Greenways [greenway map of Ireland in post 1]

https://www.rte.ie/news/connacht/2022/0621/1306172-galway-greenway/

"I'm all for sustainable infrastructure but in the main Greenways as they are built currently are doing very little in getting people out of cars."

That's because they are for leisure purposes by and large, and here's the kicker...most people drive to them to use them.

I don't disagree with you at all.

But greenways are being funded out of the transport budget, and included in the transport sections of local area development plans.

The reason for this is because they want the counter-balance to roads expenditure, so that they can say they're spending 20% on sustainable transport etc.

To let you know where I stand on the practice, I myself have made formal submissions against the inclusions of greenways as "Transport". Most are designed for leisure.

So what I said at first isn't wrong: the money will be available. At least until CPO's and construction on a Dublin Metro kick off.

if they're being used, it's not wasted money. As others have said, many of them are essentially tourism infrastructure though they are also getting local use. The Waterford and Western Greenways have provided a big boost to the local economies, more than justifying the cost of developing them, so hardly wasted money. Whether they'll all be as successful remains to be seen.

Yeah, people drive to them, like virtually any rural tourist attraction. In terms of active travel they're not going to have the effect of a urban cycle route, but they're also providing opportunities for people to get out and get exercise; supporting new local businesses and in terms of tourist development. Idon't have any figures to back this up but I'd be surprised if they're contributing to an overall increase in driving.

TBH I'd rather see Greenways being promoted than the likes of the Wild Atlantic Way which is designed for American tourists to drive up and down the west coast in rented SUVs on mostly unsuitable tiny roads (with the side effect that many of those roads are now less safe for walker and cyclists).

More generally the more cycling facilities we have around the country, the quicker a cycling culture will develop - if people own bikes, & if there are safe cycling routes, they'll use them and in turn push for more safe routes. Greenways are only a part of this of course, but they are a perfect environment to get people out and discovering how easy and enjoyable cycling is.

Greenways are not really cycling infrastructure though. From what I can tell they get a lot more walkers than cyclists.

So if you think greenways are "wasted money" then do you also feel that public parks and playgrounds are wasted money ?

Greenways are essentially a flatter version of the planned forest trails and hill walks we have had for years.

Links to the big urban centres does seem to be a bit of a problem. There is stuff in the works but currently a casual cyclist or a walker would have to drive (or coach) to any Greenway or trail around Limerick.

I see them as free leisure facilities, and basically anything that takes kids off their PlayStations that doesn't confine them within the 4 walls of a soggy sports field is welcome in my books.

I'd say there is very little between us; my fear is that they will be seen as "the" place to cycle. In other words Get the fu(k of the roads and use the Greenways; the very opposite of where we should be heading.

We should be building a cycling culture where it is the normal way to get around to shop, commute etc rather than this thing we drive to to get exercise. People didn't exercise before because they had activity built into their lives, utility cycling is any easy way back to that.

If you go beyond Durrow/Ballyvoile tunnel and in the rural sections of Waterford Greenway numbers fall off a cliff. The Limerick one seems to be very quite. They will be successful in areas like Dungarvan, Westport which are nice towns to start with, my suspicion we will end up with a lot of White Elephants. If those white elephants come out of a budget that could be building proper infrastructure that's criminal

Local enough to me there was a push to get Thurles/Clonmel Greenway up and running; two sh1te towns in terms of tourist and would be risky in terms of reward for your investment. They have a small bit developed up near Derrynaflan (because its easy with bog land and probably a public ROW to Church) but the rest of it will be a ball ache.

Like below or the bit passing the house of a horsey billionaire's mother's house 😀..

CPO's will make a cottage industry out of it for the professional classes

https://goo.gl/maps/roSm2Tu3fpGCL9ycA

You have qualified your statement that "there are very few people commuting" with the caveat "I have experience of". The reason that there may be (and we don't know) very few commuting on some Greenways, is, that some Greenways don't go into urban centres. The Limerick Greenway, for instance, doesn't go into Limerick city, the Great Western doesn't go into Castlebar.

In the case of The Waterford one, it does go into the city, but not right into the city centre, it takes quite a circuitous route, and doesn't pass any large population centre on the way. So I'm not surprised if you don't see many commuters on it.

However there are examples of commuter-friendly Greenways. The Passage Railway Greenway in Cork is one. It goes into the city (but again not right into the centre) and does pass through some built-up areas. If you wanted to commute from Rochestown to the city, for instance, you can do it mostly by Greenway. You can't say definitively that no-one is doing this.

The Athlone Greenway passes through many built-up areas and also allows a commute from Moate to Athlone. Again your anecdotal evidence cannot say that this is not happening.

Tralee's current Greenway also goes into the Town Centre, and if you wanted to cycle from Mounthawk to the Town Centre you could do it on the Greenway. Mounthawk also has a large secondary school, so kids who live in the town can cycle out, again using the Greenway. When the Fenit line opens up, commuters will be able to travel from Spa and futher afield.

The Connemara Greenway will also allow commuting from Oughterard and Moycullen into NUIG/UHG and Galway City Centre.

Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean that it's not happening.

Interesting discussion here, I'm living close to the new Barrow Blueway which will, once it's finished, connect at Lowtow/Robertstown to the Grand Canal greenway, which will, when it's finished, connect Naas/Sallins/Clane to Dublin and run very close to many of the industrial areas close to the M50/N7 area on the edge of Dublin. How many will use it to commute is still to be confirmed but I already know a couple of guys who commute from Naas/Sallins into the greater Dublin area by bike on the road, something it'd have to think hard about doing if I was in that position. However the potential is very clear.

On the newly opened sections of the Blueway in my area I'd reckon about 15% of the activity is cyclists another 10% is kids socialising on MTBs, something that has noticeably grown since Covid/the blueways opening. The rest would be a mix of serious runners, walkers and people with dogs. Our club used it for midweek night time spins and we met far more people out walking in the dark than I expected, I would say in general it's busy at the top end of my expectations.

Because it's not finished and doesn't yet through connect to any other centres of population there really aren't any tourists coming to use it as yet, I'd see the odd bikepacker cycling up from or down to the lower reaches of the barrow navigation.

Our town, being in the greater Dublin area, has like all the others in the county grown rapidly with lots of new houses going up, the Blueway is in the general scheme of things costing small money, I can't see how it won't pay for itself very quickly, I know if it for some reason dissappeared it would be badly missed.

New greenway bridge over the Shannon in Athlone to start moving into place at the end of this month. On target for opening Easter 2023.

Full story at Westmeath Independent.

The Castletroy urban greenway is a back alley about 5 mins cycle long. It being called a greenway is an insult to greenways.

It's great for kids going to the 2 schools but it's no greenway

There have been incidents. The council have reacted.

I've spoken to councillors and they've told me "it's not for cyclists who go fast".

You should use the road, I've been told.

QED.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so ridiculous. I know a good few people who have had near misses now and refuse to use it as a result.

If it intersects loads of driveways and is on the side of a road, it is a cycle lane not a greenway

This is a problem. Not many are willing to say this out-loud in an official capacity, or put it on signage etc. Councillors have told me various things like "it's not for cyclists, it's for kids", "we're building them in the hope that people might decide to cycle" or "they're not for leisure cyclists" or "they're for leisure not commuting" etc.

But honestly from a transport perspective the whole thing just looks like one big dangerous fudge, to me. If you're expecting dogs and small children then it cannot also be an appropriate transport corridor.

For much of the cycling I do, you can consider me a "tour de france wannabe" as you say. I travel at around 30kmh typically. With a tailwind it could be 50kmh. Commuting most days. People like me make up a significant portion of existing cyclists. (Hopefully we're not the majority!)

If I submit at design stage that segregation is needed, I'm told that there will be no conflict between end user types. If I point out the very clear conflict between someone cycling at speed and a pedestrian, the response is that it's "not an appropriate place for faster cyclists to be".

(I think/hope we all agree on here that it's NOT an appropriate place to cycle fast!)

So then the next questions are: what is the appropriate speed, and how can it be enforced? On roads we use lines to segregate users, and/or we use speed limit signage. All of this is considered "faux pas" when it comes to greenways. It's a free-for-all. And the real answer is "no speed is slow enough" because if there's a small child or dog on the greenway you simply must slow to nothing. It's the ONLY responsible decision.

On the other hand we tell people "cycling is convenient" and "cycling can replace your commute" or "e-bikes mean you can go fast with little effort" etc. If I'm slowing to a crawl every few minutes then it's absolutely not going to replace my car commute. Zero chance. So it's a totally inappropriate place for me to cycle and accordingly I use the road beside them most days of the week: I get "punishment passes" for this.

So you can maybe see I'm irritated by some of the current designs. I suspect we're designing greenways for maybe 50-60% of intending cyclists. I believe the funding is coming from the transport budget, but they're patently not for transport. They're for leisure. And they're not even appropriate for a good chunk of leisure users, at that.

Sorry for the very long post!

The problem is the transport budget part. Greenways mostly due to route are often not suitable for commuting and are leisure amenities that should be paid for same as parks and sports fields.

The appropriate speed is the safe one which yes means crawling along busy sections as cyclists must yield to pedestrians. No need to enforce it as it seems to be enforcing itself as seen by the lack of incidents on Greenways.

Exactly my thoughts yep. Greenways are not appropriate as urban commuter infrastructure, is my current thinking.

But we're getting exactly that by the absolute bucketload right now, at least in Cork.

Glanmire, Glounthaune, Blackrock/Marina, Midleton, Carrigaline, Harley Street, Mary Elmes Bridge, Dunkettle, Carrigtwohill etc. Storing up lots of problems for the future I believe. I don't know yet whether they'll all be redesigned and rebuilt or whether they'll default to being unused and a waste of money.

(I suspect a mix of both!)

Yep or the opposite side of the coin are the Netherlands "cycle routes" and "fast cycle routes". Basically mini-roads beside the road, including white line down the middle. They'll sometimes include footpaths beside these, but not always. The intent is very clear.

That's true. Every cloud has a silver lining and all that!

Roads are the biggest unnatural killer in this country.

How many people have been killed a bike on a Greenway. There is no safety issue on the Greenway just a bit of inconvenience for cyclists.

First off, I don't like the term "tour de france wannabe" but I'm going to use it purely because it has already been used in this discussion and I think everyone knows what is meant by it so no point in introducing a new term. I don't mean it to be derogatory in case it comes across that way. As an aside, I also don't like the term Greenway and feel it's use is so broad that it essentially just means somewhere you can cycle. With no standards for what constitutes a Greenway, the term is meaningless.

Some of the posts above seem to be claiming all commuting cyclists as TdF wannabes but that isn't my experience. TdF wannabes are at best a subset of commuting cyclists (as well as an entirely separate group) so its a bit disingenuous to be talking in terms of commuting cyclists generally. Most commuting cyclists, around Dublin at least, are not looking to travel at high (for a bike) speeds, they just want a hassle free and reliable way of getting to/from work. In that way, most of what are branded as Greenways are adequate for the majority of commuting cyclists and funding from Transport budget is appropriate. I doubt there is much overlap between commuting cyclists and small children/dogs given the times used so I don't think that's an issue.

For the TdF wannabes, most of the existing Greenways are not long enough for them anyway, and those that are are not in urban/suburban areas. In urban/suburban areas, compromises have to be made in terms of the infrastructure and there will naturally be more and broader spread of users. If the TdF wannabes want a different class of facility for more sporty use, surely they should be looking to have that provided through Sport funding.