Hmm, space alongside the rail alignment for a greenway or alternative route found?
Or just like you said, they're just telling everyone what they want to hear.
Looks like the plan will be to use the southern bank…
https://www.irishtimes.com/transport/2026/01/18/royal-canal-greenway-missing-link-moves-forward/
No it’s the same plan as was published several years ago, south bank for a short stretch, then bridge over to the north.
The wheel has been reinvented after 15 years.
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
Fingal are a long way off actually building the last part of the greenway
Dublin port greenway link to Royal Canal greenway beginning construction. This will be big when it opens, creating a direct unbroken cycle path out of the city (centre) for visitors arriving at Dublin port, and safe( r) cycling along the coast heading North, starting at the East Link bridge (which is still pretty unsafe). But great progress all the same.
Shown in orange on map below (from IT article)
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/dublin/2026/02/03/construction-to-begin-on-missing-link-of-dublin-port-cycle-route/
Would anyone here know of timelines or progress on the Greenway connecting Carrigtwohill to Midleton? Looking forward to being able to cycle from Glanmire to Youghal on a full cycleway/greenway, think I'll be waiting a while yet tho!
This was the most I could find on it https://www.corkcoco.ie/en/resident/planning-and-development/public-consultations/closed-part-8-development-consultation/part-8-proposed-carrigtwohill-to-midleton-inter-urban-cycle-route-phase-2 . I'm not aware of any funding being allocated though. There's also a proposed N25 upgrade from Carrigtwohill to Midleton which might make sense to bundle it with but that hasn't been allocated funding either.
Under the current government the only way a Carrigtwohill-Midleton link is likely to be delivered is as part of the N25 road upgrade. Unfortunately they haven’t committed to build the N25 upgrade either.
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!
Thanks! I watched that video last night too and was thinking the same. Hopefully they get going Glanmire to city phase 2 soon too. Love seeing all these cycleways go in but not loving the long gaps between phases/sections.
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.
Hopefully we will see a full bucket of projects that are shovel-ready by election time, ready for a new government to fund. But it is a real shame that the current government has gone so far back towards to the tried, tested, and failed car-dependent model of development. Three and a half years left…
Stupid question: What do you mean by "in the ground"?
It was funded €2million in 2025, €2.39 in 2024. €2million allocated in 2026 budget and I am confident that a lot of boundary and clearance works have been done, particularly around Carrigtohill train station. It's visible on google satellite view.
When I say Phase 2 is not yet funded, it has €200,000 in 2026, €150,000 in 2025, €150,000 in 2024. This will be enough for more design work but not really construction work.
Ah cool, wasn't sure if "in the ground" meant in the RIP "buried" sense or the under construction sense 🙂
Can you explain this? Phase 2 is not happening? Why? What are pathfinders??
To me this is crazy. We should be investing in Phase 2 and this kind of project. To connect a huge, young growing suburb, reasonably flat, into the city centre. This is what we should be prioritizing, to get cars off the road, emissions down. I think it would make more sense to do this rather than building a brand new greenway down to Kinsale, that is going through sparsely populated areas.
Does the Phase 2 project fall under Cork City council remit? If so they are terrible at delivering AT projects. At least Cork county council have the ambition of connecting Glanmire all the way to Youghal. Reasonably flat, huge, growing, young population, loads of schools on the way, passing by the big IDA estate in Carrigtohill, makes sense to invest here. I wish Cork city council were as clued in……
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).
I fully agree that Glanmire to City should be a no-brainer btw. But take comfort in the progress of some recent really transformative local Glanmire sustainable works, which I believe will increase local walking and cycling dramatically. And it looks like Blarney's next on the list for the same "transform the suburb" effort.
And in terms of a Glanmire to City route, probably the best thing you can do right now is keep highlighting it to your local Councillors and TD's, and more importantly your friends and family, to create local "common agreement" and support. The City Council wants to progress it, they're not getting funding. Everything is politcs at the end of the day.
I keep saying this but the current PfG does not prioritise sustainable transport because they don't perceive it to be an election winner (or loser). It's "housing" and "economy" etc as priorities. But I believe sustainable travel really is high on voters list, that it's a "top-5" issue, and that the current government are actually vulnerable on it.
Yes, sustainable transport is very high on voter’s lists, but they tend to express their dissatisfaction in terms of car traffic being bad, which is mistakenly interpreted as a desire for more road lanes, rather than fewer cars on the road. If someone is wedded to their car for emotional reasons, sustainable transport is opposed when it’s presented as “you can take the bus or go by bike”, but if it’s reframed as “a lot of the other drivers on the road would prefer to take the bus or go by bike”, you can even get the Clarkson brigade on side.
Yes I fully agree and specifically tend to approach it from the "help to get ME out of your way while you drive" angle. It is helpful that I often drive so it's not a theoretical situation and it feels more effective than saying "SOMEONE" will get out of your way.
Many people switch from being negative to being positive about sustainable transport when it's reframed as "right now I'm stuck using my car and I'm blocking you on the road" with the constant added reminder that "you can always drive in future too".
Modal shift is obviously not possible without people changing and currently the biggest issue in the Cork area is still lack of choice. Right now since the option isn't even available, no amount of "push" is going to get people out of their cars, it'll just infuriate them.
There's no point appealing to people who already are willing to cycle or get mass transit. They're already "the converted" and they just need the viable options.
So TLDR, talk to your family, your friends, your political representatives etc and keep saying "I want to be out of the way of important hard-pressed motorists like you, think of how much MONEY you're wasting just sat there stuck behind people like me, it seems really unfair that you can't reach your true potential, I wish they could get me out of my car" blah blah blah.
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.
Thank you so much for the detail and explanation.
I enjoy reading ur posts and explanations. You are a fountain of knowledge. Do you work in this field?
Do you have an actual list of Pathfinder projects?
It really is an awful era, traffic has never been as bad all over Ireland, we are on track to miss emission cuts. Yet the govt are more roads focused, not public transport and not AT focussed. I just don't get it. Obviously a political thing, unhappy motorists = a risk in the polls. Will we ever learn as a society I wonder?
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.
1. CycleConnects
2. Inter-Urban Demonstrator (National Link Cork-Waterford)
3. Smarter Travel Award/Mark
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
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
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
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
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
https://www.clareecho.ie/there-will-be-uproar-farmers-fume-over-preferred-route-for-limerick-to-scariff-greenway/
Pay walled unfortunately but seems like it won't be plain sailing
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
I thought the route of that was to be on publicly owned lands (the article mentions Waterways Ireland mentions expected to lodge a planning application)? I think there is also an old rail alignment in the area?
From memory, this Greenway was talked about as being an easy one to deliver 10 years ago.
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..
Farmers are absolutely entitled to fume, and object, and of course greenways should be designed to minimise farm severance. However, severance cannot always be avoided, and farmers cannot be given or led to expect a veto.
