Greenways [greenway map of Ireland in post 1]

whisky_galore wrote: »

So you can cycle from Dublin to use one in Mayo? Good luck with that.

he said "reduce our dependency on cars", not "ban all cars, rip up the roads and force everyone to cycle everywhere". This is more tedious "war on motorists" nonsense.

better cycling infrastructure will encourage more cycling, we're already seeing that with the modest improvements that have come about this year. Tourist-oriented facilities like the Mayo greenway, OK they won't do a lot to reduce traffic, but many greenways will provide links between towns and villages, and routes around towns and cities that will make cycling more attractive relative to driving. It's the "drive everywhere, for everything" mentality that needs to change; cars will always have their usefulness nonetheless.

whisky_galore wrote: »

So you can cycle from Dublin to use one in Mayo? Good luck with that.

Honestly this sounds like a dream holiday for me, tent on the back of the bike, cycle Dublin to Mayo, tool around on the great western greenway, achill, north mayo greenways for a week, then back home. Couple of days in the tent and a couple in hotels/airbnbs sounds a treat.

Grassey wrote: »

Can currently get from Dublin to Clondra... so not much further really...

I look forward to when I can take a week to spin all the way out to Achill with the kids. And hopefully back via a route to Galway, and then the Galway-Dublin Greenway.

My long term plan is to retire early and spend a lot of time exploring the country by bike. Even prior to that, something like the above sounds great to me!

daniel_t1409 wrote: »

Made a map showing how much of the New Ross-Macmine and Palace East-Bagenalstown lines are still presumably owned by CIE (appears unregistered on landdirect.ie) shown by the blue line. Looking at New Ross-Macmine the majority still seems to be in CIE ownership apart from where the N30 was built on the alignment and a gap near the middle. Palace East to Bagenalstown is also still owned by CIE but there are quite a few gaps where it's been sold on.

Edit - Correct me if I'm wrong on CIE still owning it, if it is unregistered.

Just following up on this question, if former railway land is unregistered while most or all of the land around it is registered does this imply anything about ownership?

• Still CIE owned with possible adverse possession
• Sold by CIE to the Local Authority with possible adverse possession
• Sold to a private individual
• Not sold for many years

It is trivial matter to check ownership of registered land online, not so for unregistered.

A good few years ago, I heard of a Local Authority engineer walking former railway/LA purchased land once a year in an attempt reset the timeframe for adverse possession.

Is there any encouragement from the Dept of Agriculture for farmers to register land that they own, a form of "regularisation"?

L1011 wrote: »

Unregistered would be entirely expected for basically every one of those options, so you can't draw any conclusions.

Compulsory registration is only on sale and came in at different times in different counties, from 1970 to 2011, but mostly 2006 on so.

I THINK councils had to register all their purchases a lot earlier than was required for everyone else, but still late enough for many closed lines.

Thanks, what I was getting at was - if the railway land was sold to private individuals, it would be reasonable to assume that it was bought by the same people that own the land either side? In that case why would land either side be registered while the railway land isn't.

As you say, compulsory registration on sales only came in recently yet the land registration system is around since the late 1800s. At some point, somebody decided or was compelled to register the land either side.

Could it simply be a case of registering significant land parcels but not bothering with small bits with multiple landowners adjacent to the railway land all having the same attitude.

Or could a tenuous assumption be made that unregistered land running in a neat sliver through multiple registered land parcels is more likely to be owned (not taking into account adverse possession) by CIE than by the adjacent landowners.

Athlone's new bridge to be completed mid 2023

https://www.advertiser.ie/athlone/article/117629/river-shannon-bridge-crossing-is-certain-to-enhance-athlones-tourism-potential

So i'd imagine that the stretch from the N55 to the bridge will complete prior too.

One of the most appealing aspects of greenways for me is walking/cycling on a long disused railway line, looking at the bridges etc. and thinking about the history and engineering. A few years ago, I was looking at old bridges on Google street, there are huge amount of them around, many are partly distmantled or heavily overgrown. Many roadusers are likely completely unaware of the history as they drive over a hump in the road with flat fields to the left and right and no trace of the railway. Probably highly unlikely that these will ever be greenways..

I saved some google street links for bridges but gave up after a while due to lack of time as there is so much of this disused infrastructure out there. Text file with links attached.

Imagine how good a position we would be in if all the closed railway formations had been well preserved and kept in public ownership instead of selling off for a pittance, allowing adverse possession and removal of embankments etc. .

No problem with early hedge cutting there. :rolleyes:

Grassey wrote: »

Seeing how drivers currently use the dashed shared lane sections I doubt it!

Well the idea there is that those edges 'arent' where a cyclist is supposed to be, you're visually narrowing the road instead (Irelands 'advisory' cycle lanes don't do this as the surface just has a line on it but colouring is continuous) and the idea is that these would be put on roads that wouldn't ever have a cycle lane in Ireland, not in more congested areas where cars need to be forced out of space for pedestrians and cyclists.

What a great success this initiative was.

Zebra3 wrote: »

Absolute joke how long this is going on.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/concerns-over-cost-halt-20m-north-dublin-city-cycle-path-1.4391550

The cycle path had in 2017 been expected to cost €7 million. Last year revised costs of €20 million were published by the council following design changes and the decision to include extensive water mains replacement and new sewerage systems in the project.

Disingenuous headline suggesting the cycleway has spiralling costs, when the increase, and failure to get going, are due to Irish Water tacking sewerage works onto the project, then getting sniffy about paying for them.

It is also a stupid stance for Irish Water to take as this is the best and possibly only opportunity they will get to upgrade their network there for many decades. If the cycle lanes get done, I doubt they will be given a road opening licence here for a long time given they passed up the opportunity to combine with this project. Doing all this full scope of works together would also be a lot cheaper than doing separate projects, particularly if the cycles lanes are done first as that will require a lot more traffic management and reinstatement than digging up the existing road now and putting in cycle lanes on completion.