Greenways [greenway map of Ireland in post 1]

Greenways for me offer multiple benefits that a train line won't -

Cycle tourism
Walking/hiking tourism
Safe eco friendly commuting routes for children/adults
Safe trails for people to exercise
Nature walks for children/adults
Corridors for wildlife to travel through linking up different ecosystems

Many bus services in other countries carry trailers for bikes or have attachments at the front/back for bikes. It is something that could be made mandatory.

Some of the above will revive rural villages and towns, something that a train line will not offer.

I visited the Waterford Greenway last year and stayed for 2 nights. I wouldn't have travelled to the south east otherwise.

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Greenways for me offer multiple benefits that a train line won't -

Cycle tourism
Walking/hiking tourism
Safe eco friendly commuting routes for children/adults
Safe trails for people to exercise
Nature walks for children/adults
Corridors for wildlife to travel through linking up different ecosystems

Many bus services in other countries carry trailers for bikes or have attachments at the front/back for bikes. It is something that could be made mandatory.

Some of the above will revive rural villages and towns, something that a train line will not offer.

I visited the Waterford Greenway last year and stayed for 2 nights. I wouldn't have travelled to the south east otherwise.

How did you get to the Waterford Greenway? By car?

I see from your response that what you're suggesting still involves cars.

If this is about tourism, is it the Irish tourist the market?

A significant amount of tourists take their bikes on the train (I can think of one incident, where the Dublin to Galway train was full of Germans with their bikes, going west. They don't hire both a car and a bike)

1)The journey for secondary school children of Ballyglunin to school in Athenry would be cycling over 30km every day!
2) Rail is amazing for tourism, anyone who claims other wise is being obtuse. Donegal constantly lament their lack of rail.
4) The disabled need to get places too... many can't cycle very far or don't have a car
6) Many people simply don't have a car. I suspect in some of these routes, a car's involved...

I'm lucky in that I can get a train from where I live, but lately I've been getting the coach to Dublin,
Nearly as quick, and direct to my destination (not going city centre), significantly cheaper plus if I need a coach at 2 am to be at the airport for 6,its no problem..
If you were going from tuam to Dublin ,its unlikely you'd be going direct, you'd have to change..

In Connemara at the moment. Parts of the Clifden Greenway (alongside the N59) are complete and there's a similar arrangement along part of the road to Roundstone. (Sorry I know that's all a bit vague for the map).

loyatemu wrote: »

ok - looking at the Connemara Greenway page I see that the section along the Roundstone road (R341) is part of the overall route and is marked in green on their map. That map doesn't show the section that's open along the N59 though (looks like it was built as part of a road upgrade), and they're also resurfacing a long section of road near Maam Cross and seem to be surfacing the adjacent old railway alignment at the same time.

Would anyone be able to give me a rough idea of where the work is taking place (start and end points) does it look like they are actively putting in greenway fixtures or some sort of 'slap a bit of tarmac down on it while we have the tarmac truck in' (Unlikely to be the case but you never know...)

Who made this idea of using the old road as a Greenway? It makes such good sense

serfboard wrote: »

This is correct - it is along the N59 and it was done as part of the road upgrade. What they did here, as they have done in other parts of the country, is to re-use the old road as a cycleway.

I'm not sure if you want to be including this on your Greenway map or not, because it's not connected, or connectable, to other potential Greenways - to reach it by bike you would have to use quite a bit of regular road and it terminates close to no other potential Greenway site either.

It's near Derrylea Lough on the N59. Unfortunately, the Street View map is from 2009, so you can't see the finished product, but this shows the new road under construction, and the road marked as N59 on the Street View is where the cycleway is now.

You can't really see it too well from Google Satellite either, but Bing satellite has an excellent view of it.

Updated with that greenway, thanks!

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post, but here goes.

What is the purpose of a greenway?

Is it a leisure amenity or a piece of transport infrastructure?
One reason I ask is that I've run into a bit of flack on another thread for suggesting that "cyclists dismount" signs on a greenway are an admission that the infrastructure isn't fit for purpose. I can see their point: they say greenways are a leisure amenity and cyclists with cleats shouldn't be on them.

Another reason I bring it up is because on heavily-used greenways, it's not easy (or appropriate) to try to travel quickly by bicycle, and I always avoid them as a transport link as a result. Again, it seems a shame to build dedicated cycle infrastructure that isn't usable for all cyclists.

Another reason I bring this up is because I've seen a recent trend towards some "greenways" where "segregated cycle routes" were previously planned. It seems convenient that councils can get 2-for-1 by simply fudging the purpose.

A final reason is because I can imagine legal issues at some point where a cyclist is going quickly and a pedestrian/jogger deviates from their path quickly, both get injured and both are partially at fault. There's no speed limit on a greenway, so it's a bit of a legal vacuum at present.

This is a particularly thorny issue, a few years ago the Belfast Bicycle Network Plan was launched to mixed response from cyclists, it did vastly improve a number of routes, but critically it failed to fully tackle the core corridors of the city, so for example there were routes that often wound their way around areas instead of taking the direct A to B road.

I think this is a partial distinction, in a major city/town there should be 'cycleways', I would consider those to be primarily for 'commuter traffic' and where they exist they should aim to take the most direct route from A-to-B, for example running the length of the Quays in Dublin without coming off to go up some side street or other, or running the full length of the Ormeau/Lisburn roads in Belfast from the city centre to the suburbs.

Rural/Rural to City greenways fall towards the other end of the spectrum, primarily having a tourist bent, 'commuter traffic' may exist, but the hours at which it occurs typically wouldn't match up with particularly busy tourist times.

City greenways definitely fall into a much greyer area, typically they traverse parks or river/canal walks, much higher interaction between commuters and 'tourist/recreational' use and the greatest risk of conflict.

With all these formats the real key to minimising conflict is the same as in any construction project, design out the potential for conflict, make the paths wide enough that cyclists and pedestrians can easily pass one another in both directions, in cities and anywhere the 'greenway' is more of a 'shared use cycleway' make sure that there is a clearly marked 'cycling' and 'walking' area. Clear signage in all areas alerting pedestrians and cyclists to each others presence and what section of the path they will be on. For the high density cycleways, clearly marked, separate from pedestrian walkways, separate from roadways.

I don't really have an answer for legality, I would assume in most ped/cyclist conflicts the cyclist would be expected to have responsibility as the one typically moving at greater velocity, this obviously depends on demarcation on mixed routes etc, we could assume the person at fault is whoever is in the incorrect section of the path, which if correctly designed, makes 'who is at fault' an issue in the minority of cases occurring in a fully mixed greenway scenario, at which point you likely have to drill down into the specific case.

In short, cycleways, city greenways, long distance greenways, the key issue is design, I think that councils/government should potentially be liable in the case of an accident on an improperly designed green/cycleway, while also being obliged to provide them.

The majority of the lycra brigade are probably still going to use the road (I've seen them using it instead of a very high quality cycleway that was directly adjacent to/and followed exactly the road) and that is entirely up to them, but if they do use a cycleway facility they should be observing the same rules as everyone else. A properly designed greenway shouldn't require a 'cyclists dismount' sign anywhere in the long term.

Muckyboots wrote: »

Both. If it's illegal to have fixed wheel track bikes, without brakes, on a public road it should be illegal to have cleats on a shared space greenway. Bells should be mandatory too IMO. Ding-Ding.

Bells are already mandatory. Not sure what your point is about cleats.

Muckyboots wrote: »

Both. If it's illegal to have fixed wheel track bikes, without brakes, on a public road it should be illegal to have cleats on a shared space greenway. Bells should be mandatory too IMO. Ding-Ding.

Why should fixie's be illegal? Also, surely the fact that it's a fixie implies that it does not need hub or disc brakes? I don't have one and have never ridden one BTW, just curious.

No idea where you're coming from about cleats, I just think you're specifically wrong here. At the minimum I'd say there are a lot of types of cleat and if I was being stronger-worded about it, I'd say I've always felt more in control with cleats, whether MTB or road.

the risks of mixing cyclists and pedestrians are exaggerated - talk of speed limits etc are overthinking it (who would enforce them?).

Pedestrians always have priority on shared paths, you can put signs up to emphasise this. "Sports" cyclists (i.e. people on road bikes in lycra) are generally going to avoid routes where they have to weave around lots of walkers anyway.