Royal Canal Greenway

Phil.x wrote: »

Hopefully it will be like an Expressway into the city by bike, but I guess it won't.

It's rough enough between ashtown and summerhill

Phil.x wrote: »

Hopefully it will be like an Expressway into the city by bike, but I guess it won't.

Going via the canal even before it became popular was a lot slower than just going through the park. So if you wanted speed the canal isn't it. Less so I expect since it got busy.

Still it's a nice alternative route. Especially on a summer evening.

They used to regularly stone the train along there. Smashing windows etc.

I personally never had any hassle cycling that route. But I never cycled it regularly. But back then it's was very quiet and a bit isolated. You'd want to be a bit smart about it.

These days it's probably very busy. Which probably slows you down, but it's not as isolated as it used to be, so much safer I assume.

Mercian Pro wrote: »

All due to be upgraded by Dublin City Council and likely to be well finished before the Fingal sections as the rate they have been going.

I'm not sure if he was referring to "rough" "people" or the "surface". :pac:

I've never had any surface or people issues cycling in between Castleknock station and town. But you could certainly bump into the wrong crowd between Ashtown and Summerhill. Ive had more encounters on evening trains though , back in the day.

From the train, used to see plenty of cans drinkers , occasional stone throwers.

Polar101 wrote: »

Yay, more consultation. Maybe it will be ready in the next 10 years.

I've been cycling from Carpenterstown to CETNS with my kids since 2011. We've been waiting for a safe route to school since then. They'll both be well finished primary school before anything is even started.

James 007 wrote: »

Interesting I have never seen so many people fishing on that Royal Canal:pac:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWzIM0bhWGM&t=393s

Please note that Scrotes got paid to act normal when filming this scene:rolleyes:

I see that canal barges are going to be our main mode of transport too. What a time to be alive!

For anyone hoping that the new proposals would go ahead... Varadkar objects to greenway along Royal Canal’s north side (I don't have access to read the entire article but the title and summary is disappointing to read).

The fly through video shows trees and high fencing between greenway and Delwood Park back gardens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWzIM0bhWGM

From a design/useability point of view, putting it on the South bank would be a terrible idea.
Active transport relies on permeability and accessibility to function, the North back option allows access from the surrounding estates without having to send kids cycling to school via the dangerous conflict points on the roads at the two train stations.

To be honest, I feel extremely disappointed by the Fingal council members in the areas around D15. Their lack of vision for walking, cycling, and livable towns/villiages (universal design) is stark in comparison to the coastal areas of the City!!!

Is the deep sink section the area where people's garden's back onto the canal and have illegally? extended and decked out their own private waterfront.
If so I can't blame them trying to hold on to it, but for the greater good of the area and local amenity it should be built. varadkar is a snake.

Phil.x wrote: »

Is the deep sink section the area where people's garden's back onto the canal and have illegally? extended and decked out their own private waterfront.
If so I can't blame them trying to hold on to it...

Not the first place where people have extended onto unused land. Something similar happened over time to the old railway cutting now occupied by the green line of the Luas, particularly around Balally. The legality of what they've done partly depends on when it was done.

In order to get the land back around Balally they ended up having to compulsory purchase the ends of the gardens and then they were quite ruthless in their removal of sheds/workshops that had been built there. Nice little nestegg for the residents though.

I used to live in this area. I am hearing conflicting reports on the viability of building this on the south Bank entirely. The people I know objecting have told me there have been multiple independent reports that claim its feasible whereas fingal are saying its not.

I know the land is sinking and I'm sure poses engineering challenges perhaps to the extent of making it non viable.

Does anyone have any more information on North versus South?

I can sympathise with the families on that side as most are old people and have security concerns. Also hard to balance that with the land extensions they took but not sure that if that would have changed their perspective.

I moved out of the area due to lack of infrastructure exactly like this will bring. Is it is as simple as pay a bit more and build on the south Bank?

Apparently council are refusing to entertain it at all.

I must say from just reading the executive summary I am very underwhelmed. I would have to question the scope of the report and what it is trying to achieve. If it was to finally explain why there is no other choice but to construct on the Northside, I believe it fails to do this and just opens up more questions.

While I haven’t read the report in full, in my experience, an executive summary is where an author would include the major findings of their work and list them to support any recommendations they may make. The body of the report is used to supplement these findings with technical work. The fact that there are no decisive technical findings in the summary is telling.

As people may know, there was a report commissioned in 2012 which not only stated that the path on the Southside was feasible, it was also that reports preferred route. As a result, it seems Fingal’s hands were somewhat tide. If they state that the path is not feasible, you would have to expect that the original firm would not be happy as their expertise is being questioned.

So, the authors state that “the proposal is, in our opinion, feasible but subject to significant constraints in relation to constructability”. Coming at this as a non-engineer, but as can be seen from the above post, the two reasons noted are accessibility of machinery, and a platform required for the construction using said machinery, which to use a technical term, are both a bit meh :P These seem to be general construction issues, but should be in this day in age, easily managed.

In my opinion, if the summary said that path was feasible but would involve complex and, as a result, expensive construction work and provided a cost summary of the Southside v Northside paths showing a massive variance, I think most people would understand why the path was being constructed on the Northside. From what I have heard, the costs are not too far apart, as I understand that the difference in the budget is about 2 million (5M v 7M) between the Northside and Southside (open to correction on this). While this is not to be sniffed at, is it large enough when taken into account the full costs to construct the path from Dublin to Longford?

On the findings and firstly accessibility. Since the path is on the Southside for all of the Roselawn section, there appears to be no issue here with access for machinery. So, I think it is fair to say that any issues would be along the Delwood section, as this is where the gap between the canal and the original path starts to increase.

Would the same issues regarding accessibility not be relevant to the Northside along this section? What is the access point for typical construction plant required to construct the bridge at the quarry behind Delwood? The section of path from Coolmine road to the bridge is being cut out of the hill due to the extended gardens. In the summary it states “the most feasible option for the construction is to work from a lower level within the canal channel”. Now this is not to say that the same construction method is being considered on the Northside, however, since the topography of both sections is similar here, I would be concerned that two paths will need to be cleared along the Northside, the path itself and a path below it for the machinery? How much of the vegetation are people happy with being destroyed for the path to be constructed?

Regarding the second point on the platform, I’m actually embarrassed that this was included as a major finding, as surely they could come up with a solution that would allow work to be completed from a lower level, help with accessibility of machinery and, if required could be moved towards Castleknock to ensure the canal remains open. A quick YouTube search shows the following for example. I am sure there are better examples out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEX6_KkWGUk

Regardless on which side the path show go, at least the people who are responsible for the project should try and be transparent and use every option available to get support for the project. But this is disingenuous, as the reasons for the being against the Southside, could be used as a reason as why it shouldn’t be constructed on the Northside.

Codpeas wrote: »

Not the first place where people have extended onto unused land. Something similar happened over time to the old railway cutting now occupied by the green line of the Luas, particularly around Balally. The legality of what they've done partly depends on when it was done.

There are two separate stretches of land involved. At the Castleknock end, the houses on the Roselawn Road apparently got 99 year leases on the land up to the water to stop the land from getting overgrown.

Up at the Delwood end, some of the residents bought the land, others seem to have simply taken it, but either way it's theirs now.

Trying to CPO all this would cost a lot and probably delay the whole thing even more.

In my opinion the route options report rules out a south side option because Irish Rail won't guarantee that they'd not damage the structure:

Any infrastructure such as anchors below the retained ground level (railway embankment) could possibly be severed during the installation of future overhead infrastructure required for the Dart + West scheme. Permanent anchors under the railway are a poor idea. IE cannot guarantee that these anchors are not going to be severed at some stage in the future including by piling for overhead stanchions.

There's great usage figures for the Baldoyle Greenway - 1296 per day average, increasing to 1681 at the weekend. They were for January and February 2021. I would expect that those figures are even higher when the weather improved.