By Dylan Tighe
The long-stalled Sandymount cycleway has been granted approval to proceed following a pivotal Court of Appeal ruling. However, how Dublin City Council plans to act on the judgement remains unclear.
The High Court had originally ruled in favour of a local resident, Peter Carvill of the Serpentine Avenue, Tritonville and Claremont Roads Group (STC), and Independent councillor Mannix Flynn, who argued that the scheme was not truly temporary and therefore required full planning permission.
In April, the Court of Appeal overturned that ruling, asserting that the council had the authority to implement the two-way cycle track, which would restrict traffic on Strand Road to an outbound-only one-way system.
Further points of contention have now arisen in what local Labour councillor Dermot Lacey termed “the civil war that divided the area”, a phrase quoted in The Irish Times. While the ruling has been welcomed by some and its implementation urged, others are adamant that the cycleway should now be incorporated into planned flood alleviation works on Sandymount Strand, taking the cycle path off the road.
At the recent packed-out AGM of the Sandymount and Merrion Residents Association (SAMRA), local residents were informed that the group was “not opposed to a cycleway” but that it should be built off-road and incorporated into the planned civil engineering works. There was wide agreement expressed with this position at the meeting. Opposition was articulated to a one-way on-road cycle track, which many residents insist would cause significant traffic issues. Some attendees robustly disagreed with local Green Party councillor Hazel Chu as she suggested that both an on-road and off-road cycleway could be implemented and explored in tandem. However, she agreed that, longer-term, “off-road is the preferable solution…”
Local resident Audrey Handley captured the general mood when she stated that “the cycleway is not over and done with until we get an off-road solution”. As reported by The Irish Times, Councillor David Coffey of Fine Gael put forward a motion advocating an off-road cycleway at an earlier meeting of the council’s South East Area Committee in April.
This was rejected by some at the meeting, including Green Party councillor Carolyn Moore, who told the committee, “We don’t know now if it’s feasible or if it’s possible and I don’t want us to wait five years or ten years to find out…and in the meantime we still don’t have safe cycling in the area”. Claire French, senior executive engineer at Dublin City Council, said that the flood relief scheme was at a “very early stage” and that “the design of cycling infrastructure isn’t actually included in their brief. So, you’re talking five to ten years minimum I would think before you see anything there”. She said they would come back to the committee with “the lay of the land” when they had time to study the judgement. Cllr Dermot Lacey, chair of the committee, cautioned that the motion could not be voted on without much greater debate and clarity as to the council’s intentions.
Mannix Flynn, Independent councillor and party to the High Court case, told the committee that he hoped the council “won’t railroad this along and that we will be able to talk and negotiate this process”.
In a statement, Dublin Cycling Campaign, a cycling advocacy group, rejected any further delays to a cycleway trial. The group said: “In the case of the Strand Road, we want to see the trial that was originally planned implemented ASAP – and we utterly reject the notion that we need to wait for the flood defence works before having a safe cycling route along this part of the coast.”
However, according to IrishCycle.com – a website covering cycling transport issues – the Serpentine Avenue, Tritonville and Claremont Roads Group (STC) “has now written to councillors to seek public consultation before a trial of the cycle route goes ahead”. It also reported STC as being united with SAMRA in supporting an off-road cycle path.
At their residents’ AGM, SAMRA stressed that they favoured “conversation not confrontation” and that they wanted Dublin City Council to “consult with the community before making a final decision”.
Cian Ginty, editor of IrishCycle.com, argues that this approach to prior consultation “goes against guidelines, which outline that with trials, the consultation should be part of the trial”.
He also raises additional concerns around taking the cycle track off-road. He writes that, “There are missing sections where there are no green areas. These sections are effectively part of Dublin Bay… [This] means they are registered protected areas”. He argues that, in this case, “the cycle route would have to go between houses and the coast, opening it up to likely stronger objections and possible legal challenges”.
A petition in support of the commencement of a 12-month trial, initiated by Cian Ginty and linked to IrishCycle.com, has been signed by over 1,200 people.
However, it remains the case that there is strong local opposition to an on-road option.
At the SAMRA AGM, local Labour TD Ivana Bacik expressed a desire to see an off-road cycle-way but cautioned that “we need to come up with a compromise in advance of an optimum solution”. She told NewsFour that, “As a daily cyclist myself (and convenor of the Oireachtas all-party Cyclists Group), I very much hope we will see action taken swiftly, now that the Court of Appeal has delivered judgment”.
Clarity as to what course that action will take is eagerly anticipated. Much now rests on Dublin City Council’s response and its consideration of both the court ruling and the opposing positions. While Dublin as a whole needs improved cycling infrastructure, careful efforts must be taken to avoid more local conflict over the issue.
