore to Parkwest and you don't have a road alongside you on that stretch which can be quite eerie.

Capt'n Midnight

Yeah the gates are a huge dis incentive to cycle when it gets dark,

because of the canal it's a steady drag out from town , usually into a head wind going the other way is much nicer

on occassions some of the gates are open and you really notice the difference

handy route planners - different ones can give different routes

http://hittheroad.ie/#from=Heuston+Station&to=Parkwest+Industrial+Park
to avoid the canal when it's dark you could from goldenbridge road you can go jamestown road and the old kylemore road - there are bollards where they meet so no through traffic

http://maps.google.com

www.dto-journeyplanner.ie dto journey planner is offline


since on a bike you can forget the N4 and Kilmainham they add extra hills to the journey

kenmc

monument wrote: »

Do you know around where and when it happened?
I'm guessing the park = Park West?

Nope, I'll see if it mentions it in the email when I'm back in work on monday.
Yeah, the park = park west - the managent company or something sent an email to all the companies in the business park.

tomasrojo

Nangor Road is ok (it used to be anyway). I don't like Naas Road though, so I used to go via the Long Mile Road (you can cut through Brickfields from Suir Road on a bike to get to Crumlin road and then head west), which is probably too circuitous for most.

a148pro

I'm sorry to hear a girl was attacked. I run there a lot, including at night and I never have had any trouble. There are always lads young and old drinking along the route but I've never had any issues. I have run past some woman walking on their own in the dark and thought it was unwise. You would be perfectly safe on a bike imo.

laoisfan

Hi

Thanks for all the replies!

I think I may do a combination of Luas/cycle depending on weather AND time!!