Council scales back €100 million cycle plan – without informing councillors

Dublin City Council has majorly scaled down a proposed €100 million cycle route among the Liffey – without notifying elected representatives on Dublin City Council.

Originally agreed upon in 2022 with the intent of making transport in Dublin city more sustainable by means of reallocating existing road space, the plan has been drastically scaled down from original ambitions.

The big-budget plan would have seen the quays become a major cycling route, with work beginning to provide dedicated cycling facilities on Georges Quay, Eden Quay, Burgh Quay and Aston Quay in recent weeks

In a statement released to the Business Post, Dublin City Council said “a key objective of this plan is to reduce traffic in the city centre which will support the delivery of both the active travel network and the bus priority measures. This plan will further measures for reallocating road space to sustainable ways of travel along the Quays.”

The council said the landmark project “need not proceed in the manner in which it was originally envisaged”, and it will go ahead with “a less complex set of improvements”.

“A key objective of this plan is to reduce traffic in the city centre which will support the delivery of both the Active Travel Network and the bus priority measures,” they stated.

They added, “this plan will further measures for reallocating road space to sustainable ways of travel along the Quays.”

Despite this, the Council asserted that the planned Liffey Cycle route was not proceeding in the “manner in which it was originally envisaged.” 

With Ireland recently ranked as having among the weakest forms of local democracy in Europe, and recent confirmation that there are no plans to hold a vote on a directly-elected mayor in Dublin anytime soon, the scrapping of the plan by Dublin City Council has led to frustration among elected reps.

Janet Horner, Green Party Councillor for the North Inner City said she was “really frustrated” by the decision.

She said that the decision was “not within the Council’s gift” and they “overstepped” their boundaries.

Horner said there is a clear case to revise the original plan, which had “serious flaws,” but to revise the plan without consulting elected representatives was “outrageous.”

“To cancel it without reverting to members is outrageous. This is a flagship project and the backbone of the rest of the cycling network for Dublin,” she said.

Paul Norton, manager of Cycling Ireland Participation, told the Irish Independent he was “disappointed,” that the plans were being scaled back.

“The Quays, both north and south of the Liffey, are an intimidating place to cycle and have been the scene of multiple serious collisions and even fatalities.”

“Even as an experienced cyclist myself, cycling on the Quays is a stressful experience, so a continuous, connected, and segregated lane would have been massively beneficial,” he said.