Greenways [greenway map of Ireland in post 1]

Walked past the greenway path at coolmine train station the last couple of weeks and waterways Ireland and a few diggers have been there every day. Hopefully starting work on the greenway

I would suspect that the double tracking of the railway line may have slowed the progress somewhat, it looked like for a while the shared cycleway close to Gilead in Carrigtwohill was used by the construction team for access maybe. If you watch Dronehawks latest footage of the double tracking progress, you can make out parts of the greenway already finished. It looks like there's a new portion completed just past Stryker but it hasn't connected to the completed portion at Carrigtwohill station (Edit: Mostly completed, looks like it's missing the tarmac layer). I'm hoping one day to be able to cycle from City Centre to Youghal and back again, so I'm also eager to see this project fully finished!

Carrigtohill to Midleton Phase 1 is in the ground. Phase 2 is approved but not yet funded. I think it will get funded without N25 but not this year because there's no money. You're looking at a 2027 or 2028 start at best. Glanmire to city phase 2 is not going to happen any time soon (potentially ever) because the pathfinders were all cut because Eamon Ryan had been championing them.

This is real-world the "slippage" we're unfortunately seeing with the new de-prioritisation of sustainable travel in the current PfG.

We're seeing large roads being funded from the active travel budget now.

Pathfinder was an Eamon Ryan championed scheme during the last PfG to try and progress around 25 or so sustainable transport "example" projects around the country. Some were rail, some bus, some bike. Splattered evenly around the country. I believe they were intended to show what could be achieved if all resources were scrambled to create a transformative effect or something like that. There's a good bit of info still on NTA website about it, worth a read for context.

Glanmire to City Phase 2 is City project. It involved a bridge beside the Dunkettle Roundabout, a route through Tivoli docklands, a boardwalk along Horgans/low road. The technical problem is a lot of other adjacent (and conflicting) schemes were sent through planning at around the same time, and ABP is judging that the whole cumulative effect on the SPA needs to be considered as a "block" or "package". Namely: Eastern Gateway Bridge, North Docklands Development, new tram bridge, cycleway. To compound this, these individual projects all have different technical routings and detailing (boardwalk in some, shared space in some, dedicated cycleway in some etc). The Pathfinder concept was "quick roll out" example projects which can't happen due to the technical challenges above.

On the more political side, everywhere you see "Pathfinder" written down, the current government sees "Eamon Ryan pet project" and they don't perceive a political win from progressing these. All which are not yet significantly progressed are in jeopardy (some will progress, possibly under new names). They have ALL been sent back through the funding request process. In simple terms, when you see "Pathfinder" read "dead" or at least "paused". It's the "roads and hard pressed motorist" era now, for better or for worse.

Regarding the difference between City and County, I understand where you're coming from but I don't think it's as clear as you're describing it. County progresses a lot of easier-design greenway type infrastructure. In and around the urban areas though when the design gets difficult the schemes just end or the detailing can be so bad that it becomes almost unusable, and the effort itself is patchy at best (some urban areas don't even get footpath treatment). City tends to create more of the smaller but difficult local urban interventions that have more of a wide transformative effect (think modal shift etc).

Very frustrating, it shouldn't be one or the other. New roads and road upgrades are badly needed both to ease congestion and to facilitate growth of the urban area. But without the sustainable travel network habits wont change.

I wouldn't cycle into town from Glanmire with the current infrastructure.

No I just take an interest, same as you. Over time you just build up the history of various proposals. If you engage with the elected representatives they'll often give you the current status of projects. If you engage with the local authority technical teams they can also often be very generous with information too, explaining how they know designs aren't perfect but that they're hemmed in by various technical or political considerations.

Pathfinder was actually 35 schemes rather than 25, as below.

National Impact

1. CycleConnects

2. Inter-Urban Demonstrator (National Link Cork-Waterford)

3. Smarter Travel Award/Mark

Cycle Network/Corridor Proposals

4. Wexford Cycle Network

5. Longford Cycle Network

6. Rural Cycleway Rapid Deployment – Navan to Trim

7. Dundalk Regional Road Cycleway

8. Mullingar Cycle Corridor with links to Dublin-Galway Greenway

9. Wicklow Active Travel Links

10. Five Cities Demonstrator: Waterford Cycle backbone

11. Five Cities Demonstrator: East Cork Sustainability Corridor

Public Transport

12. Moyross Train Station

13. Waterford North Quays

14. Athlone Bus Service Electrification

15. Dingle Integrated Community-Based Sustainable Mobility for Rural Ireland

16. Five Cities Demonstrator: Galway Cross-City Link

Active Travel/15 Min Neighbourhoods

17. Five Cities Demonstrator: Dublin Active Travel City

18. Letterkenny – Reallocation of Road Space for Walking and Cycling

19. Lismore Park, Waterford – Improving permeability in a city-centre residential area

20. Clonmel 10 min town

21. Naas Mobility Network Integration

22. Killarney - 10 min town

Servicing Schools/Universities

23. Safe Routes to Schools Programme - Acceleration

24. Rathmullan Rd & Marley’s Lane, Drogheda

25. Hanover to Tyndall AT Route to TU

26. Five Cities Demonstrator: Limerick City university connectivity

Workshops/Research

27. Smart and Sustainable Mobility Training Workshops

28. “The First and Last Green Mile”: Pilot to integrate local link service, hackney and community e-bike scheme

29. Research and pilot to trial carpooling among large employers

30. Sligo Shared eBike Scheme – expansion

31. Workplace Mobility Hubs – Four Dublin Local Authorities

32. Last Mile Delivery

33. Active Travel Corridor – Carraroe, Sligo Town, Atlantic Technological University Sligo Campus

34. Athlone Cycle Corridor, linking TU with Centre

35. BusIt2School – Working with schools and community to encourage use of town bus services instead of cars

Greenways are never plain sailing. Farmers don’t want their farms to change. The British culture wars are also arriving here where anything with the word “green” in it is reflexively opposed by a chunk of the population. If they can’t drive their car on it, it is bad, end of story.

Greenways are roads (just car-free), and should be planned and built the same way as any other roads. Normal planning process, try to avoid splitting up properties but accepting that some change is inevitable, people have the opportunity to object, appeal etc, and then after permission is granted move straight on to CPOs for those who have not already agreed to sell. Just like any other road.

Consensus and universal support is impossible, there will always be someone unhappy. But that is no reason not to go ahead

In fairness - farmers are entitled to fume , but only really the ones affected , and if the impact on them can be lessened that's a good thing..