Comment & Analysis / Long read: Fingal County Council last week submitted a planning application for its section of the Royal Canal Greenway, and now that the details are online, this article gives you an overview of Fingals project without diving through a ton of planning documents and maps.The 8.1km route between just west of the M50 at 12th Lockand the Co Kildare border has strong commuting potential as it links together the areas of Dublin City, Castleknock, Blanchardstown, Clonsilla, Coolmine, Hansfield and Leixlip and beyond. It also forms part of a cross-country route already largely built to the River Shannon, which in turn forms part of the cross-Europe EuroVelo 2 route. The plans and reports for the project can also be read in full on the planning boards website at pleanala.ie/en-ie/case/324711.Submissions and observations must be made in writing along with, for most people, payment of 50 to An Coimisin Pleanla, 64 Marlborough Street, Dublin, D01 V902 on or before Wednesday, November 25th, 2026The council said that the shared path will generally have a 4 m wide bituminous route surface from 12th Lock at the Talbot Bridge to Kennan Bridge on the Porterstown Road, a 34 m wide bituminous surface from Kennan Bridge to Hansfield Railway Bridge, and generally a 23 m wide unbound surface from Hansfield Railway Bridge to the Kildare County boundary at the eastern edge of Leixlip.12th Lock landscape drawing at 3 metres wider, and under, the greenway is narrower here alongside constraints, but quickly widens to 4 metres.Little or no consideration seems to have been given to the fact that the Old Navan Road is a key secondary route in the area and that while its a low-traffic route, adding a shuttle system without providing cycling bypasses to it is likely inadvisable:12th Lock engineering drawing:Its worth showing that theres quite a lot of space on the current road and bridge: At Granard Bridge, there is an underpass planned under the Castleknock Road with a ramp up to the roadway from the train station side:And the engineering drawing at the same location there are some narrow sections between the train station and the ramp up to the road:This is a cross-section showing the underpass:Between the Castleknock Road and the new bridge over the canal (see below), the shared path is 4 metres wide:This is the new bridge over the canal (shown in the darker colour here).This is a photomontage of the new bridge across the Royal Canal:This is the engineering drawing of the same location, more clearly showing the connections to the streets and existing paths on the north bank of the canal. One link is planned to connect the existing path between Brompton Green and Brompton Lawn, while the other connection is to be directly to Brompton Grove.The number of access points has been reduced from seven to three.But this has been questioned by the projects independent road safety auditors, who said that there were issues, not just at this location but Throughout the scheme where pedestrian desire lines are not fully catered for. The wrote: Summary: A lack of links to the greenway from the existing road network, particularly at residentialdevelopments, may lead to unsafe movement between these areas and the greenway. A number of links between the proposed greenway and adjacent residential developments have been indicated between Ch. 6,675 and Ch. 7,110, a distance of approx. 450m, however there are a number of residential developments elsewhere along the route, for example Delwood Grove and Delwood Lawn, where desire lines to/from the greenway are likely to exist, but which have not been provided with similar links.This may lead to pedestrians and cyclists attempting to gain access to the greenway at unsafe, or informal, locations where there is a risk of slips, trips, and falls and personal injuries.RecommendationA review of the residential developments along the route, and locations where desire lines to/from thegreenway are likely to exist, should be undertaken and further links to the greenway provided where considerednecessary.The report also outlines how fencing, green screening and even the ground level of the greenway are being planned to lower possible impacts the greenway might have on residents: To reduce potential overlooking of the rear gardens of Delwood Park and to address security concerns, the greenway level is proposed to be lowered to match, or sit below, the existing level of the adjacent rear gardens. A 2m high timber palisade fence with anti-climb wire mesh is proposed, with a maximum height difference of approximately 2.5m between the top of the fence and the Proposed Development level. Defensive planting is also proposed to provide additional screening and security, as shown in Figure 4.21.This residential area is one of the most contentious areas of the route. To the point that the project team have even planned a hedge row between part of the green area in the estate and the greenway. In the photomontage below, the greenway is right behind this bush.But is added buses like this counterproductive to the personal safety and feeling of safety of users of the route/?West of Brompton Grove, the drawings show that climbers (planting) are to provide additional screening with the next access point at Delwood Close the darker surface here denotes a proposed boardwalk:Here is the engineering drawing of the same section:This section is part of the Deep Sinking stretch of the Royal Canal at this point the greenway will run between the back boundary of houses and a wooded area the south bank of the canal was deemed unviable given that widening the existing path or adding a cantilever structure could have risked destabilising the railway; it would cost a lot more and have a wider impact on biodiversity: No access points are provided on this section parallel to Delwood Green: A bridge is required to allow the route to cross a deeper area behind around 6-7 houses shown here in purple.The road to the left of the image below is Coolmine Road:The route then runs along the low-traffic access road (light blue, below), which is Sheepmoor Lane, and then onto an existing 4-metre-wide greenway (red) alongside a new development;Switching back to the landscape drawings, a new link continues from the existing greenway under Dr Troy Bridge on Diswellstown Road (right below) although there is no link shown from Diswellstown Road to the greenway, such a link is already provided via the development built in recent years. This drawing shows another section with a boardwalk:In the area around Dr Troy Bridge, the greenway will run on a boardwalk:Having a closer look at wildlife underpasses, mainly designed for badgers, which are dotted along this and other sections: The proposed active travel bridge across the canal and railway is shown here for clarity but is planned to be provided as part of the Dart+ West Project, where planning approval has been gained as part of that project, to close the level crossing at Porterstown Road (again, not part of this project):After Porterstown Road, the greenway reduces to 3 metres wide it should be noted that while 3 metres wide is narrow for a shared path in an urban area, the existing towpath will remain in place for people walking:The narrow 3-metre-wide path running parallel to the existing towpath continues before the two merge with a 4 metre width: The merged paths are shown here in an engineering drawing as a proposed cantilever boardwalk:This cantilevered boardwalk will run westwards towards Clonsilla Train Station, where there is another level crossing closure and an active travel bridge at the existing Callaghan Bridge as part of the Dart+ project:Just before and west of Callaghan Bridge, the greenway is narrowed to 3 metres there is also a small section where cyclists are told to dismount where the greenway crosses over the mouth of the bridge, which will effectively be only be passenger access to Clonsilla railway station:This is a close-up of the cyclist dismount section:A previous draft plan indicated that an alternative to this narrow section parallel to Handsfirld Road here (which is largely a car park for the train station), but this was not developed as part of this project:The greenway route will then break away from the existing towpath and run into a planned linear park between the new development and the canal here the greenway route will be via an existing path built as part of the housing development: After the new part area, the greenway route takes a 90-degree bend into a narrow underpass under the railway to Handsfield and onwards towards Navan.Not shown is an already built section of path towards the developments around Handsfield railway station this starts around the 90-degree bend to the underpass.This rural, or more accurately in terms of a route description, inter-urban section is relatively simpler in nature, but the planned unbound surface and widths as low as 2 to 2.5 metres wide on some sections would widely be seen as an inappropriate surface for an inter-urban route with higher than normal commuting cycling potential in both directions. Fingals consultants, DBFL, make the argument that: In the more rural settings, this unbound pavement construction is considered the most appropriate, as per DN-GEO-03047, and shall be constructed in line with DN-GEO-03047 and the recommendations of the TII Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (TII DMRB).Its true that the current urban area around the project effectively ends here, but treating it as any old urban area seems like a huge stretch given that it will directly provide a link between large urban areas, and indirectly others. The National Transport Authoritys Great Dublin Area Cycle Network Plan classes the Royal Canal Greenway between Dublin and Kilcock as a Greenway Utility rather than just a mainly leisure route. This is because the proximity between urban areas at least provides potential for local, if not longer-distance, commuting by bicycle. From the underpass at the turn-off to Handsfieldn it isJust over 3km from the next urban area, Leixlip, and just over 6km from this point to Intels campus in Leixlip, and:Under 3km from the urban area of Lucan and just another 1km from the village centre.The Lucan link is not part of this project, but the National Transport Authoritys Great Dublin Area Cycle Network Plan clearly sees the greenway as important for transport trips, as it includes a Primary Orbital route joining the greenway out of Lucan as shown here in this extract from the GDA plan, with a yellow circle added to mark the point where the two routes are to meet:DN-GEO-03047 or to give it its full title, the Rural Cycleway Design (Offline & Greenway) is a guide for routes across the country. Even states: The selection of the most suitable pavement type is at the discretion of the Designer based on the particular requirements and conditions at the location of the cycleway.But for off-road shared paths, including greenways, NTAs Cycle Design Manual goes further and states:Surface should be smooth and bound. Unbound surfaces are not recommended for active travel routes.For the rest of the article, covering the drawings between Dublin 15 and the Kildare border, cross-sections will be mainly used to give an overview of the sections: Approaches to the road crossings are the only locations where the greenway will be paved with a bounded surface crossings will also be provided at these points:In this section, the greenway narrows to 2.5 metres west of the bridge (in the image, left) it does not return to 3 metres wide until after the end of the project at the Kildare border: On these narrower sections, the independent Stage 1 Road Safety Audit submitted by the council outlines:The width of the greenway is below the absolute minimum advised in both the Cycle Design Manual and TII Publications document, Rural Cycleway Design (Offline & Greenway), (DNGEO-03047).The width of the proposed greenway between the Dublin/Kildare border and the road crossing at the R149 is indicated as being between 2m and 2.5m. Details of the expected volume of users of the greenway within this section has not been provided to the Audit Team, however, the proposed width is less than the absolute minimum if 3m for greenways in the Cycle Design Manual (CDM) (2023) and less than the minimum width of 5m for a low-volume (<300 users per hour) shared use cycleway in TII Publications document, Rural Cycleway Design (Offline & Greenway), (DN-GEO-03047).The width of the proposed greenway in its western section may, therefore, not be wide enough to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists travelling in both directions resulting in an increased risk of conflicts between these road users. In addition, this problemThe greenway then further decreases in width to just 2 metres wide at the west (left) side of this drawing:The project ends at the Dublin/Kildare border: Stay tuned to IrishCycle.com for more coverage of this and other projects.