Comment & Analysis: The North Circular Road active travel project is about to go to construction, so whats the point in dissecting it now? First, to give people an overview of what to expect, but more importantly to say: Dublin City needs to be doing better and outline some of the ways how.Heres how we covered this project so far:September 2022: A news report outlining how the interim cycle route is planned ahead of a permanent projectDecember 18, 2022: A look at the initial interimproject and outlining how two-way would be betterAugust 25, 2023: Making the case more strongly for two-wayFebruary 2025: A news report covering councillors berating the lack of urgency on the projectJune 16, 2025: Outlining the issues with the revised plans.Now: Looking at the issues with the final plans.One of the main issues with the project is that it has taken so long to get to construction on just 1/5 of the full route:For all of the drawings below, heres the legend: This is the western end of the project at Dorset Street Lower significantly, with no plan for a connected route, the current interim project seems to include removing the existing advance stop line, which in this case allows people cycling to get into the straight-ahead lane shown in colour below.Getting in the right location is significant at this location more than most, as the road narrows to one lane in each direction ahead:The westbound cycle lane is also substandard in width at just 1.5 metres wide with no buffer or kerb: The project includes a mix of:Parking protected cycle lanes.Concrete buildouts with continuous footpaths or raised crossings at minor junctionsProtective islands at some junctions but not at othersBus stop platformsShort unprotected sectionsWider and renewed footpaths in parts Extra greenery in build-outs and other locationsAt different points along the route, narrow sections, kerbs and buffers often make the cycle path narrower than it needs to be. This is an example circled below:This is where the route crosses Belvidere Road and PlaceHere there are more examples of narrow points which are needlessly narrowed to what could be below very basic accessibility requirements. Even allowing for space for a turning lane, the concrete buffer here makes the cycle path too narrow:The space for the turning lane within the cycle path is also far too narrow, especially where the concrete buffer beside it and/or the extra-wide footpath could be narrowed locally:It feels like the project team were really trying with this design, but maybe with their hands behind their backs. Filtering Sherrard Street Upper (bottom left) which could possibly form part of a cycle route around the pinch point at Dorset Street Lower (see the start of the article) is a real positive. But there are too many issues with this design, and I dont think it will function as the designers expect it to. No formal contra-flow entry point is provided at Sherrard St Lower (top middle above, and see red arrow and question mark below) I dont think there should need to be entry markings in cases like this, but it seems to be required by guidelines.Its unclear why the cycle path at the number of minor junctions bends out the way at these locations, the cycle track bending in or going straight would provide at least some buffer space for motorists turning into the side road to stop partly off the carriageway:This is a minor junction, but even at this junction, the sightlines between the point where people cycling (green arrow) would pass the tree to the left of the image below and motorists exiting (purple arrow).This next junction at Portland Street North slightly bends out, but this is more understandable given the need to protect the tree to the right of the junction. But its unclear why pedestrians are not being given priority, at least by way of the stop line set further back or a junction zebra, which are allowed in Ireland and could be put in place just using signs and markings.Some of the reasoning for not providing a high-quality cycle route includes more pedestrian priority, yet at these types of locations where motorists are exiting, there is no pedestrian priority.Also note that at this side road and at others, theres no provision for people cycling to exit the side street and turn right into the cycle lane on the opposite side of the street:Note: The cycle lanes on both sides of the green buildouts below are just paint:The junction of the North Circular and Russell Street and Fitzgibbon Street (circled in yellow below), which links Croke Park and Mountjoy Square, is where this route links to a planned primary cycle route (highlighted in yellow) in the Greater Dublin Area Cycle Network Plan.So youd expect a high-quality north-south connection as part of this route at least between the North Circular Route and the Royal Canal Greenway just north of this junction:But instead there is a mass of concrete and stone, and no protected cycle route just painted cycle lanes mentioned a few images above just continue through the junction going east-west.This design effectively blocks a number of solutions for a high-quality north-south route without major reconfiguration of the junction:The above is a stunning design given the space available so, why was it designed that way?This is what the original Dublin City Council consultation report said about this junction:Due to requirements to facilitate large crowd movements through Fitzgibbon Street/Russell Street junction on the North Circular Road, full segregation was not possible at this location. However, specific pedestrian and cyclist traffic signals as well as improved road markings are proposed to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety through the junction.But this is strange, as large-scale events at Croke Park include the closure of at least Russell Street and if not, also a section of the North Circular Road, at least for the peak of events. Unless there is a planned change in that policy?Turning movementsAlong the route, the design does not even provide for turning movements towards the Royal Canal or towards Mountjoy Square and the city centre. Even with the design chosen for the footpaths and no segregated cycle paths, turning movements could still have been facilitated via advance stop lines or, more preferably, two-stage right turns, as this example provides for in the Cycle Design Manual:These advice stop line designs seem to be also very strange, especially exiting Russell Street where the general traffic lane is marked as 4.35 metres:Without any turning restrictions (unlikely with the Garda Station just south of the junction), and none have been signposted, the access to Emmet Street being via a continuous footpath on the North Circular Road directly seems needlessly risky. It is likely to confuse other road users and cause issues.While Emmet Street is a low-traffic street, people making these manoeuvres at such a junction likely makes a continuous footpath an unsuitable solution.Access via Fitzwilliam Street with the crossing shifted north would likely be a better solution which makes the movments into Emmet Street more perdictable and at a lower speed. The proximity of the street in this case at St. Margarets Avenue North may be more of an issue but Im not sure when the designer has tried to split the lane in half and include a sharrow in one direction when the carriageway here is hardly wider than a single car:This junction at Charles Street Great is a huge improvement on the current (see second image below), but again: Why no zebra crossing? It would make priority so much clearer:At the DublinBikes station just west of Richmond Street North, a two-way cycling crossing is to be welcomed, but there are also some odd design choices here:Why are there bollards needed inside a kerb-protected cycle path and a DublinBikes stand? Could some of that space be used for DublinBikes stands instead of removing them? With the crossing, the first question that springs to mind is why provide a link to the DublinBikes station but not to Richmond St North, where theres a secondary and primary school and more?This design is also not following TL606 in the Cycle Design Manual: Which looks like this:As with other projects, Dublin City Council claims to be pedestrian-minded, yet vulnerable pedestrians with the councils design are expected to wait at the A points below and then when they get a green light they will have to cross the equivalent of 4.5 to 5 lanes in width.The other solution is to put zebras over the cycle path and have people wait at the dots marked with Bs below then theyd only have to cross two lanes on the carrgway at once.This is both a safety and accessibility issue, and poor choices have been made here:The junction at Summerhill is a Dublin-style junction, similar to whats provided at Five Lamps junction just down the road people cycling at the junction are continuing to complain about motorists turning over the cycle crossing when cyclists have a green light, and motorists have a flashing amber to turn left.This junction will also have right turns over the cycle paths, which only exist on one movement at the Five Lamps junction but in three directions here if these turning movements are not separated by time, it will likely cause more issues.The approaches are also needlessly narrowed to under 2 metres, and the green space is provided inside the cycle path rather than as a buffer between it and the carriageway:There is also very limited turning capacity before the protected corners are blocked up and people cycling straight will be blocked by those waiting to tunr right:Nearly the full stretch eastbound along Portland Row is just painted cycle lanes in an area where a painted cycle lane has been used for car parking for maybe two decades or more:Heres just one example Google Street View has many:This is the mid section on Portland Row:In the UK, some experts report that cycle paths at bus stops where the path has a restricted width cause more conflicts. Here we have a bus stop platform with a cycle path of just 1.3 metres; going downhill is likely to cause more issues 1.3 metres is not acceptable even on flat ground.While this is an improvement over this original narrow platform, the narrowness of the cycle path is too narrow for such an incline. This has to perform safely even when there are no bus passengers around.At the crossing theres no formal provision for cycling despite Dunne Street being an access route to a school, and in the bottom left corner, Empress Place does not have contra-flow provision:This is the tie-in to the Clontarf to City Centre route at the Five Lamps junction:The cycle lanes here are just 1.5 metres which is sub-standard in both directions and is segregated only in one direction:Sadly, because of higher-level decisions to reject a two-way cycle path, the cycle route will be left disjointed, with large gaps in segregation.Im not expecting any of the above changes to be integrated into the project