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news
Proposed Maglin Greenway (Cork City Council)“It’s about the safety of our kids”: Residents claim proposed cycleway could put children playing in danger
Residents have raised concerns about a proposed new greenway designed to provide a safe route for children to walk and cycle to school, but which some parents claim will put kids playing football or riding their bikes near their homes in danger.
A public consultation has recently commenced concerning the first phase of the Maglin Greenway in Ballincollig, a suburban town to the west of Cork city. The proposed greenway, Cork City Council says, will deliver almost 10km of safe and high-quality cycling and walking facilities, and form part of the city’s Cycle Network Plan, originally outlined in 2017.
The first phase of the project aims to provide a direct, 1.4km-long route between Maglin Road and Gaelscoil Uí Riordáin school in Ballincollig, connecting to several residential developments along the way.
The proposed works include the creation of an up to four-metre-wide shared use path, quietways through estates, new footpaths, lighting, and public realm improvement that highlight the area’s railway heritage.
The council says the shared use path will “provide a safe route to school” for cyclists and pedestrians, along with encouraging new commuter routes and increasing connectivity for cyclists.
However, the plans have been criticised by residents, who claim that the proximity of the greenway will put children who live in the developments at risk.
A meeting, attended by more than 70 people, was held on Monday night to oppose the plans, with a residents committee set to be established and a petition launched calling for an alternative route to be considered, Echo Live reports.
“It’s about the safety of our kids,” one resident told Monday’s meeting. “This greenway will dissect the green in front of eight houses. It is six metres from my pillar to where the greenway path is. It is approximately 10 metres from the green across the way, where the kids play. Four of that is going to be taken up by this path.
“This is my front door and my kids’ safety. I have two kids, and this is where the kids go to play football, cycle, and have the craic with their friends. We are all against it. Greenways are fantastic and we are all for all of that, but at what cost?”
In response, a spokesperson for Cork City Council said: “The scheme aims to provide a safe route to school for pedestrians and cyclists to Gaelscoil Uí Riordáin and create an environment which will encourage modal shift to sustainable forms of transport.”
A public information evening on the scheme is expected to be held in the coming weeks.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
Latest Comments
- grOg 3 sec ago
Where does it state in the article that Ashley purchased the stock? it does state that Ashley bought the brand and intellectual property, not the...
- rogerwb 2 hours 40 min ago
Jump off the bike and run across. I cycle in trainers though.
- momove 3 hours 43 min ago
Cheers for the lesson! Wasn't expecting one so was pleasantly surprised, especially getting to find the origin of "laconic"!
- ktache 4 hours 30 min ago
Isn't it a rights issue?
- AidanR 5 hours 20 min ago
Same here - it took me by surprise. 10:30am doesn't feel like a dangerous time to cycle; apparently I'm wrong on that.
- Daddy Feebs 5 hours 33 min ago
If anything, it looks a bit like an SL6
- wtjs 6 hours 9 min ago
Other commenters have different views True!
- Daclu Trelub 6 hours 24 min ago
Incredibly bone-headed.
- Sriracha 8 hours 26 min ago
Lidl have a window poster emblazoned, "Black Friday. Starts Sunday".
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20 comments
The residents certainly have a point, as the incredible death toll in Holland, where children are mown down in their millions by speeding, inconsiderate cyclists, clearly demonstrates.
...and since the hugely expensive, dangerous cyle infrastructure was built not only are pedestrians at risk but more old people are dying on bikes! FACT!
(Here's the overall trends since 1950 - also David Hembrow's analysis where he suggests the recent uptick is due to cars again rather than increased use of ebikes as many others suggest).
Hey Ryan & Road CC, AFAIK, Cork is not in the UK. If you are going to report on non UK cycling infra news and local issues outside of the UK, would it not be a good idea to then be inclusive of other EU countries cycling issues and report on those? I rarely see that kind of reporting here and wonder why the frequent reporting of issues in the Republic of Ireland but not of other countries...
Well, the main live blog article so far this morning is about something in Canada, m'kay? What's the problem with reporting on Ireland? (pretty sure there have been articles on continental European issues too...).
I strongly suspect that all which actually matters is that the original article was written in English. I have not noticed any articles relating to the republic written in gaelic, nor any Canadian articles written in quebecois.
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I think this is what we are talking about:
https://goo.gl/maps/rbM4dcASHzbmbzH46
It's the line of a former railway:
https://consult.corkcity.ie/en/system/files/materials/9176/MGP1_Architec...
Seems absolutely perfect for a green transport corridor. The residents should be thankful it's not being repurposed for high speed rail!
I understand the meaning but people should listen to themselves - "It’s about the safety of our kids ... this is where the kids go to ... cycle ..."
We clearly desperately want motor -vehicle-free spaces. Places where we don't need to pay much attention to anything moving faster than jogging pace. Places for ambling about, for the dogs running free, for kids playing... and yet we don't recognise why such spaces are uncommon. Or how we might have "local streets" which do feel safer.
So it's one measure "but my nice green space", another "dangerous cyclists" but ultimately it's fighting over scraps again. Clearly we need roads because no-one cycles, no-one cycles because who'd want to cycle on the roads? Thus we can't take any space for cycling from the grown-up, critical, lifeline, economically productive, strategic transport spaces we've committed for motor traffic. It's what the
motor lobbypeople want...To summarise: I don't want other people walking or cycling across the view from my front door.
Edit: Maybe the concern is more about drivers tearing up the grass in their desperation to park on the cycle path?
Wait'll they hear about "roads"...
And yet... so many people live in houses where the front door opens straight on to the public footpath, and 2 tonne steel monsters thunder by less than 2m fron their door.
But ... that's OK, because a 2 tonne monster will hurt less than a 100kg bike and rider.
A lot of these misinformed objectors feel the only place children can be safe is inside an Chelsea Tractor dropped off outside the school gates - usually while riding too close to cyclists and creating an obstruction while parked on zig zags.
But, im not sure quite how their little cherubs will be in danger of anything near a cycle path since they probably don't even get to play outside for fear of a child molester lurking behind the nearest lamp post.
But, as one protester states “This is my front door and my kids’ safety. I have two kids, and this is where the kids go to play football, cycle, and have the craic with their friends. We are all against it. Greenways are fantastic and we are all for all of that, but at what cost?”
Yeah? The Council is providing a cycle path for your kids to Cycle on. So where are they playing now? on the road? on the pavement? is that safer? Or is it you just don't want it near your front door?
Bizarre to state his kids cycle on grass which is ok but cycling on the cycle way is dangerous.
Let's hope there are no dogs or errant drivers
But he's thinking about "cyclists" so...
Or more reasonably as below. That is not an entirely wild concern, I'm sure many have had a close pass from an illegal electric motorbike in car-free spaces. If nothing bigger and faster!
Having no cycle path doesn't stop youth on mopeds and especially not scrambler bikes.
We have to be careful about dealing with the argument that we can't have something because of the existence of a few criminals who abuse it though.
True, since your child would be stone dead in such a monster collision.
Given the purpose of enabling active travel to school, probably a 10kg bike and 15kg rider for a total 25kg traveling at 20kph being so different to 2,000kg at 50kph. It's all about the kinetic energy...
I'm sure it's not beyond the wit of the council to mitigate safety concerns. Mind you, separated cycle- and footways would have been good.
It's all "good enough" until cycling becomes more than a niche activity. OTOH if we keep building a few hundred metres of shared-use path for every x kilometres of roads I'm sure that issue will never arise.
Smarter countries have looked at their ongoing public health crisis and made the decision that all road building must involve distinct lanes for active travelers; Finland, Denmark. Yes, it's taken some time but the current result is that metropolitan travel by bicycle is normal and public health improvement happening.
That would certainly be a good idea. It seems pretty crazy that we're saying we are committed to change yet still baking in motor vehicle dependency in new developments.
The nub of the issue though is that people want to get to the same places that they now drive to - town and city centres. It's the core links in the network and particularly the nodes - junctions. That's normally "legacy street space". So difficult and contentious.
Without that though you have a "network" with the key (central) links missing.